When Money Gets Weird in Friendships: Navigating Income Gaps Without Losing Each Other

When Money Gets Weird in Friendships: Navigating Income Gaps Without Losing Each Other 

•  Say “yes” to things they can’t afford 
•  How income differences can quietly create distance 
•  The emotional weight of feeling embarrassed, judged, or left out 
•  What happens when someone pays for everything—and why it can backfire 
•  How childhood experiences with money shape adult friendships 

Through honest stories, humor, and real-life examples, Jennifer and Jackie break down how to handle these situations with honesty, empathy, and respect—without damaging the friendship.

Because the truth is, money doesn’t create distance… silence does. 

If you’ve ever felt uncomfortable talking about money with friends—or avoided it altogether—this episode will hit home.

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This episode of Slightly Unsupervised was brought to you by the creators of Bestiemony®—the original friendship ceremony that proves soulmates don’t always come with a marriage license. Hosted by Jennifer and Jackie: best friends, business partners, and co-founders of the movement celebrating real, ride-or-die love.

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Transcript

Jennifer 0:00

Hey there, I'm Jennifer. And I'm Jackie. And welcome to Slightly Unsupervised, where best friends, business partners, and the chaos behind bestimony. It's our money we created to celebrate the kind of soulmates who don't come with a marriage license.

Jackie 0:10

This podcast is all about that friendship energy, the deep stuff, the messy stuff, and the lap to you snort stuff.

Jennifer 0:15

So whether you're driving, folding laundry, or hiding in your car for some peace and quiet, you're in good company.

Jackie 0:20

Let's get slightly unsupervised. Okay, today we are talking about money, friendship, and the truth we avoid. When income gaps get uncomfortable. Hey, so I want to start this one a little differently, because this is one of those topics that people feel but almost never say out loud, money. Not in a flashy way, not in a who was what kind of way, but in the quiet, uncomfortable moments inside of friendship. Like when plans get made and you immediately start doing math in your head, or when you say yes to something and instantly regret it later. Or worse, when you start pulling back, not because you don't care about the person, but because you're trying to protect your peace, your budget, or honestly your pride. And the hard part is most of us don't talk about it. We don't say, hey, that's out of my range right now. We don't say I'm feeling a little pressure to keep up. We just adjust quietly and hope the other person doesn't notice. But they do. And that's where things start to shift. But because what used to feel easy starts to feel heavy. What used to feel natural starts to feel calculated. And before you know it, it's not about money anymore. It's about distance. So today we're talking about income gaps and friendship, why do they create tension, what actually is happening underneath it, and how to have the conversation in a way that doesn't damage the relationship, but actually makes it stronger.

Jennifer 1:29

Yeah. So money in particular is more prevalent in the younger years. As you get a little older, for the most part, there's a little more you're a little more, you know, cemented into your financial status or whatever. So it's um, I wouldn't say it's that big, at least now as we grow older. And, you know, socioeconomic levels, we're all kind of in the same, you know, sort of middle class area. None of us are rich and none of us are poor. But you know, everybody knows everybody has money constraints, even now. But we don't really I don't think we we test that limit very much. We don't I think we respect everybody's, you know, situations of where they have on their children, what they're doing with their lives, how they like to spend their money. We don't really have that problem. But as we when we were children in particular, Jackie and I kind of grew up in an environment there was like levels of economic different economic levels as we grew up in different cities. And we we went to school with primarily what like three major cities, and there was the lower end, the higher end, and the other middle end or whatever. Well, Jackie and I lived in the lower end. That's just the root, that's just how we were. We were in what we can say. Yeah, we were in the town you didn't really want to, you know, boast about. So we did have this a lot as children.

Jackie 2:49

We're still proud. We were still proud.

Jennifer 2:51

Yeah. Were we? I guess we were. I guess so. But we had it was there was levels there, and we were in the bottom level. And so money for us was different. You know, we had a lot of friends who parents worked and did very well, or you know, pretty successful or whatever. And, you know, they got all the stuff that you needed as a child really easily. Nobody ever made them feel bad. There was never a question about I need clothes, like, oh, let's get you some clothes, you know. Like we just need to go to the store. If we needed clothes, it was like, you know, whole thing. Well, when are you getting a job more so?

Jackie 3:27

Or wait, it's not the beginning of the school year, it's not school shopping, it's like Christmas. It's not your birthday. We're not, it's not time to go shopping for clothes.

