I met my friend a year ago, we worked together and clicked, she is in her late 30s and I’m in my early 50s, she lives with her DH and DS many miles from both their families and I got the feeling she say me as a sort of fill in mum. I babysat for her DS, who even called me Nannyjenasauraus. We spent most lunch times together at work and confided in each other about lots of things. Things however have changed since my DM died last year.
I have inherited a large sum of money and this seems to have caused an issue between my friend and I. My friend has just purchased a brand new 4 bedroomed detached house in a nice area, her DS goes to an expensive nursery and her DH earns over 50K a year but she has recently started asking to borrow money from me.
She has left the place we both worked at and now has a well-paid job close to where she lives. We met a couple of months ago for a meal and she brought up that it was my pay day the following day, she asked if she could borrow £100 as she was going away at the weekend and hadn’t budgeted correctly, she promised to pay me back when she got paid 4 days later…but her pay day came and went and no money arrived.
I wrote this off, but then she asked me for £13,000 and said she would pay me back. She had a loan and was paying a lot of interest on it, so she wanted me to pay it off and instead she would pay me a monthly amount. I said I wasn’t sure as I have most of my money tied up and have 3 grown up children who I wanted to be able to help financially with house moves etc. She then asked for a lesser amount of £3500 and would repay me at £20 a month.
I kept avoiding the subject and in the end blocked her number and on social media as it was awkward and embarrassing. I did/do like her and before I had this inheritance our relationship was lovely. Anyway she managed to contact me by work email and said she hoped she hadn’t upset me and that she missed me. So I started chatting to her again and unblocked her number etc…now today, she has said “I hate to ask but you have always been so good to me before, I am unable to extend my overdraft and I desperately need some money”…I was amazed, 1 couple of days in and she is back to asking for money again! Should I just walk away or tell her in plain terms that I am unable to lend her any money. She did repay £25 of the £100 I lent her in the end but I wouldn’t have minded her keeping that to help her out, but it was a red flag if she can’t repay a £100 how could she repay £3000+?
Despite the inheritance I only early £20k a year and live alone, so really can’t give away the money my mum left me, I really believe my mum would want this to benefit her grandchildren and be upset if I lent it like this.
So as not to drip feed, my friend told me a lot of information about her life, including the fact her DH smokes a packet of cigarettes a day and a bottle of wine a night, in addition when the purchased their home my friend immediately paid out to get all the hallway retiled despite it being brand new and freshly decorated, this is one of the reasons I was hesitant to lend the money, if it was for her or her family to keep a roof over their heads or eat, then yes I would but this is different, so why do I feel guilty?