Because we’re so tight-lipped about finances with those closest to us, money issues tend to crop up at the most inconvenient times: for example, when the bill arrives at a pricey restaurant and someone proposes splitting the bill evenly. (“Great,” you might say if you’re the cash-strapped friend. “Here I was purposefully ordering ice water and a few sides as my meal and now I’m shelling out $80.”)
“It’s really important to feel connected as friends, and one basic way we do that is to share experiences,” Bayard Jackson said. “But a lot of social activities we engage in are highly dependent on the funds that you have available. We might share common interests but our access to those are different.”
It’s not just the less well-off friend who may feel awkward about money. For the more financially advantaged friend, it can feel like more money, more problems ― and certainly more guilt when going out with cash-strapped friends.
“I’m the ‘rich friend’ in the relationship, and it absolutely affects our friendship,” she told HuffPost. “I’m in a double high-income no-kids partnership, and my friend is in a family of three living on one income. My partner and I are higher earners in our professions, and her partner doesn’t work.”
“I didn’t feel comfortable ‘boasting’ about the purchase and felt silly complaining about the renovation woes we experienced since I realize how lucky we are to even have these challenges,” Lynn said.
Another recent example? Both Lynn and her pal felt disillusioned with their jobs in the last year. While Lynn’s friend looked for another role before jumping ship, Lynn quit with no job lined up, knowing her partner would be able to support the household in the interim.
“A small example of this that I went through was lamenting how lazy my partner and I were lately and how we’d either ordered food or went out for dinner every night for a week recently,” she said. “This is something unheard-of in her household, and I realized how privileged I came across.”
In her struggling days, working as a financial planner with wealthy clients who worked at large tech companies in Silicon Valley, she knew the people she mingled with were making at least double, if not quadruple, the amount of money she was making, especially when you factored in bonuses.
A good friend is someone who’s in the grandstands, cheering you on when you accomplish something long in the making. But they’re also the same person who’s there to console you when you trip and fall, Ross Mills said.
“We need people in our lives who will jump for joy with us when we get a raise,” she said. “We need those who will help us figure out a plan to get out of debt. And we need the wise, safe and neutral friends who won’t hold our paychecks against us, whether we make more or less than them.”
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