Money & Friends Don't Mix.

[Apple fanboy]

Nah, doubt it. Preppers are a weird bunch. Nice people, but when they get onto the prepper stuff you wonder about their mental health. Though there's various range of preppers. Most common I've come across are people who live in areas where natural disaster strikes often and it makes sense to be prepared. Others think a nuclear blast will occur. 😱

That said, preppers are also some of the best people to ask for nature advice because they're usually the type of person who knows how to live off the land, off the grid and are very capable in most environments they've honed their skills in.

No she’s not a prepper then! She definitely doesn’t know how to live off the land!

 

[0388631]

No she’s not a prepper then! She definitely doesn’t know how to live off the land!

When I was a boy and enjoyed camping, I always had a good time exploring and eating wild fruit I recognized as safe and edible. I've seen a few wild berry bushes here but nothing like what I said as a child.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Probably more normal in the country than it is in the suburbs or a small village/town. I tend to buy things in bulk, like a 20 kg bag of sugar instead of the small bags. It's a ballache to be in the middle of a recipe and realize you haven't got something on hand.

Exactly. That has happened to me.

I remember requiring sugar (we had run out and the shops had closed) and my next door neighbour was very happy to oblige; likewise, once I requested onions when I was making chutney with my mother - for some reason we hadn't any, or enough - and a kind neighbour produced some from his garden with genuine pleasure.

And recently, when the water was briefly cut off, my neighbour dropped a few bottles of bottled water in to me (and I hadn't even asked, but it was very decent of her).

 

[Healer Flame]

I’ve never borrowed food from anyone. It’s hard to give back! To be honest we never run out of anything. If we did I’d just go to the local shop.

With neighbors its not borrowing, when they run short on something suddenly they help each other, like extended family. You don't have to return anything.

 

[Apple fanboy]

With neighbors its not borrowing, when they run short on something suddenly they help each other, like extended family. You don't have to return anything.

I don’t have family like that. I don’t live within 150 miles of any family accept Mrs AFB.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

With neighbors its not borrowing, when they run short on something suddenly they help each other, like extended family. You don't have to return anything.

No, but some sense of reciprocity would be inferred, implied or understood; if a neighbour requested something of the sort I would oblige immediately.

However, to my mind, if one thinks in terms of "returning" stuff, or keeps a mental score card of such things, this is a very bleak and miserable way to live a life.

 

[Healer Flame]

No, but some sense of reciprocity would be inferred, implied or understood; if a neighbour requested something of the sort I would oblige immediately.

However, to my mind, if one thinks in terms of "returning" stuff, or keeps a mental score card of such things, this is a very bleak and miserable way to live a life.

They have amazing silent language and understand each other very well. But yeah it can be annoying in some ways. If i had to live there again in the future i would choose my privacy and peace.

 

[LizKat]

Here in Australia its extremely rare to ask neighbors to borrow anything , never done it anyway.

Where i came from its normal to grab bread, salt, suger, milk etc..etc... from your neighbors. Very common.

It was pretty common for neighbors to borrow foods that were under rationing during WWII in the small town where my grandparents lived. Especially stuff like sugar, coffee, cooking oils / shortening etc. I think it took some serious nerve to ask to borrow rationed meat, but the staple goods were often traded or borrowed and lent.

Even if one was careful, it was common to arrive at end of some foodstuff before getting to the end of the month, so then it was either do without or send one of the kids to the back fence to borrow it from a neighbor.

I was only past being a toddler but I do remember being sent to lend or receive borrowed kitchen items on a regular basis. "Don't spill it, dear" was the watchword... By the early 1950s I don't recall it being all that common to borrow staple goods in the suburb we lived in by then. We moved house a second time in that neighborhood in the late 50s. By then TV in the living rooms had already made families more insular, to the point we didn't even necessarily know each at all along the same block, much less well enough to ask to borrow some sugar or flour.

Funny how the men still would trade tools and other potentially expensive equipment, but once rationing was over I guess most women would have been embarrassed to run out of common pantry items.

 

[Healer Flame]

It was pretty common for neighbors to borrow foods that were under rationing during WWII in the small town where my grandparents lived. Especially stuff like sugar, coffee, cooking oils / shortening e

Still common in many third world countries. The neighbors have their own free trade economy system 🙂

I was only past being a toddler but I do remember being sent to lend or receive borrowed kitchen items on a regular basis.

Old good days, i remember that too very well but sometimes i use to come home empty handed.

Funny how the men still would trade tools and other potentially expensive equipment,

People still borrow cars from their friends even here in Australia

 

[Huntn]

Lending money or any other valuable goods to family & friends can cost you both the money and your friends if proper agreements/contracts did not take place.

Over years i lost around $2500 cash to 3 people and an organ worth $500 that was borrowed by a friend and never got it back.
I also lost valuable books, Cds and other stuff because people are just careless and selfish so hard lesson learned but never never again.

Seriously people, if someone lent you money or an item , the least you can do is appreciate and return it on time without causing embarrassment and tensions.

