I recently saw a curious article in the Huffington Post that attempted to explain why our friends often fail to repay money that they borrow from us. In a nutshell, the piece offered five reasons:

You refuse to ask for the money back.

You make it too easy for your friends to ignore you.

You didn’t get the loan in writing.

Your friends assume that their unpaid debt won’t result in a broken friendship.

Your friends never planned to give you the money back in the first place.

Strangely enough, the author failed to offer the most logical — not to mention obvious — reason why anyone would ever welch on a loan from a friend or relative: they’re a deadbeat.

Truth be told, I have occasionally loaned money to my financially-pinched friends and relatives. Not often, but I have.

In several cases, I’ve offered the cash with no strings attached because I believed the bind they were in was due to something out of their control.

That being said, if you happen to be a friend of mine who’s been thinking about asking me for a loan, keep in mind that your odds of success will be extremely remote if one or more of the following are true:

And if that’s not enough for you, here’s one more: Quite frankly, I’m tired of coddling people who refuse to sacrifice and make the same hard decisions that I do every day in order to ensure I live within my means.

Is that harsh? No — that’s life.

So, now that I’ve made myself perfectly clear … do you still want to ask me for a loan?

Photo Credit: Infrogmation