I understand it is not always easy to just say ‘It’s a personal matter’ because of the given situation/s and also the person/s addressed.
However, if you train yourself to be ever mindful of the consequences – in the short term, the convenience of ‘escaping with a lie’ on the one side, and, in the longer term, the benefits of keeping the precepts, on the other, you will find that in time you will become unable to lie; contemplating lying, even, will become impossible – whatever the benefits in the shorter term, whatever you have to suffer because of it all.
There is a sutta where one laywoman (or bhikkhuni – the text does not specify, if I remember correctly) was born in a deva world just because she always told the truth. Now this does not mean that one should keep the precepts with a deva existence as the Goal. The Goal is always Nibbana. But it is much better to be reborn a deva than a human , to say nothing of the lower realms (where lying could lead to). In the case that the woman (lay or bhikkhuni) was on the Path, she would strive on from there, seeing that she had not attained the Arahanthood here. In case she was not, even then, a higher existence is better than a lower one. So the long-term benefits in either case far outweigh those in the shorter term ,in the here-and-now.
The Buddha did not shudder to give stark examples of the consequences of breaking the precepts. In one particular sutta – He was here talking about another of the precepts, that of sexual misconduct- He asked the bhikkhus what they would prefer: lying down (engaging in sexual activity, we would now say) with a daughter of aristocrats or brahmins or householders or being subjected to any of a whole series of excruciating torture procedures? Even reading the account is terrifying! By the time His discourse was over, 60 bhikkhus spewed hot blood, another 60 abandoned the Training and another 60 became Arahants