He will pay you when someone else pays him

"I will pay you the day my own money comes." Sometimes that is completely true, and it is still not a plan. Find out who owes him and when, agree a small amount he can pay from what he has now, and stop the goods going out on top. Waiting is the only answer that helps nobody.

The sentence, and why it is different

You have heard every excuse a counter can produce. This one is not like the others, and treating it like the others is the first mistake.

A painter finished a house and has not been paid for it. A tailor delivered forty suits to a shop that pays at the end of the season. A man drives a rented van and the party he hauls for settles when it feels like it. A schoolteacher's salary is two months behind. In every one of those cases the man standing in front of you is telling you the truth, and the truth is that his money is real, it exists, and it is in somebody else's pocket.

He is not avoiding you. He is at the end of a chain, and you are the next link down. That is why the usual moves do not work on him. Pressure does not create money he does not have, and shame does not either, and if you push hard enough all you do is move yourself from the front of his list to the back of it.

But there is a version of this sentence that is not true, and you will meet both. So the work is to find out which one you are looking at, and then to stop waiting either way.

Two kinds of stuck, and only one is your problem

Two men say the same sentence

His money really is stuckThe sentence has become the answer

Who owes himHis money really is stuckNames them at once, with detailThe sentence has become the answerVague, and the subject changes

When it should arriveHis money really is stuckA date, or an event you can checkThe sentence has become the answerSoon. It has been soon for months

What he offers nowHis money really is stuckSomething small, if you ask properlyThe sentence has become the answerNothing, every time

What to doHis money really is stuckSmall weekly amount, goods against paymentThe sentence has become the answerTreat it as a promise problem, not a cash one

The difference matters because the two need opposite treatment.

Genuinely stuck means the money exists, it is owed to him by somebody with a name, and there is a date or an event when it should arrive. This man will pay you. He is worth carrying a little longer, on terms.

Comfortably stuck means "stuck" has become the standing answer. Nothing is named, no date is given, and the sentence arrives every time you ask, unchanged, as if it were a receipt. That is not a cash problem, it is a promise being used instead of a payment, and it needs the treatment that goes with that.

You can tell them apart with two questions, asked kindly, at the counter, without any edge in your voice.

Who owes it to you, and when did they say they would pay?

A man whose money is genuinely stuck answers both instantly, usually with more detail than you wanted, because he has been thinking about nothing else. A man who is using the sentence answers neither, and changes the subject to how business is slow.

Ask without calling him a liar

Those two questions are the whole check, but they have to sound like interest rather than an examination, or a decent customer will feel accused and stop coming.

The way to do that is to ask about his side of it first, and mean it. "Is that the same party as last time? Have they said anything at all?" You are asking about his problem, not about your money, and for about a minute you are on his side of the counter. Almost everybody answers that.

Then, still in the same tone, the one sentence that changes the whole conversation:

"So what can you do until then?"

That is the pivot, and it is the most useful sentence in this article. It accepts that his money is stuck. It does not accept that nothing happens until it comes. It hands the problem back to him, gently, and asks him to solve the part of it that he can solve.

Nine times out of ten the answer is a number. It will be a small number. Take it.

The four sentences, in order

1. 1Ask about his side first"Same party as before? Have they said anything?" For a minute you are on his side of the counter.
2. 2"So what can you do until then?"Accepts that his money is stuck. Does not accept that nothing happens meanwhile.
3. 3Take whatever number he saysWrite it in front of him and say the new balance out loud. Then thank him properly.
4. 4Fix the day for the next oneA day, not "whenever I can". Small and certain beats large and hoped for.

Take something now, not everything later

This is the part shopkeepers get wrong, and it costs them more than any other decision in this situation.

Offered Rs 2,000 against a balance of Rs 28,000, most shopkeepers refuse it, or accept it grudgingly while making it clear it is not enough. Both are mistakes, and here is the arithmetic that shows why.

Say the balance is Rs 28,000 and he offers Rs 2,000

Refuse it and wait for the whole amountRs 0 in six months

Goods he keeps taking while you both waitBalance grows to Rs 44,000

Or take Rs 2,000 a week, goods only against paymentRs 24,000 in twelve weeks

Goods he takes at half of what he paysRs 12,000 back on the shelf as sales

Balance after twelve weeks of small paymentsAbout Rs 16,000 and falling

An example, not a real customer. The point is the direction, not the figures.

