I married up. Way up. The world population when The Missus and I got hitched was about 6 billion and change. Notwithstanding that pretty high number, I still find it incomprehensible that: (1) there was someone so completely detached from their sanity and good senses as to even consider spending their life with me; and (2) that even such a person would go through with actually formalizing the relationship. That I was able to find what I’ve no doubt is the one and only one of those 6+ billion people is nothing short of remarkable.
In spite of The Missus’ apparently having no low standards in picking her mate for life — which leaves me with the sense that her general matchmaking skills are sorely wanting — she’s nonetheless gifted in a great many other areas and I’ve learned lotsa things from her otherwise. These include several things personal finance-related, or that can be extrapolated to the realm of personal finance.
Give it up
Before meeting The Missus, I was being financially drained by my law school poor. Working part-time while in school, I still was digging a debt hole. Once I graduated and started working full-time, I was able to make ends (which included student loan repayments) meet. But there wasn’t much wiggle room. So my mindset was one of scarcity. The idea of donating money was not something that did, or even would, occur to me. I did, in time, start donating a modest amount of time to an organization whose mission I supported. And as to items I was getting rid of, I would donate those to another organization whose mission I supported. But that was the extent of my do-goodiness.
The Missus is generous on a much higher level. With money, in her personal actions, and more. She (which now means “we”) donate a fair amount of money to charities and other do-gooder institutions. She (and occasionally, I) also make meals and provide other goods and services to those we know who are new parents, having a tough go of it, or need assistance for some reason or another. She also does things like offer to get things from the grocery for our elderly neighbors.
All of her generosity is 100% genuine. There are zero ulterior motives. But that doesn’t mean that those actions don’t benefit us beyond the personal satisfaction we get from our actions. In fact, there often are financial benefits. Because these actions often function as forward payments. And so The Missus’ generosity frequently is repaid despite the fact that that was neither our goal, nor something we even thought remotely possible. So there have been times when — from a purely monetary standpoint — The Missus’ generosity actually put us ahead of where we’d otherwise have been. Our knee-jerk response to repayment is a polite, but firm “no.” But more often than not, that repayment is something we’re nonetheless unable to prevent. The “intellectual me” bristles at this repayment. The “scarcity-mindset me,” for better or worse, usually doesn’t.
Dinnertime
While I’ve always liked to have people over for dinner/entertain at our place, The Missus llllloves to. She gets twitchy when we go too long without having people over. The restrictions on her ability to do so because of the ‘rona crisis has been hard on her.
The Missus gets this from her parents and grandparents, who each were master dinner/home-entertaining hosts. Upon being invited over, guests invariably ask “what can we bring?” In The Missus’ and her parents and grandparents’ their experience/practice, they typically respond with some suggestion or another. As for me, when asked by an invited guest “what can we bring?,” my initial and traditional response was been a polite, but firm “nothing.” My thinking being that I invited you over, and the expectation is that I’ll do all the work/providing, and you need not worry your pretty little head about any of that.
The Missus has since broken me down. I secretly still hate having invited guests bring anything over. But “scarcity-mindset me” has learned to appreciate the benefits this change has brought about, including from a purely monetary standpoint. And in this, I admit to having a bit of an ulterior motive. When asked “what can we bring,” my response more often than not will be to bring either salad or fruit (things requiring lotsa chopping, which although necessary still is a pain in the rear), dessert (which I don’t do), or booze (we don’t drink much, and I hate paying for this stuff).
The benefits we realize take two forms. On the one hand, we often have leftovers. That means no need to cook (as much) in following days. I love to cook, but a day or three off here and there is a welcome respite. Especially if the food is particularly good. Which in the case of dinner parties, it often is. On the other hand, we often end up with so much extra food/drink (guests rarely want to/are willing to take the leftovers of what they brought back home generally insist that we keep whatever’s left from what they brought) that we don’t just break even on food expenses for a few days, but actually come out ahead. And in cases where guests bring over booze and we don’t drink it at the dinner, we either end up using it for a future dinner party, or regift it when we’re invited to a dinner party. Pro tip: don’t regift booze to the people who gifted it to you in the first place.
Good willing
The value of a businesses typically includes goodwill, an intangible asset. Goodwill can be valued, an exact number isn’t necessarily easy for the layperson, or even the business owner, to determine at any point in time. And its value fluctuates. But that doesn’t make goodwill any less valuable. And as long as the business has goodwill, it might be able to accomplish or withstand challenges it might not otherwise have been able to. The higher the value of the goodwill, the stronger the business.
People have goodwill, too. And like with businesses, it results from a million different things, small and large, frequent and occasional. And it can be just as valuable.
I can think of few things that establish and enhance a person’s store of goodwill than generosity. Whether one has ulterior motives or not, genuine and useful generosity is genuine and useful generosity (offers of generosity as to which there’s only a thin layer of genuineness or usefulness generally aren’t worth the words conveying the offer). And the goodwill generated by the acts — and the offer, even if not taken up by the intended recipient — can pay unknown dividends at unknown times. So, for example, maybe you find yourself in bind, and someone you previously helped swoops in out of the blue and offers to help you. Or maybe you find yourself looking for a reference, a job, or a new business opportunity and someone you previously helped swoops in out of the blue and offers to help you.
Underestimating the value of this goodwill is unwise. Having it is like having a strong defense shield or a high-value insurance policy. You don’t know when it’ll come in handy. But when it does, you’ll be awfully grateful you have it. The Missus’ generosity and bubbly personality (contrasted with me, Mr. Sourpuss) has resulted in us having a stockpile of goodwill. I have no intent to tap it, but knowing that it’s there and that I can draw on it — and that others might, unbid, offer to help us — is awfully comforting.
Dear Reader, there’ll only be one The Missus for me. I couldn’t hope to find anyone else with the low . . . so very low . . . standards necessary to take me. Not that I’d want to tho.
