When my baby brother asked me if he could borrow money from me, I asked him what he needed money for.
He said he needed a little extra money to afford radiant heated floors for his house.
He said he would pay me back, especially since his energy savings would be huge. I unfortunately didn’t have the amount of money he needed, but I told him he could always ask our parents. He said he was afraid of that because our father was always strict, especially when it came to finances. He said that if Dad knew that he was just going to buy a new HVAC system with the money, he would probably never loan the money. Then he smiled and said he could just say that he needed a car, and it was important to be able to get around places, especially to and from work. I told him he shouldn’t lie about it, especially to our parents but he didn’t listen. The next thing I knew, my brother was getting radiant heated floors installed. I asked him if he told Dad the truth, but he actually did tell him that his car was shot and he needed the money for a new car. Our father didn’t hesitate to lend the money either. I asked him if he felt bad for doing that, lying to Dad. He said he did feel bad but he was going to come clean about it. When Dad came over to visit, he asked about where the new car was. Then he asked if there were radiant heated floors in the house. My brother came clean, and our Dad said that he should have been honest in the first place, he would have loaned the money.