You'll Get By, With a Little Help From Your Friends

Ron Lieber writes the Your Money column for The Times and wrote two articles recently on just how and when to throw a line to your friends who are in the financial shitter.

In keeping with ancient male tradition, Lieber got these great ideas from his wife, as he admitted when interviewed on WNYC last Monday.

The first presents a seven-pronged approach chock-full of cheerful euphemism: for example, "playdates" is babysitting in disguise; "mac & cheese" refers to comestible charity (and a great idea for the next Recipes for the Recession!); and "remodeling" means helping friends sell unneeded furniture (or even their home) for some extra cash.

One of his more interesting (and surprisingly simple) ideas in this article is to offer friends access to your office and/or office supplies - for instance inviting them to use your office's fax machine or printer during their job search, or even giving them a space to use free internet access (away from the crowds and terrible music at Starbucks.)

The second article deals with the question of money-lending etiquette (which is apparently a big fat deal for old people.) According to Lieber, standard concerns involve deciding whether your assistance will be in the form of a grant or a loan; whether to ask first or just plow ahead; whether to gather a group of donors instead of acting alone; and, finally, options that exist for giving anonymously (church congregations are your best bet.) The best story from this article describes a man who lost his job (and health insurance) to find out only weeks later that his young son was sick with a life-threatening illness. Friends and family together scraped up $4,000 to offer the family within hours! Most importantly, they put it in a Paypal account, so the family couldn't pay it back even if they tried.