Jennifer 3:37

One of these events needs to have occurring, and none of them are occurring, so you don't get anything. It was a big deal though, and I don't think it is a big deal anymore, especially I I know in my kids, and I was I was pumped, I was ready to do it. And maybe you saw this too, Jackie, but like school shopping was a big deal when we were kids, right? Like, we got to go to the mall, we got to buy clothes, it was a big deal, and maybe we got three or four pairs of pants and three or four shirts or whatever. It wasn't like a massive amount of clothes, but it was such a like a prime time in our lives. Like clothes shopping for school star schooling starting school was a big deal. I didn't find that to be that big of a deal when my kids were in school. I I felt like we had to go get like the supplies, but like take them out to go school shopping was like, why? What what do I need? Like, you know, we had boys too.

Jackie 4:23

So that's because you had boys, yeah. The boys didn't care as much. But then the bummer with me was I had two brothers and we were all a year apart. I know so we didn't get a lot of stuff.

Jennifer 4:33

Yeah.

Jackie 4:33

Well, you figure how expensive it was for parents with three kids just a year apart.

Jennifer 4:38

Right.

Jackie 4:38

So it wasn't a lot of you got like two pairs of pants, maybe, and a couple pairs of shorts, and that was like it that was it, yeah. You got maybe a few extra tops, and but you blended those shorts and pants together so that you had extra tops to wear with them.

Jennifer 4:52

I knew that too, because you're you're right. Your brothers were nearly a year apart. Would could they share, interchange clothes?

Jackie 4:59

They shared, yeah. They could. I couldn't.

Jennifer 5:02

Yeah, you couldn't.

Jackie 5:02

I was the one that got screwed.

Jennifer 5:04

Yeah. They could like borrow each other's so they got twice as many alphas as you did because they could share with their clothes. Yeah. I didn't even think about that other year. It's probably right. I don't know. Sometimes I would steal my brother's clothes too. Like he'd have a t-shirt or something I wanted to wear or something, and I'd tie it on the side and run off with it or whatever.

Jackie 5:20

So um my brothers weren't that cool, so no.

Jennifer 5:23

My brother wasn't a big one.

Jackie 5:24

And they were smaller than me, remember, so no way.

Jennifer 5:26

That's true. And you were small to begin with. Hard to fit in Jackie's clothes when you were a kid. But it was parent, right? So we didn't have as much as some. Like there was something that needed to be done, like haircuts. I remember that kind of being a big deal when I was a kid about not being able to afford to go get my hair. We what did we call it back then? I guess we called it highlights, like perms. Perms, highlights, but like there was the cap, right? They pulled the hair through the wasn't like they do it now. But like, you know, a lot of our friends would go get their hair done quite frequently, and we're like maybe a haircut or two a year.

Jackie 6:00

I'd have to save up, yeah. When I I started babysitting at the bowling alley when I was 12. Yeah. And that's only because I knew the we knew the owners, so they let me babysit upstairs so I would make per kid so much money. It was a dollar just I would save my money. Like, but it was per kid I would make per kid.

SPEAKER_01 6:19

Right.

Jackie 6:19

And I but I remember free food and free drinks. Yeah. But it was yeah, that was I would save every freaking penny just so I could go either to what was that place called? Uh we get clothes for like five dollars or ten dollars down the hill. Remember?

Jennifer 6:32

No.

Jackie 6:33

Oh gosh, it was like like an old baby, but yeah, like it was like it was a shop, but that was like it was a girl's name. I forget what it was, but it was like down by way where the in and out used to be in San Bernardino.

Jennifer 6:45

Clothes oh, is it gosh?

Jackie 6:48

I forget. Anyways, we can't take up this podcast thinking about time to be talking about the fact that we have to do it. The coolest place I'd be so stoked when I was.

Jennifer 7:02

Or just go to the mall. I mean, do you remember spending just lots of time? Like the mall was a big deal.

Jackie 7:06

No, it was too expensive for me.

Jennifer 7:07

But you could walk around and like get a drink and like look at clothes and then get inspirational and go buy it somewhere cheaper or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. So it's it's interesting about the different things, but like they could do things we couldn't do. Like, I remember the girl that I was best friends with in high school for the most part. She, you know, she got a ski pass every year. They went skiing all the time. And it was like, skiing? I can't do that. Like, I don't even like to ski, but you know, that it was a normal thing for them to go go skiing every weekend or whatever it is they did, or run, you know, and go to the mall or do whatever. So at least in my world, it was a little hard because we didn't have that kind of stuff. I know I know the parents were very good about not making us feel bad.

