Even if you are the kindest and most generous person, you know that boundaries must be set; otherwise, you will never get a break from helping people. As soon as you reach out and give a helping hand, you are creating an opening for people to ask something of you anytime they need it. You might not mind it at first, but after the number of requests reaches double digits, you might feel differently, and by then, it could be too late to put a stop to it.
While there is truly nothing wrong with wanting to help others, it doesn't hurt to do so with caution and carefully choose the way you decide to help.
If a neighbor asks to borrow your ladder, the risks are very low. At the most, you give them the ladder and never see it again, but at least you helped someone out. If a neighbor asks you to co-sign a loan for them, that is a request with many risks that we would not recommend agreeing to.
Anything involving money is a high-risk favor, really, but co-signing on a loan might be the riskiest one. Your neighbor could easily make you default on the loan and force you to pay it all, and depending on how big it is, you could be out tens of thousands of dollars just because you wanted to offer a helping hand.
Not to mention that as soon as you agree to something like this, the money requests will never stop coming. Anytime this neighbor needs to fund something, they will turn to you. You already agreed once; what's the harm in doing it again and again?
That is why the neighbors in the story below refused to co-sign on a neighbor's loan for a Disney trip with his kids. First, because it is an insane request, and second, because they knew they would never hear the end of it. The helping hand does not reach that far.
Two neighbors talking outside.
Subjects are models.
The Disney castle at Disney World.
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