The Art of Saying ‘No’

I always had a hard time saying ‘no’ to a person! I used to argue within myself that the person in the front was a human and if he asked for help I should help him/ her regardless of everything else. I still don’t think that I was wrong in that, in fact I encourage you to help the fellow human beings. Isn’t that why we form a society? But there are situations when you just can’t say ‘yes’. No matter what, your work is most important to you, and you should not let anybody just barge into your life and disrupt your work for which you may lose your job and more importantly your peace of mind!

Why I couldn’t I say ‘no’. I would always think that since this person had had asked me for help he/ she must had some genuine reason and he/ she could not do it by himself/ herself. In that case I’d not even think of saying ‘no’ because of the fear of proving myself to be ‘inconsiderate’. If the person was my friend or an acquaintance, I’d fear that I might lose his/ her friendship and moreover I might not even get any help when I’d need some in future. In such cases, I used to convince myself that what they were asking for were more important than what I was doing (which was not true always).

What happens if you are a ‘yes-man’. If you can’t say ‘no’ firmly, people will take you to be granted and they will never have any respect for what you do. They will use you to their own advantage. Needless to say, you’ll have less time for your work and you will lose your focus. Moreover you’ll get frustrated when the people you helped are not ready to return the favor. You don’t want to show yourself to be a ‘yes-man’, do you?

How to say ‘no’ without sounding ‘inconsiderate’. It’s not very easy, but it can be done. You just have to show that you understand his/ her problem and you are concerned about it. Give one and only one ‘genuine sounding’ reason (it doesn’t have to be genuine, but don’t sound as if you are giving an excuse) why you can’t help at that particular time (e.g. ‘My boss wants this done before lunch because he’ll need it for the meeting at 1′), apologize for not being able to help and also tell him/ her to let you know if he/ she needs any help in future. It all depends on how you say those words. Keep your cool, be polite and sound that you consider the problem to be a grave one (it doesn’t matter if you don’t think it’s so).

When to say ‘no’. In most cases you will know when you feel like saying ‘no’( although the problem is actually saying it). First of all, decide which one is more important – your work or what the other person is seeking your help for. In almost all the situations you won’t be able to handle both of them at the same time. Ask yourself the following questions: (1) ‘Is this an emergency?’. If ‘yes’, then (2) ‘What happens if I leave/ postpone my work?’, (3) What happens if I don’t help?’, (4) ‘Can he/ she do it without my help?’, (5) Is there anybody else available to help with the problem?’. If the problem is not an emergency, you can safely say ‘no’. Don’t underestimate your own work. Neither do the same for the work which your help is being sought for. If you find that the person asks for help in several occasions, consider saying ‘no’ as soon as possible. If you don’t like the person or there is no hope of getting any kind of help from him/ her in return (use your own experience with that person), say ‘no’.

In my last post I mentioned that I used to be a kid even a few months ago, and I had helped people without thinking about what I should get in return till then, because I was ‘kind’ in my heart (hehehe!) and moreover I lacked the ability to say ‘no’. As a result, people would just use me, my time and my resources to get their work done. When I decided that I got to stop that, I started saying ‘no’ when I didn’t feel like helping. They didn’t think I was inconsiderate (but just busy), and I haven’t lost any friend so far!

My Experience With Money

I was a kid until a few months ago! I was being supported by my dad until the day I graduated from college. I never tried to experiment with money because I never had much of it of my own to experience with. I never worked while I attended college, partly because the course-work was too heavy (that’s an excuse), but mostly because my parents did not want me to work (because they were concerned that I would not do well in my studies if I worked). I had a very vague idea what money actually is and how exactly it works: “Go to work, get paid after each month and spend all the money before you get the next month’s salary: only old people save for the future!” I was so wrong!

Shopping spree

When I joined graduate school I started getting paid and I stopped asking my parents for money. After I got my first pay-check, I jumped into a shopping spree. I bought a new cell phone with features which I did not need and there was not the slightest possibility that I’d use those soon. Along the line came a TV, a DVD player, a music system, three cameras, a piano keyboard, a guitar, a desktop and a laptop PC, and before the end of the semester – a car.

