LESSONS IN DEALING WITH SERIAL CHEAPSKATES AND SERIAL BORROWERS

For decades, maybe centuries many of us have had a freeloader or deadbeat in our lives. We seem to accept these “fellows” because we don’t know how to handle them. Two great and witty authors, Jeanne Fleming PhD and Leonard Schwartz, who monthly pen a column for Money magazine and CNNMoney, offer a fascinating tour of down-to-earth advice for dealing with these often terrible problems in our lives. Their small but packed advice volume is called “Isn’t It Their Turn To Pick Up The Check.”

Here’s a sampling of the delightful subjects: Who Gets Grandma’s Jewelry?; I loaned money to my niece and now her brother wants some too; My rich friend keeps encouraging me to do things I can’t afford; Our brother is stealing our inheritance; Our freeloading friends are driving us crazy; I just made a bundle of money and I don’t want my family to know because...

In the question of “When your mother disinherits someone she shouldn’t have, does the inheritor owe the other anything? Briefly the answer the authors suggest is "no not exactly". The mother’s final wishes have been honored. Her estate was disbursed as ordered, it may be up to the inheritors to remedy this 'seeming' injustice. See how simple the answers are. In their own survey results they tell us that 75% of us say that lending money to someone is a good way to ruin a friendship (so it’s not just me). 60% say they’ve experienced trouble with friends or family members in the process of borrowing money. 60% say they have one friend or relative who is a “user,” meaning a person who takes advantage of other people. Believe it or not only 34% say they never have problems involving money with close friends or relatives. They are the lucky ones. There’s so much more including parents and kids, when gifts come with strings, cheating in a relationship, it goes on and on. Your concerns are surely to be covered here.