Today I went to help a family member as his computer was running slow and I agreed to take a look at it as he figured that he needed to spend money to upgrade it but wasn’t sure how much it would cost. Upon looking at it, I concluded that he didn’t need to spend any money as it just looked like he simply had too many applications that automatically loaded up in the beginning. I simply disabled them while doing some tweaks and sure enough the computer ran a lot faster.

This isn’t something I do professionally in a business sense, but afterwards he wanted to pay me for my time as he mentioned he would have had to pay someone to do it anyways. He is actually a business oriented person as well and so to him it just felt really wrong to not compensate someone for their time.

On the other hand, I thought that the issue was so ridiculously easy since I was knowledgeable about it and on top of that I didn’t want to charge a family member for something so simple. We ended up going back and fourth about the topic in a nice way and eventually he mentioned that he still wants to pay me back in some other way.

It just feels too weird for me to take money for these small things that feel more like a casual gander especially when it is not in a demanding business fashion. For example, if it is a situation where the person starts setting a time and place where something must be done with certain guidelines then of course you should charge the person as you can’t survive by doing things like that for free all the time.

Of course there are always those that try and abuse other’s generosities, but that is usually spotted fairly quickly.

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A person was talking to me about a segment that appeared on the Oprah show that talked about how there was a lady that kept borrowing money from her family members to live on and as a result everyone was then suffering financially. I did go to the website to read a recap of it and it was definitely a precarious situation. The lady who was borrowing money decided to do things such as buying a new TV instead of using the money to pay for her rent.

I actually knew a person who did something similar as he constantly complained he was suffering financially with no money to live. Sure enough, when he was given thousands of dollars from friends and family members he decides to blow it on high tech electronic gizmos and other unnecessary things just to go back to others again to say he needed more.

From what I read in the recap, it was kind of interesting as the way they were trying to get through to the person was to make herself realize and admit that every time she didn’t pay people back or say her bills that she was simply lying her way through life. Seems like it was to a point where it was implied that how one handles money is a reflection of their character in general. Unfair assessment? Fair assessment?

One thing that I read from the recap was how some people would look at your FICO scores for more than just money loaning issues. It mentioned that it could also play a factor in a person’s employment chances. That was kind of interesting I thought as I have never personally seen an employer request for such information. I personally have a score of 800+ for the longest time, but that would still be kind of weird I think to use that information for purposes other than credit issues and such.

At the end the family members decided to stop supporting the person financially and to let her fend for herself. That’s the only way to do it based on the people I have met who consistently rely on others financially. When you think about it, there is a difference between helping a situation and encouraging it to continue.

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