A man who pays something every week stays a customer who pays. A man who is told his Rs 2,000 is not worth taking learns that there is no point coming to your counter unless he can clear the whole amount, which he cannot, so he stops coming. Then his balance is not slow. It is gone, and you are in the territory of udhaar that has been sitting for a year.

There is a second reason, and it is about him rather than you. Paying you something, even a little, lets him keep his face. A man who cannot pay anything at all starts to avoid the street your shop is on, and a customer who has begun avoiding you is very hard to bring back.

So take the Rs 2,000. Write it down in front of him, say the new balance out loud, and thank him properly. That last part is not politeness. It is what makes him come again next week.

And put a date on the next one. Not "whenever you can". A day. Small and certain beats large and hoped for, every single time.

Stop the hole from getting deeper

Here is where the real damage happens, and it is nearly always the shopkeeper's own doing.

A customer whose money is stuck still needs to eat, and he will keep taking goods while he waits, and you will keep giving them because he has always paid before and because refusing feels harsh when you know his story is true.

Six weeks later his balance has doubled and neither of you noticed it happening.

The rule that saves you is simple and it is not unkind: while a balance is stuck, no new goods on top of it without a payment first. Not a refusal. A ratio. He pays Rs 2,000, he can take Rs 1,000 of goods. The balance comes down, he still gets what he needs, and both of you can see it working.

Say it plainly and say it once, and say it as a rule of the shop rather than a judgement of him. "Until this comes down I can only give against payment. It is the same for everybody at the moment." A rule is much easier for a proud man to accept than a personal decision about his character, and it protects the friendship you are both trying to keep.

If he is already taking half of what he needs elsewhere, you have your answer about where you sit in his order of paying, which is worth knowing before you extend anything more.

When his chain actually breaks

Sometimes the money at the top of the chain never comes. The party that owed him goes under, the contractor disappears, the season is a disaster.

His money is not late any more. It is gone, and yours is now a completely different kind of balance. Treat it as one.

At that point, three things are true. He cannot pay from that source, so any repayment now has to come out of his ordinary income, which is smaller and already spoken for. He probably owes several people the same way, so what he pays you depends on where you sit in that queue. And the amount, as it stands, is almost certainly beyond him.

The move is to convert it into something he can actually complete: a small fixed weekly amount, agreed out loud, written down, starting immediately rather than when things improve. A man who owes Rs 40,000 with no plan pays nothing for years. The same man paying an agreed amount every Friday clears it, slowly, and stays a customer while he does. And if his household earns on one day of the week, put your day right beside it, because matching the collection to the day he is paid is what makes a small promise survive.

Where it is truly beyond recovery, decide that on purpose rather than by exhaustion, and stop spending your own hours on it. That decision is its own subject and it is worth making with a clear head, not on the day you are angriest about it.

Keep the promise where you can see it

The thing that makes this situation ruinous is not the customer. It is that the arrangement lives in a conversation nobody wrote down.

Three weeks later, neither of you can remember whether he said Friday or the following one, whether he promised two thousand or three, or what the balance was before the last payment. So you ask again, wrongly, and now there is an argument on top of a debt.

Write the promise the moment it is made: the amount, the day, and the balance after it. In Wasoolo that is what the customer's page already holds, so the last payment and the running balance are in front of you before you open your mouth, and a reminder can go to his own phone on the day he chose rather than the day you happened to remember. He gets to see the number coming down as well, which is exactly the thing that keeps a man paying.

None of this makes his money come faster. It makes sure that when it does come, you are the first person he pays.

He asks me to wait until his party settles. Should I agree?

Agree to a small payment now and a date, not to waiting. Waiting is not an arrangement, and it lets the balance grow while nothing comes back.

Is it fair to take Rs 1,000 from a man whose money is genuinely stuck?

Yes, if he offers it. Paying something keeps him a customer and keeps his face. Refusing it teaches him to stay away until he can clear everything, which may be never.

He wants me to speak to the party who owes him. Should I?

No. That is not your balance and you have no standing in it. What you can do is put your own arrangement with him in writing, so his difficulty does not become your loss.

What if several customers say the same thing at once?

Then it is the season, not the man, and your own supplier payments are about to feel it. Tighten new udhaar first and collect small amounts weekly rather than chasing whole balances.

Should I stop serving him completely?

Rarely. Serve him against payment instead, at a fixed ratio, and say it as a rule of the shop rather than a judgement of him.

He has been saying this for months. How long is too long?

The moment he cannot name who owes him and when. That is the day it stopped being stuck money and became a habit, and it needs a different answer.