Jackie 7:50

I mean, at least her parents were, but our parents got us skis, but we had to r do them in our driveway. Shut up. Are you skis one Christmas, but we pretty much did it in our driveway and down the side of our. I only remember like a maybe not even a handful of times that they actually took us out to the ski resorts to do it. Well, they just never took us that much. I mean, they've always worked and they couldn't afford the ski thing, so they would expensive. Yeah, so but they bought us boots and then skis, so we would remember how steep our driveway was inside of our house. So we would just ski right there.

Jennifer 8:25

That's embarrassing because you had to walk up with your boots on your feet. Those boots are hard to walk on.

Jackie 8:30

No skis. Oh yeah.

Jennifer 8:32

But I mean, we got skis. Yeah, skis. Yeah, but she had an access road. That was important. In the mountains, you have access roads because a bunch of houses are down one road and it's off the main road or whatever. So she had a pretty steep access road there that we not only take the dining room table chairs down when we got drunk. So skateboards, skateboards, whatever. It was steep, telling you. It was not a uh you could walk up and down that too many times. You'd probably be out of breath pretty quick. So Jackie skied on that, evidently. That was the skiing area. That was my ski area. Because I was poor. Yeah, you're poor. That was Ham Tanya, the girl that I went to high school with, she got a ski pass every year. She was at the skiing things. But yeah, to go skiing up in the mountains was a very expensive ordeal if you didn't have all the stuff because you had to buy rent, you had to get boots, you had to get skis, you had to get poles, you had to get something to wear. I mean, although I think we kind of when you're cool and from school, you don't really wear a bunch of ski wear. You basically go in your jeans and t-shirt. Um, and then the pass to go up and down to do the thing. And then you gotta eat, you know what I mean? Like, eat. I don't got time to eat, I don't got a money to eat. So yeah, there's a little bit of that that goes on. And and I'm sure there's a lot of people out there that can equate to this that are like, yeah, that happened when I was a kid or whatever. And you know, if you have good friends, they generally probably won't bring it up too much, or they'll be like, Hey, can you go skiing? Let's just say, you know, Chris or somebody will call me, Hey, you want to go skiing this weekend? And you're like, No, that's gonna take, you know, that's a lot of money, and I don't think I'm gonna be able to do that. Like, and it not being such a big deal when we were kids, I don't think, or just be like, I didn't like skiing, so it wasn't a big deal to me. It wasn't like I felt like I got left out of something. So thankfully, on the flip side of that, especially in the summertime when we were kids, we had we just laid on docks. They were none of our docks, they were just people's docks that you know you hunt out on a dock and laid out, and thankfully that was never that was like Gregory.

Jackie 10:30

Lake Gregory was only like two bucks to get in.

Jennifer 10:32

Yeah, yeah. But I mean, we would always want to go to Arrowhead and hang out or hang out, Lake Gregory. So but thankfully that was not very expensive, at least in that terms, you know, even when we had hang out with Michelle or something, she was at the beach, she just sat on the beach, was free. So that was thankfully never really a problem in that regard. We didn't have too many things going on, but like movies and stuff, Jack. I mean, we only had one movie theater, so that was good. It wasn't like everybody was going to the movies, we couldn't go to the movies. We we didn't have a lot of normal stuff that normal people would have, but I imagine people that are listening can relate to it, but like the friends could go to the movies all the time. Well, I can see how that could be a problem. Gas money. Do you remember gas being a big deal? Like if you went out with your friends, what was the thing you always said? Bring gas money. Like you have to help pay for the gas that's it was like only a buck twenty-five.

Jackie 11:21

Do you remember now? Yeah. Now we're paying six dollars a gallon. Well, you live in California, that's a government problem.

