Sharing expenses between friends and family is bound to cost you more money and take a toll on your relationship. A PayPal (PYPL) study found the average respondent was owed $450 by friends and family, totaling $51 billion. The survey of more than 4,000 people in the United States, Canada, Germany and Australia also revealed one-third of respondents saw a relationship go south over IOUs. People feel awkward about asking friends and family to pay up for their share of the expense. ‘The tension that a person feels when they have someone who owes them money is part of what’s preventing them from actually asking to get the money back,’ said Dr. Ryan Howell, associate professor at San Francisco University. Instead of having an awkward conversation with your friend, reminding them of how much money they owe you, Howell points to the convenience of a peer-to-peer lending platforms, such as Venmo or PayPal.me. ‘That can actually intervene in a way that it allows you to ask for your money back, without having to actually ask for your money back,’ he said. ‘It will give them notifications that they owe you money.‘ The study found 79 percent of U.S. respondents found peer-to-peer lending platforms save time, while 65 percent described them as ‘liberating.’ TheStreet’s Scott Gamm reports from New York.
Subscribe to TheStreetTV on YouTube:
For more content from TheStreet visit:
Check out all our videos:
Follow TheStreet on Twitter:
Like TheStreet on Facebook:
Follow TheStreet on LinkedIn:
Follow TheStreet on Google+:
source
