Lessons in Generosity, Community, and Financial Freedom
“Investing in people is more gratifying than investing with money.”
There are things I hope my kids understand about money—lessons that go deeper than spreadsheets and savings accounts. These aren’t tips you’ll find in a finance podcast or a TikTok hustle video, but they matter more to me than maximizing returns or early retirement.
One of the most important things I’ve learned is this: investing in people is more gratifying than investing with money.
We’ve lived this truth in many ways.
Like when we chose to build a third floor on our home—not because it was the smartest financial move, but because it created more space to welcome others in.
After we spent our money on building rooms for our friends, we were depleted financially. The relationships that we built during that time endure and continue to bring us joy. Those women who still love you and care about your lives—that started when they lived with our family.
So, we waited over a decade to redo a kitchen that had black commercial vinyl tiles that were cracked at the edge; mismatched, sawed off in the middle and nailed together re-used cabinets; and a wonky layout with an island placed awkwardly where a wall used to be.
When we finally renovated our kitchenit was on a tight budget and we undertook the project ourselves. Now, we have a beautiful, functional kitchen that we proudly built with our own hands. In the meantime, we continued to give regularly to our church and to our neighbors.
“Our neighborhood is a quiet act of resistance to the way society divides people.”
Living in our neighborhood has been its own form of investment. It’s allowed us to connect with people we wouldn’t otherwise cross paths with—people we care about and want to support. In a country where society is increasingly stratified, this feels like an intentional countercultural choice. And it’s one that continues to shape us.
Living in our neighborhood also helps us to be a small part of changing an unjust system. Instead of investing in a neighborhood that has been designed for maximum safety and escape from people of color, we live in and love a neighborhood populated predominantly by people of color. We have learned by experience that people of color are good neighbors, hard workers, scholars, poets, artists, and professionals. Our personal experience has been intentionally expanded beyond what we could have known without making a similar investment. True wealth is found in these experiences and relationships.
Instead of worrying about protecting our own space and falling into the trap of NIMBY (not-in-my-backyard), we earnestly hope for better for our neighborhood and all of our neighbors. Sometimes the NIMBY movements around us negatively impact our home because our poor neighbors are unable to organize as effectively as wealthy suburban communities. We see the injustice and are similarly impacted by the selfishness of the suburban white middle class who feel justified in protecting their own spaces because they know how they treat the spaces of others and don’t want that to happen to them.
Instead of guarding our own, we guard each other.
Instead of competing for better, we rise together.
Instead of celebrating wins over other communities, we cheer each other on to make our community a better home for all of us.
We settle down and in rather than seek the newer and better.
We learn to love and learn instead of leave, to pull in and protect rather than police and push away.
We stay.