How to help

Author

JC Rodriguez
March 04, 2024

Whether it’s tithing, donations, charities, or helping a neighbor; one of the biggest purposes of accumulating wealth is to GIVE. If you have financial peace, you can devote more time to helping others. If you have financial peace, you can put more money towards blessing those you love.

You can’t save other people from drowning if you’re drowning with them. So let’s get our money right so we can actually help others!

DEFINITION
What is “enabling”?

  • Before you give away your money or time to try to help someone. Let’s first make sure you’re actually helping them and not enabling them.

  • What is enabling? Enabling is the behavior of protecting others from experiencing the full impact and consequences of their behavior. In other words, enabling is directly or indirectly supporting someone else’s unhealthy tendencies.

    • Their unhealthy tendencies could include: laziness, addiction, overspending, and more.

PRACTICAL ADVICE
How to avoid enabling

  • Establish boundaries for yourself. Do not put yourself into financial stress in order to alleviate stress for your friend or family member.

  • Set clear expectations if you are going to help them financially. For example, if you’re going to let your brother stay at your house because he has no place to live, tell him, “We’re going to allow you to stay here because we love you and don’t want you on the street. But we will only allow you to stay here for 2 months. You need to use this time to find a job, and get your savings in order to be able to support yourself again. We’ll be here to help and support you along the way, but it’s up to you to make sure this goal happens.” Now you might think this is rude. But it’s not. You’re setting a clear boundary (he can react however he wants to react, but this is your home).

HELPFUL RESOURCES
Ramsey Show Example

  • Here’s an example from the Ramsey Show of a woman whose father is sleeping on her couch. This was his recommendation to set a boundary and avoid enabling this father’s bad behavior:

OUR COMMUNITY
What are your questions? Or share a win!

  • Reply to this email with any personal finance question you have, or share with me any wins in your life! (I’ll respond to your questions anonymously in future emails)