How common is it? Did you lend anything to someone and never got it back or are you guilty of one? Honest answers please.

Rule: Never loan money to family or friends that you expect to get back or can’t afford not to get back.

Over a long period of time, I can remember one substantial amount ($5000) that I loaned and got back. It was associated with the closing of a house, and the transaction produced a house sale and equity. This was different than a promise to pay back on a monthly basis, which more times than not will fail. However, I also loaned money to my son, he created an allotment on his paycheck, and I was paid back on schedule. This was a separate occasion from the down payment we gave him for his house (different house and person, from the first example.)
I have a brother who has “borrowed” money from both my Father and Brother, under false pretenses, with a verbal commitment to pay it back and then, nothing.
I also remember my druggy brother in-law making a pitch for me to catch their house payments back up, about $3k and assured me he could take a loan from his 401k to pay me back by the end of the month. I suggested he just make that arrangement with his mortgage company directly. 🙄

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It was pretty common for neighbors to borrow foods that were under rationing during WWII in the small town where my grandparents lived. Especially stuff like sugar, coffee, cooking oils / shortening etc. I think it took some serious nerve to ask to borrow rationed meat, but the staple goods were often traded or borrowed and lent.

Even if one was careful, it was common to arrive at end of some foodstuff before getting to the end of the month, so then it was either do without or send one of the kids to the back fence to borrow it from a neighbor.

I was only past being a toddler but I do remember being sent to lend or receive borrowed kitchen items on a regular basis. "Don't spill it, dear" was the watchword... By the early 1950s I don't recall it being all that common to borrow staple goods in the suburb we lived in by then. We moved house a second time in that neighborhood in the late 50s. By then TV in the living rooms had already made families more insular, to the point we didn't even necessarily know each at all along the same block, much less well enough to ask to borrow some sugar or flour.

Funny how the men still would trade tools and other potentially expensive equipment, but once rationing was over I guess most women would have been embarrassed to run out of common pantry items.

I have borrowed and owned out tools to neighbors and friends. Got one tool, a belt sander back from a friend broken. Did not say a word about it, except to my wife, the friend’s wife was her best friend. :-/

 

[LizKat]

Still common in many third world countries. The neighbors have their own free trade economy system 🙂

Barter is common in the mostly rural parts of my county, it's the 2nd most broke one in the state I think... eggs for potatoes, eggs for an unwanted bull calf, maple-tree tapping rights in exchange for weed-whacking services, stuff like that. Plus everybody gets doorstepped baseball-bat-sized zucchini at summer's end, like it or not.. 😱

 

[AngerDanger]

After my initial jokey post, I thought more about it and realized how ironic it is that friends and money don't mix.

Friends—the carbon-based ones at least—are largely comprised of water, and US currency is linen and cotton—cellulose. Initially, I thought some emulsifier might be necessary to mix friends and money, but cellulose itself is actually used for emulsion in baking!

Still, the exact mechanism responsible for the efficacy of baking emulsifier DATEM isn't entirely understood, and there are always other currencies, denominations, and even credit cards. So it really depends on what kind of money you want to mix with your friends.

Hope this helps!

 

[Huntn]

Barter is common in the mostly rural parts of my county, it's the 2nd most broke one in the state I think... eggs for potatoes, eggs for an unwanted bull calf, maple-tree tapping rights in exchange for weed-whacking services, stuff like that. Plus everybody gets doorstepped baseball-bat-sized zucchini at summer's end, like it or not.. 😱

We have a friend who planted bunches of tomatoes in his garden in Minnesota, never mind that one bush can produce more fruit than you can comfortably eat. He canned a lot of them, but never the less, we’d get a grocery bag of tomatoes near the end of the season. 🙂
My brother knows some people in Maine with a maple forest, and he makes annual pilgrimages there in the Spring to help them with maple syrup collection. It’s a relatively high tech setup, with a network of tubes to collect the sap in a holding tank, and then transportation by tanker truck to a barn with condensers (proper word?) to reduce it down to syrup. I love maple syrup. It has a completely wonderful flavor.

I’ve mentioned this before, but as a child, I had a great uncle, who lived in a shack up in the mountains of West Virginia, who owned a forest of maple trees and he used to make his own syrup in a 40 gallon kettle sitting on a fire in the middle of his kitchen.

 

[LizKat]

After my initial jokey post, I thought more about it and realized how ironic it is that friends and money don't mix.

Friends—the carbon-based ones at least—are largely comprised of water, and US currency is linen and cotton—cellulose. Initially, I thought some emulsifier might be necessary to mix friends and money, but cellulose itself is actually used for emulsion in baking!

Still, the exact mechanism responsible for the efficacy of baking emulsifier DATEM isn't entirely understood, and there are always other currencies, denominations, and even credit cards. So it really depends on what kind of money you want to mix with your friends.

Hope this helps!

