friend money etiquette?

[juldea]

Some of you locals may have seen how obsessively I keep track of my finances, using GnuCash to keep track of my bank accounts, credit cards, and what I refer to as my "cash account" - keeping track of the cash I carry around and what I spend it on, down to the penny. I also try as much as possible to keep track of what I owe people and, conversely, what people owe me. People I engaged in serious money-swapping with (londo, usernamenumber) get their own spreadsheets, whereas for everyone else I have a more loosey-goosey "owed by whomever" sheet. Well, it's been a while since I untangled that sheet, figuring out who gets what, and I just did.

So now I'm faced with the dilemma of being pretty sure that friends owe me money, and can tell them how much and when, but isn't it kind of bitchy to suddenly spring on your friend a reminder of a months-old debt? I'm not quite sure how to approach that. Also, there's the manner of I'm not sure if some of these are still debts; it's quite possible the person paid me back in a way I just didn't enter into my system. It's rare that I let something slide, but it does happen. So I don't want to say, "Hey, you owe me $10 for that movie ticket," and have my friend say, "Uh... no I don't. We settled that months ago."

Examples: I bought a movie ticket for a friend in March. I bought party supplies for a friend in April. I bought dinner for a friend in early June. I don't have record of any of these things being paid back. (And there's a bought smoothie a few weeks ago and a shared Zipcar on July 4th, but those are not forgotten debts. They were discussed last week!) On the flipside, I show here that I owe someone (witticaster or doompuppy?) $5 for food at Cosmic Steak and Pizza after the last Rage Across the Cape game on June 20 - I think it's witticaster, but that should be confirmed.

These things are small, on the order of $10. I totally can afford covering them. Should I just do so? Do you think you'd be offended if you got an email from me saying, "Hey, I think I paid for this thing for you a few months ago and you never paid me back?" Do you think it's absolutely 100% rude? Is it excusable in the context of my keeping rigid track of finances and thus keeping myself up to date on debts to others, i.e. not creating a double standard? What price limit is the point at which you bring these things up to people? What if one person is responsible for multiple debts?

Etiquette is hard. :/ Let's go shopping. (You pay. ;)

Comments

[zenandtheart.livejournal.com]

This is an interesting subject. I routinely forget that people owe me large amounts of money, but I understand that we all go through periods in our lives where every dollar counts, and I'd never be offended if someone reminded me of a debt. Unless it was a friend who had lent money from me in the past and had never repaid. If I'd forgotten a large sum I'd be embarrassed to have to be reminded. As to a sum worth reminding people about... maybe $20?

[juldea.livejournal.com]

If I'd forgotten a large sum I'd be embarrassed to have to be reminded.

That's why I'm having so much difficulty here... if someone owed me a large sum, I would have no problem reminding them of it (and I have no problem when those to whom I owe money remind me of it.) But the amounts in question here aren't enough to fit that category. However, they are more than I'd like to write down as a budgeting discrepancy, and if I have the information, why not use it, right?