FRIENDS & MONEY

In your lifestyles of the rich and famous day dreams, have you ever dreamed of having a whole team to help you with your everyday life?

• A private chef to create delicious and nutritious meals for your whole family.

• A housekeeper to keep those porcelain thrones shining like a mirror.

• A personal assistant to help you stay on time and organized.

• A nanny to help your kids stay safe and entertained.

This is definitely my dream and to be honest, one I am serious about attaining.

Personally, I’d rather have a team of well paid, trustworthy, bright people working with me to achieve the mission of my family; than a garage full of imported sports cars or gold plated stairwells.

But in thinking of all the team I would like to have; I have come to realize how much of this support can and does come from my community of friends and family and for a fraction of the monetary cost.

• A trustworthy high school gal in our church watches our daughter once a week so we can get some work done and for a great rate.

• My parents kindly provide childcare for some of our date nights and care for our daughter when we’ve been away on a trip.

• My brother-in-law comes from a farming family and his dad supplies us all with a magical concoction to fertilize our lawns.

• I don’t have a paid life coach yet, but an hour phone call with my brother is just as helpful and valuable.

My wife and I have often marveled at how much a wedding must cost for people who don’t have 25+ friends willing to help set up, tear down…

The same goes with moving homes, where instead of hiring a professional driver, we just call our friends and buy some donuts for the morning and pizza for the afternoon.

What’s the point?

That community is something valuable and actually has a high replacement cost if you had to try and hire what friends often are willing to do for free.

Do I still want a hired team? Yes I do. But I will choose to be grateful for the community support I do have and hopefully I will also continue to get creative in finding ways to both better serve my community and be served by my community.

One idea I have is for us all to get together on a weekend and make massive amounts of food, and then divide it up and food-prep for the next few weeks.

What I know for certain is that we’re better together than alone.

See you next Thursday!

Geno Schmelzer,

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