Letters to the Editor
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consider the alternative
If you keep your worries to yourself and never say a word, and if things go as you predict they will, given your family history, will you regret not having approached them?
A strong friendship may be rocked by a difficult conversation, but it can survive. Silence is easier in the short run, and terrifically destructive in the long run.
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you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make them drink
Have the conversation, give them a gift of some relevant books, offer to pay their first visit to a credit counselor, etc.
Over the years, I have told a number of people rich if they would follow my advice (live below your means, set up a rainy day fund, save regularly for retirement, , etc). Only one person has taken me up.
I have also helped a number of people become debt free. They taught them how to prepare a budget, how to live on a budget, pay of their bills, etc. Within four years, they were right back in debt.
So help your friends to the best of your ability. But if they cannot see the folly of their ways, don't be the bit surprised when they the train wreck.
SJ
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Let them fail!
Let your friends fail! People like me, saddled by student loan debt and medical bills without the safety of insurance could benefit from a few million more in our boat. When everyone has big debt and bad credit, the banks will have no choice but to deal with us. The rich can only mortgage so many homes, buy so many boats, so many cars. Let everybody fail, and the financiers will have to deal with us eventually. Congress gave the banks a great deal a couple years ago, letting them write their own legislation for the bankruptcy bill. Let everybody fail, until all the banks fail, and then they will come back to us with great deals and and free toasters! Tell your friends to spend like drunken sailors, damn the consequences. Tell them credit is like free money, and that the only downside is annoying phone calls. Buy $5 coffees and premium gas! Bottled water only! Leave all the lights on, and heat your home with baby seal blubber! Tell your friends that they are worth it. Nothing less than the best. Eat out more often. Buy premium vodka.
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Come in at an angle.
If there's one thing people hate, it's unsolicited advice. Especially from people who are almost 10 years older and may have a pseudo-parental place in their lives.
I know exactly how you feel here, watching helplessly as people you care about muck up their lives. For just one example, I've been begging my best friend for DECADES to stop throwing away her money on leasing two cars; I even e-mailed her a shocking bit of math from one of the financial sites and she agreed she was nuts to be leasing. Yet she's STILL going to do it again when the leases run out in a few months.)
I can just about guarantee that if you bring up the need for financial smarts packaged as advice, you will get polite listening (and will be ignored), or even outright resentment.
I'd say do two things: Find natural ways to bring up this subject in a neutral kind of way, such as jumping off items from news stories or anecdotes about other people you know who are similar to them.
But even more important, be examples for them. When you go out to eat, pick reasonable restaurants and modest items from the menu. Even better, make dinner at home. Tell them you've been adding up what restaurants cost and realize how much you can save for this goal or that goal, especially as those savings accrue earnings over time. Talk about how tempted you were to go to a big sale at one of your favorite stores, but felt good about passing up the temptation and staying away.
Suze Orman is my personal hero, but that's because I am a rabid believer in saving for the future and have very little interest in material goods. I can't imagine people as reckless as those you describe sitting down and watching her show or reading her website just because you recommend her. (Although you can try having a Suze-watching marathon with them, enticing them with some great meal.)
Also remember that people in their early 20s are really just big kids. Unless they've been conditioned to save from childhood (the one big thing I unconditionally thank my parents for), they sha-la-la-la-la-la live for today. So take the indirect, unthreatening approach.
Good luck. God knows I've tried with my more naive friends and have had no success at all.
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Don't talk about their money
Talk about yours. The biggest factor in my sloooooow return from credit hell was listening to my boyfriend talk about his investing/saving/being a tightwad, every day. I'm not a rock star financier like him yet, nor will I probably ever be. But his monetary responsibility has made me want to be more responsible, so I cut up all of the cards except one, I'm picking up extra money on the side with my art, and I finished school. Hopefully in a few months I'll be out of immediate debt, so that I can start working on the big stuff--loans and saving for a house/car.
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Though you mean well,
It's truly none of your business. You can offer your thoughts once, and after that, there is nothing you can do unless they ask for advice. People have to learn things on their own.
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To the LW
You should talk to them, but not right away and not all at once. Just continue to model your different attitude toward money and credit, and if an organic opportunity arises to discuss, discuss. Don't be the person to offer advice on a highly personal topic without being prompted to do so. Cary uses the analogy of alcoholism or drug addiction to describe their behavior. Fair enough. But perhaps an unhealthy relationship to food is a better way to describe an unhealthy relationship to money. Unlike illicit drug use, everyone has to eat -- everyone has to spend money. There are healthy ways to do so and unhealthy ways. Yes, there are circumstances when an intervention is needed to save a morbidly obese person from him or herself, but the threshold for when that becomes necessary is much, much higher than it is for a drug user.
It's kind of rude to tell a person who is carrying 50 to even 150 extra pounds out of the blue that not everyone eats a king size Snickers and a bag of Doritos every day, or that some people actually DO go the to gym five days a week, right? Now if a chubby guy or gal asks you how you remain so fit -- you should be a friend and clue the person in. Likewise, I would say you should wait for your friends to ask about money. In the meantime, don't judge them for what they do. It's their money, their credit, right? They’re entitled to do with it what they will. They're fortunate to have caring, responsible friends like you, but don't be self righteous about it. If they never ask, so be it. For all you know they could die in a horrible car accident long before their bills ever come due. Life is full of surprises. Who’s to say the course you have charted is best?
(And Cary is wise to mention the trust fund possibility. The rich often pass amongst us middle class folks who have no capital to speak of, carefully concealing the little chestnuts their ancestors have stored away for them, pretending they too must earn every dollar they spend. They have learned long ago to hide their resources, to not tip their hand so to speak, so they can get far more than their fair share of public booty or keep those of us who want to see a more meritorious society from leveling the playing field with a more equitable tax structure. Just like some fat guys I know who would be genuinely shocked to discover that some people don’t eat fast food daily, or even weekly, some people from very humble origins would be shocked to know that there is money and there is capital and the two function very differently.)