BROKE VS POOR:
Hey guys it’s chelsea from the financial diet feeling extremely the craft today to celebrate october i hope it says wonderfully fall wherever you are and today we’re going to be kind of continuing a conversation that we started in one of my previous videos which will link in the description which is on the difference between being broke and being poor now in that
Video i kind of talked a lot about my own experiences with financial and security and other people’s and really sort of the basics of learning to navigate the difference between someone just being temporarily out of cash and someone being actually poor but one of the things i didn’t have a chance to really get into in the video was how to talk to someone who is in
These situations and we got a lot of questions on video and on the site about really sort of how to talk to someone what to say what not to say when you have for example a friend who might be dealing with serious money problems so i wanted to take this video to really talk about the things that you should always avoid saying to someone who is struggling with money
So i’m a firm believer that people from any two socioeconomic backgrounds can definitely come together and have a wonderful friendship even though a lot of us without even trying end up sort of paring down our social circles to just people who are in a similar bracket to us but i think friendships from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds can happen particularly
When the person who has more financial comfort really owns their privilege navigates the situation well makes gestures to kind of offset the awkwardness and has a ton of empathy for the other person empathy is a key to any friendship but it’s super necessary when you have two people with really different backgrounds i’ve mentioned before that i’m someone who used
To be in a situation where i was much more financially precarious than my friends i was you know in a lot of debt i was bouncing around from apartment to apartment i was using check cashing places and the fact that i felt a pressure to seem more comfortable and stable than i was was part of what kept me in debt so these are six of the things that i learned you
Should never say to someone who is struggling with money number one why can’t you go so obviously if someone tells you straight up i can’t afford something it’s never okay to press the issue but beyond that if someone says i can’t do some thing and you have even a slight sense that it could be because of cost never ask them to give you a reason why when you do
That you’re basically putting the person in a position if they are financially insecure to either lie about it or feel humiliated also even if someone isn’t financially insecure but just wants to save some money they have the right to do that let people say no to things for their own reasons number two it’s not that big a deal a huge rule of thumb financially is
That everyone’s definition of what is a big deal in terms of spending is totally different and that’s okay just because for you something might be a whatever purchase that same five-dollar sandwich or happy hour drink for someone else might make or break their week and pressuring them to feel like they have to give in to this social norm and say okay i guess it’s
Not that big of a deal is a mean thing to do let all of your friends set their own boundaries for what is and isn’t a reasonable purchase and respect them number three don’t be cheap hey number one never call someone cheap that’s just like not a good look even in let’s say this scenario where you have a friend who does have the money for something but is perhaps
Reneging on something that they agreed to share the cost for or is doing something a little unethical with group money fine like have a conversation with them like a mature adult about it but absolutely never and i mean never never never save it someone who is experiencing financial insecurity is being cheap i can guarantee you that their worst fear is that their
Friends think that they’re a cheap instead of just having a really hard time so everything you can do to dispel that notion is the right thing number four oh you can definitely afford it sometimes with our friends we use this treat yourself mentality with such good intentions and terrible result basically when two friends have wildly different definitions of what
A splurge is it can lead to disastrous results in the name of self care shopping even if you love your friend and think that they should treat themselves to a facial or a dinner or even just some bath bombs it’s not up to you to tell them they should do it if someone is foregoing a purchase that they want to make they’re probably doing it for a good reason and the
Last thing you want to do is encourage someone to make a purchase that’s bad for them and then be resented for it later or five do you need someone to pay for you offering to pay for a friend is a delicate but doable thing provided that you do it with a tone of spontaneous generosity and gift giving and never pity or filling a need if you want to pay for someone
Or sense that they might need help to pay for something preempt the conversation by offering it don’t wait for them to say i can’t afford it and then swoop in like the superhero that makes them feel bad about themselves so more the conversation can feel like hey this is my treat instead of it’s okay i’ll pay for you the better and number six is you really should
Have gone here’s an evergreen rule if someone had to turn something down because they couldn’t afford it they already feel bad for missing it you telling them about how great it was just feels like rubbing salt in the wound there are a million things to talk about with your friends besides that karaoke night they couldn’t afford last week being friends with people
Who have a lot more or a lot less money than you is tricky but the golden rule especially when it comes to someone who is in a more fragile place than you is to always have empathy and to always preempt the conversation don’t wait for them to say oh yeah i can’t afford that if we think before we speak and put ourselves in a situation where five dollars might make
A huge difference to us i guarantee all of us will approach these sticky situations better and as always thank you for watching and don’t forget to hit the subscribe button and to go to the financial diet calm for more bye
Transcribed from video
6 Things You Shouldn't Say To Your Friend Struggling With Money | The Financial Diet By The Financial Diet