Personal Finance Round-Up: What To Do When Your Friends Ask You For Financial Advice

Thanks for the shout-out, Erik!

As a general rule I don’t lend to friends and family, and my siblings sometimes will only lend money to close family members only.I once lent money to a friend (so I thought was a friend) go to a trade school with me.I heard promise after promise that she would pay me from her next paycheck.She owed $90.25 before we graduated from the trade school. Every time she sees me she avoids me even hides so I won’t see her. If we meet, she is very uncomfortable”says nice to see you, but I’m in a rush for time.” What a hard lessen and a hardship it created for me.
Now I am disabled,the car I drive is 25 y.o. 160,000 miles needs some repair. I don’t want to sink anymore money into the car.I can’t get a loan from anywhere/anyone because I’m on SS and live on a fixed income of a few hundred dollars but can afford a car payment. I don’t have good credit as I use to have because my husband obtained credit cards with me being a co-signer;he sits in an out-of-state prison. When my husband was released,worked two jobs,the payments fell upon me. Then he was taken into custody and didnot violate his parole serving more time currently.I quit paying on the credit cards he signed my name as co-signer.
Being on Disability,I can pay my own small accounts faithfully every month.My car was running like a charm-now my car constantly stalls because my husband made a few bad decisions trusting people.One decision was to bring my car to a repair garage,fix the main oil seal–front drive shaft. The garage replaced the NEW sparkplugs I gapped and installed myself a month before. I’ve been maintaining my own car with my husband being in prison for many years. Well, my husband told the garage to do a tune-up. I specifically told him “do not change the timing,It’s perfect. Car isn’t driveable-constant stalling,no garage will change timing-”timing is factory set on the 1985 Mercury-Cougar.Not true. I need to buy a reliable-used car.No family member will help me nor will any dealer,bank, credit union,etc. So how am I to get to Doctors appts that are in different areas.PVTA says I don’t qualify to ride their vans. I have MRSA Bacterial Blood Circulating through out entire body.I had part of left-foot amputated with metatarsal bone removed due to the spread of bacteria.My foot is painful,limp on foot with a crutch?I should have died,that’s what the doctor told me a week later in the hospital! What is a woman to do?Hitch-hike a ride from total strangers to go food shopping,visit elderly mother,doctors appts,go to pharmacy for prescriptions, visit family? I was ill in 1981 and I paid off my NEW car at that time with assistance from the Welfare Dept until I received my first Soc. Sec. Disability money.Rent and car payment got paid first, then medical dr’s.I Need A Good Used Car that will last me many years,like my 1985 Cougar I bought in 1995,65,000 miles. I kept my car clean and polished it twice a years.Recently I had to cut sheetmetal and pop rivet the rusted spots to pass inspection. Why wouldn’t SOMEBODY help a responsible woman to purchase a reliable car to last me many years???

Oftentimes, money is the cause in many failed relationship. That’s why I hate talking about money in any way with my friends. I will only lend money to my best friends, and of course close relatives too. I had a friend in high school who often asked me for loan. Since the money was relatively small (less than 10), I always gave it to him. And he never returned them. After a while, I got tired of it and ditched him.