Lend a Tenner to friend in financial difficulty?

Why did you buy her a present if you were in financial difficulty?

Also - how dare she criticise your gift!!

I say I don't lend money purposely so people who take the piss and see others' accounts as extensions of their own don't come asking me.

But if any of my family or friends were in a tight spot I'd help them. If a friend asked me to loan them £10 I'd be worried about them and would give them what they actually needed.

I've been in a tight spot because of unforeseen circumstances previously. I didn't ask anybody for anything but had several friends offer.

In this context I would have given rather than lent you the £10.

If you are moving past this, stick with buying her cards in future.

Could you now just offer to return your gift and then only give her a box of chocolates (or the nothing that she deserves!) back?

I'm sorry she treated you so shabbily. Unless she's struggling financially £10 is a very small amount to lend.

I don’t think she’s truly your friend.

She shouldn’t have criticised your present, seems very ungrateful and bratty.

However, she has made it clear she doesn’t borrow money to anyone. Which is probably why she ignored your message about asking for a lend.

I’ve been in similar positions to your friend over the years. Apart from one person, everyone I’ve ever lent to has never repaid. Which is why I am extremely reluctant to lend to anyone, and if I do, it’s with the expectation and acceptance that I am very unlikely to see it back again.

Sorry OP you are having such a bad time and that your "friend" let you down for only £10, l don't lend money either but there are times when you can make exceptions or give it to the person in need
Glad that someone else helped you.

It seems odd that you're so short of money that a tenner makes a significant difference to you, yet you buy unrelated adults birthday presents.

How about you stop doing that and maybe you won't need to ask for help.

Just say to adults in your life "I've decided not to buy gifts any more, and don't expect any. I'm sure we're all feeling the pinch." Or something. And just buy for kids.

Having said that, I'd a friend asked me for a tenner, I'd just send it without asking any details. I wouldn't ask for it back but would accept if they offered it.

I've no idea what this thread is about, but if a stranger in the street asked me for £10 I would give it to them if it looked like they needed it for something reasonable. A friend? Yes, in an instant. What do I need £10 for?

And whilst I can accept yes I am an adult , sometimes life just keeps hitting you . We are all 3 steps from homelessness and of you're lilucky enough to have your health and family then it makes the world of difference.

Yes, you are right, so then why spend money on a present for her if you cant even afford to live for the next week- this makes no sense whatsoever. This isnt about luck, it's about not making sensible choices with your money when you hit hard times which we all invariably do on occasion. If I thought I would barely make it a few days until payday I wouldnt be splurging unnecessary money on presents and gifts.

She is mean and very rude.

Me too!!!!!!

I want to see the hideous present

People wanging on and on about the present. Come on. It was TEN QUID. For a GOOD friend. Surely friendship is allll about give and take?!?!?

Maybe she thought at some level she would be paying for the birthday present.

Even if was only on a temporary basis for a few days. Before you repaid her back.

£10 is nothing to lend if you've got it, and if it was the first time in 35 years for a close friend who presumably knows all the circumstances I think it was a pretty terrible response, especially bitching about the birthday present. Who does that? At the very least, if it really did cross her boundaries, she should have sent a sympathetic response explaining. I once had to ask a former boss for a loan (who was also a friend) for a week or so while I was going through a difficult divorce and he gave it to me without hesitation. And of course I paid him back as I said I would.

So she has said in the past that she would lend you money @CertaintyOfTides

which makes it very weird she ignores text and then rude about your present

after being very burnt by getting a loan out for my then dh at the time - and now he doesn’t pay it as an ex - I would never ever ever lend money or take a loan out or be guarantee for anyone

if you can’t trust your dh ……..

but saying that - if a friend asked me for £10 for 2 days I would lend it a it’s not a huge amount

glad another friend helped you out

Personally, if I had thousands in the bank and my so called friend was not eating dinner , going to bed in clothes and had no heating and was greiving . I would break my own rigid rule of not lending .

I was sort of on your side until this point OP. It makes you sound a bit entitled... If that's your situation then it is absolutely rubbish and I'm sorry... but it's not your friend's fault or her responsibility to rescue you. You're both adults, no? Doing food shops and paying energy bills for you would constitute quite a bit more than a tenner, and she already said she didn't lend larger sums, for perfectly understandable reasons...

Most people CAN afford to lose ten pounds though that would be within your dad's advice.

That is really fucking rude. I would never ever ever - seriously - say that to someone who has been kind enough to get me a present!

Having said that, I've learned on here that attitudes to present-giving really vary by class/financial status - people who have much less to throw around sometimes have a much more frank attitude to asking for (and giving feedback on) gifts. It's sad and depressing but I guess understandable when a luxury (or even a necessity) is a rare thing.

OTOH some people are just grasping CFs.

I’ve always worked on the principle of never lending money I don’t mind never seeing again, whatever promises of repayment have been made. If it becomes too much for me, I say no. In the OP’s case, I’d have happily given her a tenner and not wanted to see it back. But I am very fortunate.

Personally if it was me, I would have just given you a tenner and said don’t bother paying it back but people are different. I can understand her not wanting to go there, I have been bitten many times myself. But the text criticizing the present you bought is rude.

She doesn't sound like a good friend .. I mean its 10 pound .. she sounds mean and rude

She's not a very good freind. If she was worried about being taken advantage of she could have said. " I will give you £10. Its a gift but please dont ask me again"
As for critisising your birthday gift. Tell her to feel fres to donate it to a charity and dont buy her a gift next year.

I lent a friend £50 before, so she could pay her rent in full and still get daughter a birthday present. This was 10 years ago.. still not seen that £50. I asked for it a couple of times, as back then i was early 20s and a bit irresponsible with money. She still went out drinking/clubbing, whatever she wanted to do. I gave up asking in the end, when she finally acknowledged it about 4 years after i'd lent it, she told me "I had to pay debts to big companies first" which really annoyed me, as they have an abundance of money but there was times when I couldn't put fuel in my car. We ended up having a bit of an argument about it and we are no longer friends. See eachother now and then but not friends like we were.