Dear LPG, 

One thing that comes between friends and relatives is money.  

There has been more than one occasion in my life when I have been the lender of money and when asked by a friend or sibling it is often difficult to say no.  I have always been a saver and budgeter.  My mother always taught me the importance of having little amounts of money put away for this and that eventuality.  I think that it was a thing that most children were taught back in the 1950s, although it usually took something that you needed and could not afford at the time to turn it into a lesson that we took real note of.

But here is the big question, ‘When you were that person who really wanted or needed that something that you could not afford, did you borrow a massive amount of money from one of your friends, parents, siblings or anyone else?’

While, by the time we become pensioners, most of us have had sufficient time to have lent some money at one time or another, there can’t be lenders without borrowers.   

The advantages of borrowing from a person rather than an organisation is that there is usually no interest involved.  I have loaned money that I have never got back, and it has coloured the way that I talk to the person I loaned it to somewhat or it has become the reason that we don’t talk any more.  But it also got me thinking about a really substantial amount of money that I once borrowed, and which caused a rift with a family member.  It has always put a strain on family parties where standoffishness can be felt.  The sad thing is that that substantial amount that I borrowed all that time ago really isn’t that much in today’s money.  

So today is the day that I plan to pay back the £80 that I borrowed from my cousin in 1962.   The internet tells that with inflation I should really be paying back over £1800 to make the value right, but I have decided to just go with 100% interest.  It is still a lot of money but in the grand scheme of things, I have lent and lost more than that.  

Perhaps today is the day that any reader who borrowed what was then a large amount of money way back when, might think about paying it back and, if you really want to get it right, I have found an inflation calculator to work out what it is worth now… 

But for all that, I hope giving the money back will start the process of mending a friendship and, as we all get older, we need to maintain as many of those as we can. 

LM, Brockley 

LM shares the inflation calculator she mentioned…

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