Once I had a car of my own paid from my own pocket, the world seemed to lie under my wheels. I would be out driving my car in a speed which is way over the posted limit all the time except when I had to be at school. I did not care much about the gas (‘it’s just a percent of my salary’). I would soon get bored with the things that I possessed, for example, I did not know how to play a guitar but I bought it with the hope that I’d learn it someday; I practiced the basics for first couple of weeks then just gave it up, and it has been just hanging there on my wall since then. I bought my second camera just because my roommate was planning to buy one which was better than my first. After a year, I saw a deal for a canon which was going at a rate of 20% off of the original price and I just bought it immediately (my third camera). After another month I learned that the price of the same dropped to another two hundred dollars. The same thing happened to my laptop too: I first had a desktop PC, but since all my friends had a laptop, I convinced myself that I too need one. I bought a dell, and after two months I found that the price dropped to half.

Taking vacations

I used to go out almost every weekend for a vacation (as if my work was so hard that I needed a break every weekend!). It was hard for me to stay in the university town after the school had closed at five. I would pick up some friend, stay in motel, drink in some good restaurants, and come back very late on Sunday. None of my friends offered to share gas and sometimes I had to pay for their lodging and meals as well. I was too shy to ask the the money back!

Eating out

I lived just within a 15 minutes walking distance from my school, but the distance seemed insurmountable at the time of lunch. So I would eat either in the university cafeteria or nearby restaurants and often pay for the friends who accompanied me. Some days (which would be very often) at night, I just felt not like cooking at all: I would ask for pizza delivery or go out to eat in a restaurant, and since I would not feel like going alone I’d take my roommate or some other friend(s) (whose dinner would be paid by me).

Credit cards

By now, you might be wondering how I could manage those with such a meager salary of a grad student! The answer is very simple: I have ten credit cards. Whenever I received a mail with an offer for %0 APR, I would have to take that offer. I would keep buying stuffs against it until it was maxed out and then I’d go for the next card. If I put a five grand in a card I would convince myself that it was not big enough because I could pay it off in less than five months with the salary that I would get! It was partly true, but I forgot the fact that in order to be able to do that I had to restrain my spending habit.

Love and life

I met the most beautiful girl in the whole universe last year. She lived in a different country; so when she was not with me I would call her and we’d talk for hours – four to five hours in an average in any given day. Soon we decided that we should get married. Wow! But when I looked carefully into my whole financial situation it did not look like so wow: I had about fifteen grands of debt and I had been paying about a grand each month to make those phone calls! Moreover the credit card companies took a vow to nail me down by increasing their APRs. I know that fifteen grand may not be too high a debt to some of you, but it is super high for a grad student (and it’s way over the national average of $8000).

The salvation

I realized that before I got married I had to restrain my ways because after marriage it wouldn’t be just me! I took a day off, sat down with an excel sheet and figured out a plan. I am good at math and so it did not take a long time to come up with a nice plan that would suit a married grad student’s salary. I tracked every penny that I spent for a month, and then adjusted my plan in accordance with that. I did not tell her every detail of it, but I let her know my actual financial position. We got married soon. We have been living a happy married life since then. But it would have been happier had I been more careful with my money earlier. It should be another year before we are debt-free, but the plan that I chalked out seems to work fine. I’ll never make such mistakes again. Never ever!

Hello world!

Welcome to Dime Time. For your information: this is a personal finance blog. Here I’ll write about my experience with money. I made several mistakes in my life mostly regarding money, just because I was not properly educated about it. In my blog you’ll find several of those mistakes and how I am striving to get over them. I am going to outline several ways one can easily get around those mistakes. I wish I started writing this blog five years ago!

So get ready for an account of an experience of someone who made numerous mistakes with dimes and dollars and is now trying to get over it and make it big. It’s dime time!