These are excerpts from the author’s book “Deep,” which contains eight of his small books published in the form of Wisdom Literature covering different aspects of life: Facing troublemakers, dealing with pain, personal financial issues, gastronomy, reading, criticizing, inspiring, and feeling always good to go.

Series 3: Pocket – Your Personal Economy.

Week 49: Your Debts

• You can always postpone the purchase of some necessities, no matter how important they are, and reprioritize your purchase. Your debts arise not when your needs become more than your income but when your spending is more than your budget.

• Borrowing is one of the last resorts to address your financial problems, but it is important to pay attention so that debt does not exacerbate these problems. You must have a clear payment plan and an equally clear plan in case you fail to pay off the debt.

• Having close people who can lend, and not being embarrassed to ask, should not encourage you to borrow frequently. Debt cannot be adopted as a continuous means of budgetary control in any case. Even debts that you trust their lenders to forgive you—if you fail to pay off—should not be counted on. You can build a stable life only on what you have of money and not on what others can help you with.

• Proactive debt treatment is better than dealing with debt embarrassment and repayment problems. Be committed not to spend exceeding your income in any way, no matter what temptations or even what seems to you as necessities at times. Deduct an emergency amount as much as possible, and do not touch it for any investment, no matter how tempting. As you assess your financial situation, try to be as far-sighted as possible; it makes no sense to think of how to avoid an accident just when you are about to get into it if the accident indications seemed to you clearly from afar.

• It is never the best solution to treat debts with further debts, whether from the same source or from an alternative one. This looks like an action to justify postponing thinking about radically solving the problem, which is just a manner of procrastination that exacerbates the problem.

• Carefully studied loans for specific investments are not primarily debts, but poor investments management may turn the consequences of those loans into worse than the consequences of the debts arising from borrowing to pay critical or urgent necessities.

• It is OK to enjoy the sweet taste of a debt that relieves you of a great distress, but at the same time, it is wise to remember the bitter taste of default when the time comes.

• Regardless of the financial feasibility, it does not seem ethical to borrow because you do not want to touch your savings or other investments. However, if you feel this is necessary to you in a specific situation, it is morally important to make sure that you are approaching someone who will not be burdened by your debt.

• It is not a bad idea to have a specific person whom you borrow from and who borrows from you when needed. Mutual trust will minimize the problems of misunderstanding and annoyance in cases of default by any party due to force majeure or any reason. But always remember that it is necessary not to adopt debt as a regular plan for managing your financial and life affairs in general. It is better to consider debt—in most of its forms—as the last solution that is adopted to avoid declaring bankruptcy.

• Dealing with debt includes responses to borrowing requests you receive, not only your need to borrow from others. Your view and evaluation should be comprehensive for every request someone addresses to borrow from you so that the human and ethical aspects are evaluated alongside your financial capabilities. It is better that your willingness to support is not defined only by a single separate factor.