I didn’t grow up with a lot of money, but I grew up with people who did what they could for each other. You helped if you could, no matter what. There was always someone who needed a little something until payday—$40 here, $100 there, groceries, rent help, a phone bill. When I started working full-time in my 20s, I became the person in the family who “had it together.” Or at least, I looked like I did. I was working, living in the city, paying my own bills. People assumed I had extra. I never corrected them.
The truth? I was drowning. Quietly. I had credit card debt, no savings, and just enough income to keep up appearances. But still, when someone asked me for help, I gave what I could. Sometimes what I couldn’t. It made me feel needed. It also made me feel like I was doing something good with my money, even when I was mismanaging everything else. The idea of saying no felt selfish.
But the thing about being the go-to person is that it doesn’t stop when you’re struggling. I was two months into my new “get out of debt” plan, still clinging to every extra dollar like it was my lifeline, when the call came. A relative needed to borrow $200 “just until next week.” It wasn’t a new ask. I’d done it before. They always paid me back—eventually. And I sat there, staring at my phone, trying to figure out how to say no without sounding like I didn’t care.
The truth was, I did care. I just didn’t have it to give anymore. I had finally started making consistent extra payments on my smallest credit card. I’d just transferred $150 into savings for the first time in years. That money wasn’t extra. It was the fragile beginning of something I was trying to build for myself.
So I took a deep breath and said, “I can’t help this time. Things are tight for me right now, and I’m working on paying off my own debt.”
The silence on the other end felt like forever.
Then came the guilt trip—light, but familiar. “I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t desperate.” “It’s just a small loan.” “You know I’ll pay you back.” And finally, the kicker: “But you always help.”
Yeah. I always had. And that was the problem.
I held the boundary. It didn’t feel good. It felt terrible. I hung up the phone and cried, not because I felt mean—but because I hated how uncomfortable it made everything. I hated disappointing someone I loved. I hated the way saying no made me feel like I was choosing myself over family.
But here’s what I didn’t hate: logging into my bank account the next day and seeing that my payment had gone through. Seeing that my tiny savings balance was still there. Knowing that I’d stuck to my plan. That I hadn’t backslid. That I had protected something sacred—my progress.
It wasn’t the last time I had to say no. But it was the first time I realized that helping someone else at the cost of my own stability wasn’t noble. It was unsustainable. I’d spent years trying to be everyone else’s safety net while I had nothing soft to land on myself.
I’ve learned to offer other kinds of support: a ride, a meal, helping someone apply for assistance, or just listening when things are hard. But when it comes to my money? I now ask myself, Can I afford to give this without derailing my own plan? If the answer is no, then I don’t do it. Not out of coldness, but out of care—for myself and for the future I’m working so hard to create.
Saying no doesn’t mean I don’t love them. It means I finally love me, too.
If you’ve ever felt torn between helping someone and holding your financial boundaries, you’re not alone. It’s hard. Especially when you’re a woman who’s been taught to carry everyone else’s weight. But protecting your financial healing isn’t selfish—it’s necessary. And every time you say no with compassion and clarity, you’re rewriting an old script that never served you in the first place.