Jennifer 11:27

I know. Here we go. It's we don't have a problem here in Tennessee. But can we do that? Do you remember that? It was like, okay, we'll bring a couple dollars for gas. Like you had to pitch in, it didn't matter who drove. I don't I don't think that was a problem. Even the people's parents who had a lot of money, you still had to pay for gas. Like it was important. Gas money was important. We didn't really, I don't think, have a problem with uh, we had more of a problem with finding a ride than we had with somebody was going somewhere that we wanted to go. So um, but you know, it's did teach you too. I I will say that in the gas money thing, that at least where we grew up, it was imperative that everybody brought money and chipped in for that stuff. Is that it's probably a really good lesson for us as we were growing up because I don't think we always are like, Well, how much do I owe for this? Like we're never, I don't think any of us are that way. We're like, Well, you've got money, you can pay for that. Like everybody always tries to be like, Well, how much do I owe you? Do you want me to pay for some you know what I mean?

Jackie 12:22

Like, I think that's that was a good thing when we were kids that we had that kind of Yeah, and I don't ever felt like when we went out with our friends or all of us were together that anybody paid for any like that there was anybody that always never paid for anything. Right. Felt like everybody always contributed. Right. For everything. Or had their part, paid their part.

Jennifer 12:41

Yeah. Like and we do that and it's led through into our, you know, if we're gonna show up to someone's house, it's like, well, let's get some stuff and I'll bring this and you bring that. Like never feel like and I guess that could probably happen if you're if you have a family. I I know I worked with this guy, his daughter was he was he was wealthy, and his daughter was a spoiled brat running around and he paid for everything. But it got to the point where she was just using her credit card and swiping for everybody's gas. She was swiped for everybody's meals, she was just paying for everything because it's how she felt that they liked her, right? Because she was paying for everything, and his credit card bills were just exploding. And he would be like, he would get him because I worked with him and it was he was his owner, and he'd be like, Oh my god, she's you know, spent ten thousand dollars on a credit card. He wouldn't even get mad at her because he didn't have any skills to say, What the hell's going on here? Like he would just turn the credit card off and then she'd have to ask again, and he'd be like, Okay, we need to control your spending, and she'd do it again. Like, can you imagine if we had a friend that paid for everything? You can imagine how to do that.

Jackie 13:44

That would have been cool, but no.

Jennifer 13:46

I don't think he'd be friends, though, right? Because when you've got a friend that's always paying for everything, then you're not looking at them as a friend, you're looking at them as like a source of fun. Like, but I can't imagine. Thankfully, we didn't even have credit cards. Like now kids have credit cards, you know, they can run around and swipe, you know. We might get twenty dollars in a month or something. We'd have to, you know, separate that into paying for everything. But now they just run around with credit cards and swipe, and he had a big problem with her because that's how she made her friends, that's how she got popular. She paid for everybody's stuff and she was buying her way up the top. And he had no skill set to help her. He had no skill set to give her some parameters. He just cut her credit card off, and then he'd tell her next time, now be more responsible, but never any real guidelines there, and she just kept doing it. And it was like, you know, it was kind of entertaining to actually watch because it's like, dude, are you gonna say something to her? Like, because I could hear him. And he's like, he just talked to her like a normal day, could see her spending money all day long, but he didn't say nothing to her. And I was like, Oh man, that's not a good parenting tactic at all. So but you know, you're if you have money, you have to also, you know, we talk about not having money, Jackie, but can you imagine the people that have money, like in particular, how they feel like they are under the spotlight to have to spend it too, right? Like that would be a problem in friendship, like to make people feel like, well, you can afford it, so you pay for it or whatever. So there were some people though. I think that we thought there were some people that had money that we didn't have or had access to money that we didn't have, and like thinking that a little bit, I'm thinking of somebody off the top of my head that dad always gave her money and we always thought she had money, but it's probably maybe like this girl that you know that I was talking about that pays for everything, maybe wasn't that true. Maybe they, you know, in particular just put this falsehood up like they had a ton of money. I mean, you were just talking about somebody, I think, on our last podcast that was stealing money and you thought they just had a lot of money.

Jackie 15:37

Yeah, I just thought her mom I just thought she made money, and then I thought she got money from her mom all the time.

Jennifer 15:42

Yeah.

Jackie 15:42

So her mom was always gone, so I thought that that's she just got money. Well, that was another friend. Remember that um her dad was gone all the time, and so she was always writing checks, and remember she had the checkbook and stuff? Do you know who I'm talking about?

Jennifer 15:55

Yeah, I think I know what you're talking about. The girl that we used to have at parties at all the time. The one I'm thinking about, you rolled her car.

Jackie 16:02

No, yeah, that's the one that's the one who stole the money.

