Click the link below the picture
.
In these inflationary times, the price of friendship has gone up. As your social calendar fills up this summer, you may be looking at the brunches and parties and group trips and wondering how on Earth you can afford all of it.
And if you find yourself with a smaller budget than those in your social circle, things can get awkward, either because you feel pressured to overspend to maintain a connection with your richer friends or because you’re unsure how to handle or repay their generosity.
Etiquette experts say there’s more than one way to navigate these dynamics, but generally agree on one thing: Whether it’s a destination wedding or just a fancy dinner, you are under no obligation to go if it will hurt your budget. And you don’t have to make excuses either.
“If I don’t want to attend an event, I just say, ’I appreciate the invitation, but I’ll have to pass,” says Diane Gottsman, a national etiquette expert and founder of the Protocol School of Texas. “I might say I have an early morning tomorrow. But it could be an early morning because I have to brush my teeth.”
If an invitation is too expensive, offer alternatives
Etiquette and financial experts alike approve of a social trend that emerged on TikTok known as “loud budgeting.” The gist is that, as budgets tighten, more and more people are feeling comfortable setting boundaries with the people in their life about what they can and can’t afford.
A loud budgeter might turn down an invitation to a fancy restaurant by saying, “Sorry, I only have $30 left in my food budget for the month.”
While that kind of communication may be appropriate between close friends, you needn’t even go that far, says Thomas Farley, an etiquette expert and keynote speaker known as Mister Manners. “You don’t need to give some hard-driving rationale for why you can’t make it, whether that’s money or some sort of conflict,” he says.
If it’s an opulent destination wedding that’s out of your price range, you’re fine sending your regrets along with a gift off the registry, Gottsman says. If it’s a luxury trip, you may say you can’t swing it this year, that you just made another major purchase, or that you simply don’t have room in your schedule. No need to go into specifics.
“You simply don’t have to take every invitation that’s offered to you,” she says.
.
Maskot | Getty Images
.
.
Click the link below for the article:
.
__________________________________________
James' World 2 
Leave a comment