Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin - Get Friends to Pay You Back: Listen and Learn

Episode Date: April 29, 2021

Brave the awkwardness and get your money back - Nicole shows you firsthand how to ask a friend to return a loan (and keep the friendship intact).  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Well, it doesn't. Charge for wasting our time. I will take a check. Like an old school check. You recognize her from anchoring on CNN, CNBC, and Bloomberg. The only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. Nicole Lappin. As Allie and Adrian said in our Changemakers episode, money talks with loved ones can be hard, to say the least.

Today, money rehabber Olivia calls in with this question. Hey, Nicole. My roommate and I had planned on splitting a going-away present for our friend. I paid for it, but my roommate still owes me her half. I want to ask her to pay me back, but I don't want to make it awkward. Do you have any advice? So one of the biggest questions I often get asked is, how the heck do you get your friends to pay you back?

And there is this old adage that if you lend your friend money, you have to decide which you want more, the friend or the money, because most often you'll lose one of that. And it's a really tricky dynamic, especially when you're dealing with close friends, because you want your money back like it wasn't a gift. And also you want to keep your friendship, presumably. So I recently had a conversation

about getting my really good friend to pay me back a good amount of money. It was $500 a year ago. So I thought, why don't I just record this to let you guys listen to how it all went down. How are you? I'm good. Look how cute you are. Let's talk about your kimono. I know you could know that I've had like one hell of a morning and I, I got out of the shower and I haven't had time to get dressed

or anything. And I've just been on calls. I've otherwise just been like, no, I can't be on video today. It's my camera. It's not working. And then I was like, maybe it kind of looks like a, like a Sherp. It's like a boho chic vibe. I feel really good about this vibe. I like, I'm glad that at least if nothing else, I'm a vibe. Amen. So you guys tell me about all your Instagram adventures. Yeah. You know, we've, yeah, we do like so many fun things. I agree. We're doing the best we can. Yeah. What about you? Trying to do all the adventures, you know, within reason, socially distanced adventures. Yeah. Really smart. Yeah. I am just, you know, investing more in my company and, you know, also investing in the market because I talk obviously a lot about that.

So I literally like to put my money where my mouth is. So I really want to start beefing that up in the next couple weeks specifically. That's so exciting for you. Congrats. Thank you. Life is complicated. Life is stressful. They may have forgotten that specific amount.

I don't know if you remember, but there was 500 bucks I lent you last year. And so I was wondering if you could give it back to me next week. Oh, that's so crazy. I totally forgot about that. I am so sorry. Yeah, I am. I'm not working right now. And so you need it by next week. Another big thing I suggest is to give a deadline. Now, this isn't a business transaction. It's a friendship. So you can do it really casually and bring up a deadline like, hey, maybe next Friday or maybe, you know, next Monday. But be really specific so it doesn't drag on and on.

Next Friday would be awesome. Yeah. I'll have to look. I'm not sure that I can swing it in a lump sum right now. It's COVID and like I said, I haven't been working. And yeah, I didn't even remember even wondering about money, but now that you mentioned it, I guess I do. Yeah. I mean, I would love to see you, of course, and I'd love to partake in some of these adventures that you guys are doing. They look really fun. You know, some of them look really lavish too. And I think that there's always a good time and place to treat yourself. And so I thought, you know, your finances had improved, of course, since I had lent you the money, which is why I think it would be

really helpful to use that money for some of my upcoming endeavors. Would it be helpful if I broke it up into payments? Like we could do little $100 chunks? Yeah, I think that would be, that would definitely be better. And yeah i i appreciate your understanding on that front things haven't improved and like other people have been being forced off but yeah like we could probably like do some sort of thing leave with a specific plan even if it's hey can you give me a check hey can you send me a venmo? Hey, can I send you a PayPal invoice? Whatever that method of payment is going to be, I would leave the conversation knowing clearly how you are going to get that money back so there is no confusion.

Okay. So with Venmo, with PayPal, is there a method that you prefer the best? I just want to, you know, wrap it all up and make sure that you have those reminders. Yeah, I think Venmo probably makes the most sense. Okay. So do you feel comfortable? I know you wanted to try and revisit this at another time, but how about I send you the first request next Friday and then I can do every Friday thereafter for the rest of the month. Oh, you want to do it like every week? Yeah. I mean, for easy math, if we had 500, I could do 100 for next Friday. I could do another 100 request for the Friday after, and then so on and so forth.

Do you think that maybe we can break it up by like two weeks? And of course, this is not dealing with a bank. It's dealing with one of your good friends. So if they're going through hard times and you really don't need the money direly, then I would say be flexible, allow for a payment process, allow for them to break it up so it feels more palatable to them. If that works for you, I would just continue to have a really casual conversation about what that looks like. Yeah. So let me just look at my calendar. So, you know, there's no confusion. And then, of course, like, i'd love to see you and hang and

all of that fun stuff so okay so next friday so we'll start the first week of april um and then every two weeks thereafter so it looks like we should just be wrapped up at the end of may does that work for you yeah i will i'll yeah i'll do my best. And of course, if it doesn't become contentious, continue to talk about other stuff. I mean, you guys are friends. This was part of it. This was a tough conversation. But hopefully you can then move on with your friendship and not have that be the one you lose. Ideally, you wouldn't lose either. Cool. That sounds good. But it sounds like you're having a lot of new prospects, right? Tell me more. Like, let's continue to catch up. Um, yeah, just trying to figure out what I want to do next and, you know, just trying to enjoy life.

So, Olivia, I know these conversations are really, really hard. It was hard for me to have this conversation with my friend. It feels so uncomfortable. But at the end of the day, you did something kind for your friend. We can't let anyone take advantage of our kindness, right? Even the people we love. Follow this blueprint of a conversation I had with my friend and just do your best to be confident. You've totally got this. For today's tip, you can take straight to the bank. Make sure you walk away from your conversation with a plan. You need to know how your friend is going to be paying you

back and when. Or there's a strong possibility that you getting your cash back will continue to get put off and off. And the last thing you want to have is this hard conversation over and over again. If you're procrastinating having the money conversation with a friend, DM me at money rehab show on Instagram and I will help talk you through it. Money Rehab is a production of iHeartMedia. I'm your host, Nicole Lappin. Our producers are Morgan Lavoie and Catherine Law. Money Rehab is edited and engineered by Brandon Dickert with help from Josh Fisher. Executive producers are Mangesh Hatikader and Will Pearson.

Huge thanks to the OG Money Rehab supervising producer, Michelle Lanz, for her pre-production and development work. And as always, thanks to you for finally investing in yourself so that you can get it together and get it all.