“Ya are who ya run with.”
Those were my daddy’s words to my teenage self. He was warning me about some ummm, “choice” friends that I was hanging around. Of course, my rebellious teenage self just rolled my eyes and kept on hanging out with said “choice” friends behind everyone’s back.
Until one day, while sitting in the backseat of one of those friends’ car headed to Six Flags, another friend pulled out some “get high” material and up ahead I could see a roadblock. Of course, these friends pulled off into a parking lot to avoid the roadblock but it was my wakeup call that had we gone through that roadblock and the cops found those drugs in the car, I was going to jail even though I wasn’t involved in the getting high process and had no idea they were in the car when I got in.
I was still guilty – guilty by association and I decided right then and there that I didn’t want any part of it so I called my mama and pretended to be sick. I told my friends they could just leave me at the store and I’d wait for my mom on my own.
In an amazing act of bravery on my part I confessed the whole thing to my mom who of course told me that I wasn’t allowed to hang out with these friends anymore and gave me permission to blame it all on “my mean mom”.
Believe it or not, the way you behave with money is deeply impacted by the choice of friends you hang out with. If you hang out with friends that constantly blow all their money on payday, you’re ten times more likely to do it as well.
And truth be told, this was a hard decision for me when I was fighting my way out of my massive credit card debt. I had to give up hanging out with my fun-loving friends because without them even realizing it, they were influencing the way I behaved and spent my money.
Related Post: How We Paid off $5,000 of Debt in One Month
Now they weren’t bad people doing drugs like the teenagers I was hanging out with in my high school days, they were just immature with money and so was I. So, I needed to step away from that circle of friends to grow up and allow them time to grow up on their own as well.
And they did. They grew up and started making better money choices and I still hang out with many of them today, but without stepping away for a while, while I fixed my own issues, I would never have been able to control myself and chances are, they wouldn’t have been able to either.
So take a look at your circle of friends and ask yourself if their behavior with money is the type of behavior that you wish to have. If the answer is no, it may be time to step away for a while. You don’t have to completely stop seeing, talking, and hanging out with them. Just allow yourself time to fix your own issues and become stronger and more mature with the way you handle your money.
You may be able to lead them by your example if you do.
What advice can you give someone struggling to step away from a certain group of friends?
The post Friends & Money – Do you have the right friends for your finances? appeared first on The Budget Mama.