Jennifer 16:05

Yeah, that's the one I was thinking about.

Jackie 16:06

But the other one that used to write checks and stuff, she was in the same grade as us.

Jennifer 16:10

No, I don't remember who that is, but who has access to write checks? Good lord. That's a crazy. She did back then.

Jackie 16:15

She wrote no, no, no. She could write her dad let her write checks and stuff. He was gone all the time. She had a younger brother.

Jennifer 16:21

Yeah, I think I know what you're talking about. That's probably the girl I'm talking about who made us feel like she had money all the time because her dad gave her money. Yeah.

Jackie 16:27

Uh-huh.

Jennifer 16:28

Yeah. She was way up on the mountain, way further past.

Jackie 16:31

Exactly. Exactly.

Jennifer 16:33

Sorry, Jackie and you're having code talk right now because we're talking about people who were giving each other hands together.

Jackie 16:37

Well, because some people have gotten upset because we've used their names, so we're trying not to use people's names.

Jennifer 16:41

We're trying not to use names. But these are people that didn't really have a lot of money, but perceived themselves as having a lot of money. And you know, they put themselves. Yeah. That one would say be like, uh, hmm.

unknown 16:54

Yeah.

Jennifer 16:54

It's like this guy that I was talking about I worked with, it's like she's buying her friendship so that she can be friend popular or whatever. So But yeah, it can be a little uncomfortable when you don't have any money and people do. It's, you know, you just have to come up with a way to deal with that. And I think honesty is the best solution for that. Be like, look, guys, we don't have that kind of money. Or once you ask once in a while, like I was saying, people would ask you to go skiing all the time, you're like, no, I'm not gonna go skiing. Like, I don't have money, like maybe once in a great while. Like, I'll bring it up when I want to go skiing with you because I'm not gonna go skiing every weekend side of things. So there's definitely ways to kind of get around it, but you have to really be like okay with it. You can't you can't try to pretend to be somebody you're not and spend money that you don't have in order to do that. Because once you start doing that, and case in point, this girl that we know whose dad would let her write checks all the time, everybody thought she had a ton of money and that she could do all these things and she should spend all her money doing these things we wanted to do with her, or she should pick up the tab if if we don't have any money, but what she was doing was buying friendships, really.

Jackie 17:52

Remember, we thought her dad was a drug dealer.

Jennifer 17:57

Listen, we come up with a lot of scenarios when we were kids. Who has money? People that are drug dealers. That must be what her dad does. That's what we thought. He was never around, flew a plane. He must be a drug dealer. He must be a drug dealer. Yeah. Well, I don't I wouldn't put it passes. That's for darn sure. Okay, let's go on to bested rapping question, Jackie. Have you ever said yes to something you couldn't afford just to not feel left out? Sure you have.

Jackie 18:21

I think I've pretty much always tried to you get out of something if I couldn't.

Jennifer 18:25

Yeah.

Jackie 18:26

Yeah. I think I've always tried to not do it because yeah, I don't think I have.

Jennifer 18:31

Backtracking is worse than just going, I can't go. Like I'm not gonna be able to afford that.

Jackie 18:36

Like I don't ever just say like I just like I couldn't. Like I'd make some excuse, like, or I had to work, or no, I've got a family thing, but I'd make an excuse and just not do it.

Jennifer 18:46

To not do it. Yeah.

Jackie 18:48

Because if I couldn't get it, you know, if I couldn't because I never I didn't really have access to money to do it. I didn't really have credit cards and stuff like that when I was younger, you know what I mean? When I got older, I just didn't want to put myself in that situation. Even when I had my kids when I was worried, you know, divorcing is hard when you before you even know what you're gonna what's gonna happen with the money. Right. I'd keep myself kind of at bay, like, well, I'm not gonna do that yet, because I don't know what's gonna happen. You know what I mean?

Jennifer 19:13

Yeah, I totally get that.

Jackie 19:14

I was real cautious then too, till I knew how the divorce was gonna end up and what I was gonna end up with.

Jennifer 19:21

Yeah, yeah, that's true.

Jackie 19:22

You didn't know what the end goal was what the end amount was gonna be, but and I knew I had a very selfish ex-husband, so I know he was gonna do whatever he could, but right.

