Money In Relationships – Social Spend Pressure

Even our best friends and closest family, with the best intentions, can pressure us to spend when we don’t have anything to spend. Social spend pressure comes in many forms, from dating to weddings, divorce, mooching friends, office parties, fear of missing out, and public perception of wealth. Let’s explore each one. 

 

Dating 

 

When you are dating, there is pressure to pay for your date’s meal, or movie ticket, or whatever the date might entail. This pressure comes from a lot more than old fashioned ideas about who pays for what. Dating spend pressure comes from a place of simply trying to impress your date, and endear them to you. For example, if you are the one who suggested the concert, there is pressure for you to be the one who buys the tickets. Old fashioned ideas about who pays for what only complicates things further. If you are a man, you might feel pressure to pay, or you might think that a woman has expectations that you will pay. As a woman, you might be worried that if if your date pays, they might expect something. So you might prefer to pay your own way, or really eliminate that issue by paying for the whole date yourself. Bringing up the subject of money before the first date probably makes you both squirm. You just met and now you are supposed to make joint financial decisions? But if you would bring it up, you might avoid a lot of awkward pressure later. Or you can see how it all goes and decide at the end. Because it doesn’t get any easier down the road.

 

 

Other people’s weddings are a major source of social spending pressure. You want to give them a nice present, and their registry is full of expensive items. If you are in the party, you will also have to pony up for a suit or dress of their choosing, and possibly travel. And let’s not forget the bachelor or bachelorette party. It can amount to a sizable expense. The average person marries at a reasonably young age, when most of their friends are just starting out career-wise. Imagine that. You just got into the working world and now all of your friends are getting married seemingly all at once. 

 

 

Divorces later, have their own issues. Obviously divorce is financially devastating to those who are splitting up. There are few things on this planet that will kill your finances faster than divorce. Alimony and child support eat into your monthly income while lawyer fees eat away your savings. So why do roughly half of all couples choose to put themselves through such an incredibly expensive and stressful challenge? Because it’s worth it, as the joke goes. Yet for many couples, the expense of divorce alone keeps them together and miserable. 

 

 

We all have that friend. You know the one. The friend who always manages to have you pick up the tab at restaurants. The friend who always asks you to bring the expensive stuff to the party while they bring the cheap stuff. Or maybe the friend who’s down on their luck again and just needs to crash on your couch for a few days that somehow turn into weeks and months. But they are your friend. Maybe they have been your friend for a long time. You don’t want them to be upset with you, so you keep paying. 

 

 

On the opposite end of the friend spectrum is the wealthy friend who expects you to keep up with their expensive tastes. For example, they may suggest you get together to catch up over dinner, and pick an expensive restaurant. Meanwhile, you are trying to get out of debt and save money. Maybe your income is much less than theirs. But they don’t seem to notice. This pressure comes from a friend who does not think about your financial situation. It could be that they are not aware of your situation. Or it could be that they just don’t care. Often it is ignorance, not malice. In these situations, honesty is the best policy. A good friend would understand.

 

 

Even the office can be a source of social spend pressure. Just when you think you came here to MAKE money, now you have to contribute to someone’s birthday fund or the office pizza party. This is particularly frustrating when you are saving like a madman on the road to financial independence. The irony of your work being the thing that sets you back a bit from the goal of not having to work… it’s diabolical. And yet, you cannot say no. You depend on this job. So you pay, and you feel powerless. The powerless is the worst part. 

 

 

Even social media will put spend pressure on you, if you let it. Your friends are posting images of themselves with the latest and greatest and most expensive things. Now you have to have those things too. It’s the modern version of “keeping up with the Jones’s”. You see your friends seemingly happy with their expensive new things, and it slowly eats away at your own feeling of unworthiness. You wonder why you haven’t “made it” yet like they have. In reality, they may be neck deep in credit card debt over all of those flashy new things, and they might be miserable. But nobody talks about that on social media. We only show the filtered, photoshopped perfection that we want everyone to think. The problem is that you think it’s real. And you think maybe that object would make you happy too. Spoiler: it doesn’t. 

 

 

Lastly, what if YOU are the wealthy friend. When your wealth is public – either because you told everyone, or because your name got out there – people all of a sudden expect you to pay for things. More money, more problems, remember? Your friends and family may pressure you to spend. And your love for them may cause you to agree. It’s a kind of emotional blackmail. 

 

So what can you do? All social spend pressure has the same solution… boundaries. Simple policies and a monthly spend plan, along with radical honesty, solves each of these. If you cannot afford to do something, there is no shame in saying so. Having a blanket policy makes it easy to say no. For example, you might have a policy that you always pay your own way on dates, or that you only participate in one wedding party per year, or maybe you never allow friends to stay more than two nights. Individuals rarely feel slighted by a blanket policy that applies to everyone. It keeps it fair. And fair is key among family and friends. And with that, if you respect your spend plan, regretting honestly to your friends that you are out of going-out money this week but you can go out again next week, your friends will come to respect it too. Make a plan, set the policies, and be brutally honest about it all.