Never Lend Money Unless You Are
Prepared to Write It Off
The full title of this Rule should actually be: Never lend
money—to your friend or children, or your siblings, or even
parents—unless you are prepared to write off either the money
or the relationship.
There is a lovely story told, I think, about Oscar Wilde (cor-
rect me if I’ve got the wrong person) who borrowed a book
from a friend and forgot to return it. His friend turned up and
demanded the book back, by which time young Oscar had lost
it. His friend asked Oscar if he wasn’t jeopardizing the friend-
ship by not returning the book. Oscar Wilde merely replied,
“Yes. But aren’t you also doing the same thing by demanding it
back?”
If you lend money—or a book or anything else—don’t do it
unless you are prepared for it to be lost, forgotten, not
returned, broken, ignored, whatever.
If you are precious about it, then don’t lend it in the first place.
If it means a lot to you, keep it safe. If you do lend anything,
including money, then don’t expect to get it back if you value
the friendship—or relationship. If you do get it back, then that
is a bonus. If you don’t, well you were prepared for that in the
first place.
Lots of parents make the mistake of lending money to their
children and then getting all hurt and disappointed when they
don’t get repaid. But they have spent the child’s entire life
giving them money, and then as soon as they get a bit grown
up and go away to college or whatever, the parents suddenly
start saying it’s a loan and demanding repayment. Of course
the child isn’t going to repay it. She hasn’t been trained to. It is