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Hi friends! I’m back after a week without posts and I’m feeling more refreshed and ready to re-engage in the blog world Image may be NSFW.
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I might not have “regular” posts and I might be a little more quiet than usual. But I’ll still be around the blogosphere reading, learning and laughing at the fun and witty things ya’ll write. So thank you to everyone for your kind words, love and support. You guys are the reason I couldn’t give up on blogging, even if I wanted to (and I don’t!).
Has anyone ever told you it’s a bad idea to mingle money with friends? Well it is! I’m probably not the best person to give the, “Don’t mingle money” advice, because I’ve actually mingled money with friends several times. I guess that makes me sort of an expert on what not to do. So hopefully someone will read this post and learn something from my money mistakes.
Mingling money is a bad idea, especially:
- Renting a place with a significant other. I once rented an apartment with an ex-boyfriend. Both of our leases were ending at the same time and we decided to rent a place together. We found a beautiful apartment right on the Boston Common. Neither of us could afford the apartment on our own, but together it fit our respective budgets. Thankfully both of us were mature and the relationship ended amicably when I moved out to go to grad school. But if the relationship had “crashed and burned”, living together for the remainder of the lease because I couldn’t afford to move out would have been pretty awkward.
- Making a big purchase with roommates. Your roommates convince you that it would be awesome to “go in” on a huge flat screen for the super bowl. What’s not to love, right? Well…you’re getting ready to move out and TV is now 2 years old. Obviously it’s worth a lot less now, but how do you decide exactly how much it depreciated? It’s unlikely your roommates will offer to “buy out” your “share” and what if you all move out at the same time? Who gets to keep the actual TV when the lease ends?
- Buying a home with your boyfriend. Yup I’ve done this one too. If you’ve been reading the blog for a while you probably know that Eric and I aren’t married. We bought our condo 2 years ago and we’re still dating now. We’re serious about each other and marriage is likely in our future, but if all hell breaks loose and we break up in a bad way, it wouldn’t be very fun to stick around until we sell our place and divide up the money.
- Going into business with a friend. If you own a business with a friend and there aren’t clear parameters about money, how do you decide who “owns” what? Say you put in more money into the business, do you get more money out? Or, what happens if you buy a business together and it’s a miserable failure? If you put all of your retirement funds into the business and it goes under there’s nothing left to “split” except for the debt the business accrued.
- Starting a website or blog with family. Let’s pretend you start a website or blog with your cousin and it becomes an overnight hit. Things might be gravy when you’re a little operation making a few hundred dollars a month. But what happens when you’re wildly successful (a girl can dream, right?)? If you don’t agree about how to split the profits, are you going to bring those disagreements to the Thanksgiving dinner table? You can “break up” with friends if things go bad, but it’s harder to break ties with family.
Have you ever “mingled” money with friends or family? How did it turn out?
Image: Steven Depolo
