“When a family member suffers financial problems, what do you do? Compassion or tough love?”

How wealthy am I pretending to be? JR Ewing loaded? Mother Theresa poor? Or a mixture of Dan Akroyd and Eddie Murphy in Trading Places?

The point being, if you’re dirt poor, then it won’t matter how much you love ’em, financial “compassion” might not be an option.

But handing out money to solve problems is like feeding chips to seagulls at the beach. They’ll just keep coming back until there’s none left. Or they explode.

Unless there’s a particularly pressing reason for bailing them out, tough love it’s got to be.

Balancing your personal finances can be really hard, even for those who are generally in command of their money. But whatever your income, being able to balance a personal budget is a fundamental life skill.

Unless you’ve got a significant other or a trusted professional in charge of your finances, you need to take responsibility for it.

I’m a big fan of the proverb: “Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you’ll feed him for a lifetime.”

If someone close to you is finding it difficult, the best help you can give is to teach them how to budget. If you don’t have the patience, then pay for them to see someone about it.

Or try to find a book that will inspire them.

Bruce Brammall is the author of Debt Man Walking (www.debtman.com.au) and a licensed financial adviser.