Jennifer 19:30

And he did. So he did. So but yeah, I think that you know, I remember particularly one time I wanted to go to Sadie Hawkins or something, and I was I to ask my mom for money to go because you know we had to buy the tickets. It was the girl buying the ticket kind of thing. That was the one thing that we had to do. And she's like, You gotta ask your dad. And I remember having to call my dad and being like, I don't even remember how much I asked him, like 35 bucks or something. It wasn't even that much money, but it was like I had to call my dad to get it done because I was a kid, you know what I mean? But Sadie Hawkins was the girl taking the guy to the dance, so it was a different we didn't have that.

Jackie 20:01

The boys And then back then you couldn't Venmo, so you had to go go go to your get the money to get the money.

Jennifer 20:05

So I had to wait for my dad to mail a check, be like, Can we go to the mailbox today? Can we get in the mailbox today? Like, because I can't even ask if I don't even know if my checks, you know what I mean? So I remember that.

Jackie 20:15

But okay, you next. Have you ever judged a friend for how they spend money?

Jennifer 20:21

Yes. And I'm gonna be really honest about that. The ones that spend too much money, of course I'm judging you because I'm like, what are you doing?

Jackie 20:29

Like it's like the Beverly Hills um uh housewives right now with Dorite and Kyle and all them. Yeah.

Jennifer 20:37

Or how they're spending money. Yeah, Doreen has no money.

Jackie 20:38

Because Dari has no money, but they're going to divorce and they owe like $800,000 and pass on the mortgage. Dorite telling her to speak.

Jennifer 20:47

Yeah. I saw that. Dorit's like, I didn't know. I'm like, BS, you didn't know. Every woman who's going through a divorce doesn't be like, excuse me, PK, can you pay the mortgage? It seems to be behind. He's like, Okay, I'll take care of it. And then you don't pay attention to it. Like, come on, Dorite, like, get over that.

Jackie 21:01

But she's spending $10,000 in a shop in Paris.

Jennifer 21:04

Oh, I know. She's like nobody else spends anybody.

Jackie 21:09

See, I wouldn't do that. I'd be like, no.

Jennifer 21:11

I I will judge people more harshly about how they waste their money than I will ever judge people who spend lightly. That's just how I am, maybe because I grew up that way. But it's like, oh my god, why are you spending that much money on that? Like, that's ridiculous. That's how I am. How are you kind of judgy, Jack?

Jackie 21:26

Do you have a No, I just think people that like owe money, that's the kind of thing.

Jennifer 21:30

Oh, you get judgy if they're like a lot of debt.

Jackie 21:33

Yeah, like why are you doing that then? Like you're just making yourself worse. And so you're making things worse for yourself and your kids, and you know, but that's the perception that we have a lot of money and we don't have a lot of money.

Jennifer 21:44

So we're living in a we're living in a falsehoodness of this this thing where we just have a ton of money, and reality is you don't have any money, which is kind of what we're talking about.

Jackie 21:52

You're gonna stress yourself out, you're gonna lose your house, you're gonna do all this stuff to your children, right? Because and then they're gonna have to deal with it, you know, because you're still affecting your children and when You do that. So you know.

Jennifer 22:02

Yeah. Well, that can be a problem in California in particular because there's such high socioeconomic levels and lower ones around in the same general area. But you try to keep keep up with the Jones, right? Isn't that the people? I don't but you gotta move if you're gonna keep up with the Joneses. You gotta move out of the high rent district. So Okay, go ahead. Oh, it's a good thing. Do you think money changes power in a friendship?

Jackie 22:27

Not really. No, I don't think so. It shouldn't. That's like I guess my my it shouldn't is how I feel.

Jennifer 22:33

Yeah. The only power it might change is that you have the power to pay for everything and I don't, so you pay for everything. It can be a bad thing. Having money or perception of money can also be a bad thing for people because then they get the bill more than normal people because they're like, Well, you don't uh you don't have any problems with money, so why don't you pay for all the gas tonight? Because it's just you know, you're getting money somewhere. Your dad's a drug dealer. I mean, that's probably what we said when we were kids.

Jackie 22:59

And but by the way, where's our drugs?

Jennifer 23:01

Since he's a drug dealer and all, like we want our drugs and our pay to the bill. Don't think that Jackie and I weren't in the backseat of her car going, well, she can pay for it. Her dad's a drug dealer. Like, I'm sure so the perception of money can also hurt you, people. Like, don't think that you're making like friends because people people think you have so much money. That's all I'm gonna say about that. All right, Jackie, you're next.

