If a stranger asks you for money and you don't want to give

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...it, how would you pull yourself out of it without getting into trouble?

Would you say the blunt truth and prepare for the consequences?

Is the reference to panhandlers, or family friend, or someone at work collecting for something?
My response would vary, depending on the circumstances.

Sylkat

A person who is not related to you in anyway who approaches you in public.

Ignore them.

Which is my response to everything.

Panhandlers usually just move on to the next person if you say no. I usually just give them some spare change or a dollar bill though since I'm not a tightwod like some people.

I've had this happen, just say you don't carry any cash.

Ignore them and walk away as fast as possible, pulling out my phone in case of harassment.

I don't like to be talked to by strangers in public when I'm alone especially at night. I've also heard of some bad stories in my area when a woman said no to giving change.

I usually say I forgot my wallet at home.

Did that not work?

Well yeah, but I was stupid enough not to come up with that excuse yet earlier in my life.

If you have a large amount of cash in your wallet let the stranger see all of it while reaching for a $1 bill to give them. lol

Meh, there's a lot of things I wasn't smart enough to come up with earlier in my life. Long as I'm still alive and relatively well...I'm not going to beat myself up over it...does nothing to change the past.

And I usually don't carry cash on me anyways.

If they really are in need, I try and get them some food. Like this one guy asked if I had some money, but I didn't/...and I asked if he wanted some food...and he said yes, and he was so happy to get a few bags of peanuts, raisins, and graham crackers (only things that didn't need to be cooked that I had in the apt). I love helping in those situations.

I had a panhandler walk up behind me and demand money when I went to the cash machine, shouting "Excuse me!" as though he wanted to be noticed. I simply ignored him entirely, drew my money out and calmly walked back the way I came. I won't give money to people who are rude.

I did, however, give 50p to a chap who needed change from a fiver and I didn't have any money on me because he wanted a chocolate bar. I gave it him, he was very grateful, and I told him to have a nice life. Oh, and before anyone starts wondering, he was a foreigner.

I've given money to people begging when I've been able to afford to do so. Nowadays I'm pretty much broke myself so just shake my head or politely say 'no' and carry on walking. I can't help observing that a number of these beggars are drunk and/or smoking cigarettes - I can't afford to buy any booze at all nowadays and certainly couldn't afford to smoke, not that I'd want to do that anyway having given up twenty years ago.

While most beggars appear "legit" there is what I can only describe as a "professional beggar" in the nearby town - she's been begging for over 7 years to my knowledge and judging by her appearance she does very well out of it - can't help wondering if the money is for her or for a "handler" though.

I don't like to lie but in this case I just tell them I don't have any money. Sometimes it's even true and I'm poor and have no income so what little I do have I need myself.

I did once give a dollar or two to a little old lady begging outside a store I went in before they went out and told her to go away. I felt bad for her. She was old and had a walker. She probably had to live off a measly little ssi check if she even had any income at all.

When I have no money then i have no money and I say so. What consequences should exist, which i had to prepare to? O_o In the last 21 years the world did not end, when I said that I have no money.