It is humbling to realize how all our simplest or most complex transactions with each other depend in theory at least "merely" upon biochemical reactions with fixed rules about how those reactions occur in given physical circumstances. Too bad the rules are so fixed. Would be so great if I could utter an imprecation to change a busted Pyrex™ measuring cup into $10 to buy another and a spare... 😀

It's almost enough to send me hunting down a book on alchemy... fortunately though it's the season of beach reads, so off I go with the next on my stack of them. Later for knowing how to turn a laggard repayer of five bucks into a pillar of salt.

 

[AngerDanger]

It is humbling to realize how all our simplest or most complex transactions with each other depend in theory at least "merely" upon biochemical reactions with fixed rules about how those reactions occur in given physical circumstances. Too bad the rules are so fixed. Would be so great if I could utter an imprecation to change a busted Pyrex™ measuring cup into $10 to buy another and a spare... 😀

It's almost enough to send me hunting down a book on alchemy... fortunately though it's the season of beach reads, so off I go with the next on my stack of them. Later for knowing how to turn a laggard repayer of five bucks into a pillar of salt.

Yes! V cool post. It's humbling, awesome, and at times hopeless, knowing that the laws that govern chemical interactions in our bodies are no different that those that pull water straight down from an overflowing ledge or that make hot air rise and cold air fall.

We're living shrapnel from an explosion long ago—an explosion whose faint radiation can still be picked up in the static on the screens of analog TVs. Prior to that explosion, every atom in every body—from ol' Addy "Total *******" Hitler to the brilliant like Van Gogh and Marie Curie—was no farther apart than those comprising the head of a pin.

We're constantly changing, consuming and losing parts of ourselves, but we tend to keep the same name throughout our lives. We're like waterfalls—a name assigned to one area where matter is constantly flowing in and out. There's an underlying structure that dictates how the water flows, but that too is shaped by the water flowing over it, like our epigenetics and memetics.

I'm not religious in the slightest, but the feeling of grandiosity and awe I imagine many theists experience is perhaps alive in me.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

To the OP: What about time and friends?

Money may be returned (eventually) in some of the cases cited by some posters, but time expended.........never.

 

[Healer Flame]

To the OP: What about time and friends?

Money may be returned (eventually) in some of the cases cited by some posters, but time expended.........never.

Time spent by friends is not borrowed, there is no prenuptial agreement , you are enjoying each other's company so no one owes anything to another.

Where as money, if a friend promised to return a borrowed money he/she are entering in verbal contract and the lender will expect it back unless forgiven. So two different things.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Time spent by friends is not borrowed, there is no prenuptial agreement , you are enjoying each other's company so no one owes anything to another.

Where as money, if a friend promised to return a borrowed money he/she are entering in verbal contract and the lender will expect it back unless forgiven. So two different things.

No, it is matter of the value you place on such things.

Personally, I realise that I value time an awful more than I value money, thus, I am a lot less tolerant of those who seek to impose on my time, than I am on those who request money.

 

[Healer Flame]

Personally, I realise that I value time an awful more than I value money,

We all do but if someone breached your trust and abused the situation it can affect relationships in the future. Once its broken its hard to regain friendship. So its not all about the lost money or whatever it is , its about the people showing their true colour.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

We all do but if someone breached your trust and abused the situation it can affect relationships in the future. Once its broken its hard to regain friendship. So its not all about the lost money or whatever it is , its about the people showing their true colour.

Time can be abused every bit as much as money; and, while I can (and do) forgive the latter, I am a lot less tolerant of the former.

 

[Healer Flame]

Here is a typical case..

https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-friendship-doctor/201209/money-trust-and-friendship

 

[Azrael9]

Lending money or any other valuable goods to family & friends can cost you both the money and your friends if proper agreements/contracts did not take place.

Over years i lost around $2500 cash to 3 people and an organ worth $500 that was borrowed by a friend and never got it back.
I also lost valuable books, Cds and other stuff because people are just careless and selfish so hard lesson learned but never never again.

Seriously people, if someone lent you money or an item , the least you can do is appreciate and return it on time without causing embarrassment and tensions.

How common is it? Did you lend anything to someone and never got it back or are you guilty of one? Honest answers please.

Yeah. Don't lend. Just make it a 'gift' if you are going to do that at all.

Azrael.

 

[compwiz1202]

If I have a friend in genuine need I give them some money if it seems appropriate.

But lend? No I don’t need to do that.

I also don’t borrow from anyone (including credit cards). Not my style.

Yup always assume money you "lent" to anyone was actually just given to them. If they pay you back, that is just a bonus. Otherwise you get a promissory note signed.

Plus always pay for what the need it for. Never just hand someone cash. Like at the gas station someone asked for help but wouldn't let me use my card. So all they wanted was drug money or such. Makes me think of the scene in Scary Movie where the guy asks for a dollar. She gives him a sandwich, and he heaves it at her back "I said a dollar, bitch!"

 

[stinkhorn9]

I’ve never borrowed food from anyone. It’s hard to give back! To be honest we never run out of anything. If we did I’d just go to the local shop.

If you borrow food from someone, presumably by the time you return it, it’s excrement