$7k is an absurd amount of money for 99.9% of the US (Recall the statistics on who has at least 3 months of income saved up? This is a similar amount of cash to have available). I've seen good friendships lost over a lot less money than that.

I agree with the parent - don't give it with the expectation of receiving it back. Save everyone the heartache.

Sure. I didn't mean $7k specifically, but rather <amount you chose to loan>. Why loan someone a truckload of cash you can't afford to lose? It's kind of your fault at that point.

We helped my sister in law afford a down payment on a house. She still hasn't gotten a house after 6 months. Am I a bit miffed? Sure. But breaking off a friendship over a down payment seems absurd.

Life happens, and people tend to take a little while to figure it out. Who cares, it's not like we can take the money with us when we go to the next life anyway.

Even if you're able to afford to lose it, setting the expectation that the loan needs to be repaid will stress the borrower. That can be enough, in my experience, to break a relationship.

Unless they're a sociopath, borrowing significant amounts of money from friends is usually considered to be a last resort, they're already in a bad place. Adding another monthly payment to their budget going to put them in a worse place.

The financial disconnect in tech versus the rest of society is crazy. Casually handing out $7k is a wild statement for most of the world.

But that's irrelevant, it was not a big loan for the OP.

Relationship dynamics change when money gets involved. Especially when its a lot of money for at least one party.

It was for the recipient. And the recipient is the one who'll be feeling the pinch (stress, anger, etc) of paying it back.

    $7,000 / 24 = $300 (roughly an extra car payment)

I am sure it is very nice of you that you protect your friends from making the stressful and angering mistake of becoming indebted to you, but the OP is expressing an attitude towards money that makes it sound like it is less of a mistake to be indebted to them.

So, the context of this specific thread of discussion is "If $7k destroys a friendship, it's not really that close of a friendship."

Which is bogus in my opinion - this is all discussion on why it's bogus. It's not a comment on the original post by alach11.

That's why the recipient should think carefully about how valuable the purchase is.

Not 99.9%, maybe 80% based on income statistics.

I guess that really depends. Paying back $7,000 without interest would still be a $300 monthly payment for 2 years.

> If $7k destroys a friendship, it's not really that close of a friendship.

This is easy to say if you're a software engineer at a top tier company making a solid six-figure salary, but $7k is an enormous amount of money for the vast majority of people. I think I would significantly hurt my relationships if I failed to pay back $7k to any of my friends.

exactly. At times in my life $7000 might as well be $1MM, If you take money from someone pay it back.

Yes, I believe you want to loan money to friends less than what the friendship is worth. In other words, $7k might break the friendship for some, for others not really.

It also depends on how easily money comes to the lender.

It’s not about the amount, it’s rather about how the borrower handles the payback.

If you promised to payback $1 that I lent you, and you don’t despite having it, I’ll equally judge you as if it were $1 million dollars.

Asking for a loan and not paying it back is the equivalent of lying to your friend.

Is a big lie to exploit a friendship enough to in the friendship?