Table Of Contents for This Series
- How To Identify and Remove Real and Emotional Leeches
- How To Identify and Remove a Productivity Leech
- How To Identify and Remove a Financial Leech
This is part three of a three part series on the Identification and Removal of Leeches. This part covers financial leeches and concludes the series.
Financial Leech
Description: Financial leeches are people who drain your financial resources.
Removal:
- Recognize that you have a leech on you
- Find out where it’s actually attached:
- Calmly inform the leech that you will no longer provide it with financial support and give it a deadline to be on its own.
- Once the leech is detached from you, get rid of it immediately, as it will try to reattach itself.
It may be hard to recognize a financial leech because they commonly attach themselves by having a legitimate problem or issue that they need help with. The financial leech, however, remains with you after the initial problem was solved and may continue to (intentionally or unintentionally) create problems so they can continue to drain you.
Identify how the leech attached itself to you. Trace back to the initial problem, determine whether it was remedied, and move forward from there. If the initial problem was solved, determine why the leech is still attached to you, and figure out a way to detach it as soon as possible.
A financial leech has no plans to remove itself from you and may actually think that it’s not attached; this is especially the case with adutolescents. Calmly inform the leech that you will not sustain their lifestyle indefinitely and that they will be on their own after a certain date. Hold firm to that date (see note below) and make their living off of you as uncomfortable as possible.
The financial leech may “try” to get back on its feet after you have removed it. Make sure that the leech understands that you will not be providing it support, and under no circumstances should you give the leech any free or discretionary money. If the leech begins to struggle, point it to resources for it to support itself, but under no means should you become that resource. Note: remember that having the leech live with you is draining finances from you, as you will be paying for utilities and buying groceries.
Notes:
- A financial leech will feed on you for as long as it can or until it finds someone else to provide a better standard of living. At that point, it will move on, as your money has provided it with its standard of living for several months or years.
- Financial leeches that are removed poorly will find a way to reattach themselves. Successive attempts to remove financial leeches become increasingly difficult, as their debt and expectations have increased while your finances have decreased, and your support has only made them less capable of taking care of themselves.
- The relatively small amount of money drained by the financial leech will initially not bring about your financial ruin. You will recover your money and manage to get back on your feet within a few months. The aggregate effect of many financial leeches, or one leech that has drained you for too much for too long, may cost you your financial stability and may lead to bankruptcy, unemployment, and depression.
- Financial leeches require a relatively stable, financially secure person to attach themselves to. Less dependable hosts do not provide the standard of living they are looking for and will not be able to support them for the long-term.
- Financial leeches are incredibly perceptive and can sense whether a person has both enough money to help them and the disposition to do so. Avoid flagrant displays of wealth or income and be careful who you disclose your financial success to.
Real leeches only thrive in very specific parts of the world, and they actually aren’t that hard to avoid. The human leeches, though, thrive world-wide and can be far more dangerous to your flourishing than the squirmy kind. If you every feel yourself being drained, take a step back and figure out if you’ve got a leech. If you do, remove that sucker and move on!
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I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you.
Tim Ramsey
I found your site on google blog search and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. Just added your RSS feed to my feed reader. Look forward to reading more from you.
- Jason.
@ Jason and Tim: Thanks for stopping by and for your kind comments. I look forward to hearing from you in the future!
You know, I read a lot of what you have written and I thought to myself – this guy is brilliant and has one of the best blogs I have ever read! Then I get down here to this post and see that you are calling Republicans financial leeches. The facts are – Democrats raise taxes more than anyone else. George Bush is a disappointment yes but to call ALL Republicans leeches is a joke. And offensive.
@ A Republican: That probably wasn’t the smartest thing to put into a post because humor doesn’t convey very well and I thought that this series would be one of my more obscure posts. Okay, so they’re all obscure.
The stab was supposed to be tongue in cheek, as every word in that one offends someone. At the very least, I should have been more descriptive and said Republican politicians. What you should know is that I’ve got good friends from every end of the political spectrum, and I know political affiliation has no bearing on character.
I am editing the post, so what it originally said will not be publicly available. Thanks for calling me out on this one; sometimes we all need to be reminded to be better people.
I also very much appreciate the kind feedback about the content of the site. I’m sorry it came under the circumstances, but I’m glad that you took a second to leave the comment.
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