I don’t know how it happened, but this month I just…blew out my budget and ran out of spending money. It happens to the best of us from time to time. However, just because you are broke right now, it doesn’t mean all your friends are and they still want to hang out with you! But how do you navigate this tricky situation where you can’t do the usual cocktails, dinner, or a movie (I live in NYC and going to a movie is like $20 now!)?

You speak up!!! Not speaking up about these things is how people get themselves into massive debt trying to keep up with the Jones. So a friend texted me and was like “let’s hang out this week!” And I hemmed and hawed for a bit and then finally responded that I’d love to, but it had been a really crazy month and I was out of money, but if we could do something very low key, I would be down.

Of course in these situations, these people are your friends and they want YOUR company, so naturally, she came back with, oh, sure, why don’t you come over to my house and we can have wine and snacks and it will be great.

I think we so often worry that talking about money is rude, or people are going to judge you or not want to hang out with you if you can’t afford to do fun stuff. But, if they really are your friends and decent people, they will be more interested in working with you than against you.