Money or The Relationships?

If asked the question, what is more important to you family and friends or money?  Almost everyone in an instant would answer family and friends, but is that how we truly feel?   Of course in our hearts we want to feel that yes friends and especially family come above everything else, but with the pressure of todays economy, I believe that money is becoming just as important if not more important than our own flesh and blood.

            With hours being cut at work and gas prices being raised, everybody feels the pressure of needing money to survive.  In order to make it, do you swallow your pride and ask for help from someone close or do you suffer and struggle to make ends meet?  From experience, I would rather suffer to make ends meet.  Once money is loaned, there becomes an invisible pressure put on both parties.  The person who borrowed the money avoids the person who loaned them the money because they either can’t pay it back at the moment and are afraid of being asked to, or they are just not a good person and have no plans to pay the person back from the get go.  Furthermore, the person who loaned the money doesn’t want to feel pushy and add pressure to get their money back, but at the same time they want to know when they will be paid back. So eventually if nothing is said, then resentment on both sides starts to build and the relationship is destroyed, all over a simple thing called money.

            Another thing that people are doing in order to make ends meet is they are taking in roommates.  This could be a good thing when it is a family member or a close friend because you get to share quality time together.  However, be careful because once you live together, it usually doesn’t go well once you have to part ways.  Arguments start because one person feels they should get this or that from the place, or that they should be compensated if they don’t get what they want.  Either way, relationships are destroyed because not everyone is happy with what they are left with in the end.

            I believe that nothing is more important than family and friends.  Choices need to be made in order to see that your own future is well, but it does not need to come at the price of losing someone close to you.  When entering either of the situations above, ground rules need to be set, and if need be, contracts need to be written out.  In the end, if things don’t work out the way either of the parties had planned, then they both need to ask themselves is there a price on their relationship, and if there is, than figure out what it is and cut your losses.  But realize once a choice is made, you cannot go back.