Does this phrase bother you when uttered by people who you know have money?
What about “I just can’t afford that right now.” Or “It’s not in the budget.”
It’s just another way of saying “I am not going to spend money on that right now.” And we all have our reasons. Maybe we can’t go out to lunch because we really are broke. Maybe we have stretched ourselves a little thin and can’t buy lunch because we have to pay rent. Maybe we are careful with our budgets and don’t have the money in the “lunch” category.
For the most part, it doesn’t bother me. But I have a friend who is constantly complaining that she’s broke and she’s not. She revealed her financial situation to me (in general terms) and she pays all her bills and has paid off her credit card. She’s got spending money. Spending money that she spends. She’ll tell me on Tuesday that she’s broke and then on Wednesday, go and drop $200 on new clothes. It’s her choice as to what she buys, but I’m sorry, that doesn’t qualify as broke.
What REALLY grates is that sometimes, someone will offer to buy her lunch for her. I would happily do that for a coworker or a friend if I knew she was tight on cash and wanted her to join us. But I think it’s wrong to claim you have no money and take advantage of someone else’s generosity.
Do these phrases bug you? Would you prefer that someone just say “It’s just not in the budget” rather than “I have no money.” Do you care?
Megan is a 40-something government employee in the Washington, DC area. She got interested in Personal Finance when she got out of college and realized that her paycheck wasn’t going to go as far as she had hoped. Since starting this blog, she has managed to buy a house and make a solid start on her retirement goals, and hopes to help others do the same. Here is her story:
In 2007, I was a gainfully employed 20-something with no debt but not a lot of knowledge about personal finance. It was a co-worker’s comment about Roth IRAs that sent me to the internet, searching for information. It was then that I realized that I really didn’t know a whole lot about personal finance and that my current financial situation was due a lot to inherent frugal tendencies, generous family members, a fear of debt, and good luck. While that was working for me, clearly I needed a better plan.
While I had no debt, I was also pretty much living paycheck to paycheck and not worrying about going over budget (I say this as if I had a real budget) because I had an emergency fund set aside to cover any overages.
Except that’s not what an emergency fund is for.
So I did a lot of research, read a lot of blogs, and decided that I needed a plan. I needed to budget. I needed to know what I was spending my money on. I needed to prepare for the future.
I decided to create a blog not only to make myself accountable to others but also to share the knowledge that I gained along the way. I’ve learned so much from my fellow bloggers, and I hope that my readers can find something useful in what I have to share as well.
That doesn’t bother me as much as people who spend, spend, spend. My cousin is that way. She keeps on spending, always wants more, and I know they don’t have the money for it. They have nothing in retirement, nothing in savings (including college funds for their 2 kids), and live paycheck to paycheck.
Ridiculous!
I am okay with people who say this, because I know all too well how hard it is to resist accepting EVERY money-sucking social invitation, whether it’s a coffee, lunch, movie, etc. And do you know what? Maybe after her bills, her own priorities (which may be spending $200 on clothes because that’s what she loves and it’s her business what she spends her fun money on… does that make sense?), she genuinely couldn’t afford to spend $10 on lunch. You know? I think it takes a lot of strength to say no! Haha I definitely couldn’t. I can’t resist a social invitation… EVER! hehe. x
I wrote about this a little while ago (http://meinmillions.blogspot.com/2010/05/do-you-ever-find-yourself.html), but I would NEVER let someone pay for me out of pity. It’s a balance and sometimes people use finances as an excuse not to do something that they don’t want to do rather than just saying I don’t want to do this.
I would never say that. I have too much pride to let people make assumptions that I’m broke, because… that implies I have no clue how to manage my money!
But sometimes it is hard to explain to someone (particularly people who are less careful with money) WHY I don’t value something as much as they do.
Hearing that wouldn’t bother me as much now as it might have a few years ago. Because now I might think, “Hm… Maybe she’s saving for something like me!” Or, “Maybe she has debt she’s not telling people about.” But in your friend’s case, it would definitely bother me. She’s taking advantage of people’s generosity just so she can spend $200 on new clothes. Not cool.
I think it’s more socially exceptable to say “sorry I’m broke” than “I haven’t allocated the money for that”. Budgeting isn’t socially acceptable and if you don’t spend money on lunch, etc you’re being a miser or a scrooge. Easier to just say “i’m broke” or “sorry man, I got bills”.
My unemployed friends constantly ask me to go out and essentially spend money. I know “I can’t, I’m broke” (though I usually say “poor” v. “broke”) doesn’t mean much coming from me, because they know I’m not necessarily poor since I do in fact work.
I feel bad saying it because I don’t want them to feel like I’m judging them for spending their money on eating out or going to the bar, I just choose not to. I feel that the more I say it, the easier it is to stick by it. I feel much better about myself at the end of the night if I stick to my guns than if I spend money to make my friends happy.
Maybe it’s her way of not spending quite so much! Someone once told me…follow the habits of people with money because that just might be why they have it!