Dealing with a cheap friend
It’s that time of the week again, Your Turn! I’ve been using scenarios that I come across in my own life but if you have a dilemma or have witnessed something that you aren’t sure how to deal with, please feel free to submit it to Life Tips Daily by email. Please send your scenarios and dilemmas to jummy.lifetipsdaily at gmail dot com.
Today’s dilemma is about dealing with somebody who never seems to pay his or her fair share.
You have a friend who regularly underpays his or her share of everything, from joint gifts, to splitting a pizza. When you tell him/her that something will cost a certain amount, s/he never has the amount requested on hand, but promises to pay “next time”. Unfortunately, next time never comes, and no mention is made of paying back money that is owed by either party. Sometimes s/he pays less than the requested amount without mentioning it, hoping that any deficit will be covered by the tip (in the case of splitting a restaurant bill). To add insult to injury, this friend has started being the first to suggest that bills be paid together (rather than split) to waiters/waitresses, and always offers to collect money for group gifts and manage things of this nature. You can’t help but wonder if s/he does this so that his/her smaller contribution is more likely to go unnoticed.
To add further insult to injury, this friend is not strapped for cash (and you’re not speculating either): s/he is debt free, earns more than the average pay in your group, and is quick to share news of his/her latest raise, splurge or other purchase.
There are number of ways this could be handled. You could confront your friend with his or her stinginess, refuse to split future bills with him/her (perhaps tell the waiter beforehand or just tell stingy friend know that s/he should always ask the waiter for separate bills), or stage an intervention with other friends. Or, if you’re able to regard it as an annoying character flaw but nothing more dire, ignore it indefinitely. How do you deal with a friend whose stinginess is starting to affect how you feel about him or her?
stingy, greedy friend, money, pay your way
October 7th, 2007 at 11:36 am
Take a wild guess as to how I would deal with it! LOL.
Probably, in the restaurant situation, I’d just grab the bill, split it in half, and hand the money and the bill to the friend.
Or you could lie. “I don’t like splitting things down the middle, it never comes out completely fair and in my experience, creates resentment over time.” And then not split anything any more.
Or you could go really passive, block and delete the person from MSN, and stop answering phone calls. My favorite MO, personally.