Jackie 23:21

What's harder to say I can't afford that or to hear it?

Jennifer 23:25

What's harder? To hear that you can't afford it or that to say it. Oh, to say I can't afford that. Is it harder for you to hear that or is it okay? I can't afford that, it's fine. I don't have a problem with that.

Jackie 23:35

I was also I think it's harder to hear it from somebody. Oh, that's somebody else. I want everybody, yeah, because I want everybody to, you know, have everything too.

Jennifer 23:43

You know what I mean? Yeah, that's true.

Jackie 23:47

Like I had to hear.

Jennifer 23:48

It's probably harder for it to hear somebody say they don't have the money, maybe, especially if you're friendly. Yeah.

Jackie 23:53

Yeah, because then I want to help them. You know, you want to help them.

Jennifer 23:55

They're like, oh, I have money. We could just do it mine. We'll do it on my thing. Like, you know. But then you're end up with huge bills. So that's me. I think it would probably be harder for me to say if somebody said if somebody said that to me, and you and I would I'm sure would be very like, it's okay, I got it. Don't worry about it. Yep.

Jackie 24:12

That's what we do, yeah.

Jennifer 24:13

We would we would probably because we knew that as children, that it's sort of embarrassing and that you wouldn't want people to know. And so you and I would pick up, like, just put it on my test. Let's let's move on. Let's go on.

Jackie 24:25

And the fact that you even said it out loud would be like, oh, we got this, we got this.

Jennifer 24:28

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep. I think you and I would definitely do that because we knew what it was like to feel that way, and we would not want somebody to feel that it would make us feel bad that they had to feel that way too, I think, would be more of it. So and then have you ever had a moment like this and didn't say it out loud, oh, that somebody couldn't afford something, and that you did. I know you did with one of your kids' friends. It's a thought I'm kimming about where the child couldn't afford something, so Jackie jumped in and paid for it.

Jackie 24:54

So the kid Yeah, because I was even mad at one of the moms that said it out loud, like, oh well, they didn't pay for and I was just like, you know what? Just I wanted to shut her up, and I said, I'm gonna pay for it, just we don't need to mention it. Right, right. I just thought was so awful. All of these kids have been friends forever. Yeah. And it was just like, How could you say that? Like, how could you even say anything out loud? Like you can afford it even more than I can. You know what I mean? It was just like it was ridiculous.

Jennifer 25:20

Right.

Jackie 25:20

Yeah.

Jennifer 25:21

Yeah. I mean, I I would do that. I would I'd write a check to save someone's embarrassment. It's not a it doesn't even bother me. Like it's second nature. Like, I got it, don't worry about it. Like, move on. I wouldn't even mention it, like just move on. Like, let's not talk about it.

Jackie 25:35

I don't want to be like Yeah, I just wanted it shut and closed and yeah, shut up and don't even say it to all these people. Right. Because some of these people don't even know who you what you're talking about or who know the family. Right. You know what I mean? It was just like it was stupid, just I want to shut your mouth.

Jennifer 25:49

Right. And that's the point, is that when you have lived through it to some degree, you are more sensitive to it to helping other people because you know how that is. So if you do live in a situation where you can't afford things, it will come to your benefit later because you will be much more adapt to being sensitive or being empathetic about it or helping people because you know how that feels. And if you have a lot of money and you don't understand how that feels for other people, you can you can pretty good you can shame them sometimes. So just be mindful of it, y'all. That's important to do. Okay, so at the end of the day, friendship isn't about who can afford what. It's whether you feel safe enough to be honest about where you are. Because the truth is, money doesn't create distance, but silence does. So talk about it, y'all. Don't hide your feelings, don't hide your emotions. If you have true friends, they will be okay with it. They will jump in, they will help you, they will be more sensitive about it. So, you know, give that a chance if you haven't to just have an honest conversation with them as well. All right, if this episode hit you in the fields or made you laugh way too hard, we consider that a win.

Jackie 26:49

Be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with your ride or die. Because the best li love stories don't always come with a ring.

Song 27:09

We stick together, ride or die, to the moon, and no amount of space could ever come between us two. And every single time we're out of iron heart to heart. There's not enough words to describe what you made a make. I'll bottom back to the cry. We're writing a story. Every day we'll keep on the day.