I don’t know how your 2020 is starting off, but mine got off to a bit of a rocky start. The plumbing problems continued to the point where we had a pair of men with shovels, digging up holes in my yard to try to unstick a completely non-draining septic. There was no showering, no dishes, and only absolutely minimal toilet flushing. I suspect there was insufficient hand hygiene as well, because wouldn’t you know it, before the septic was fixed, I was down with the flu – all those lovely fever, chills, body aches, vomiting, and feeling-like-you’re-going-to-die symptoms.

Therefore I spent ~48 hours barely leaving my bed, hardly even awake. When I was awake, I was listening to one of my kiddo’s favorite sleepy time audio books, the Ramona Quimby series by Beverly Cleary. One scene I was awake-ish for was when Ramona’s aunt, Beatrice, is about to get married, but the shotgun wedding planned by her petroleum engineer finance lost a few details along the way. Specifically there are no flowers planned for the church. Ramona’s grandfather tells them all to relax, check with the neighbors, and there will be plenty of garden flowers volunteered. Sure enough, the neighbors had them covered. Earlier in the same planning for the wedding story arc, Mrs. Quimby cheerfully explains that a neighborhood only needs one dress up maternity dress, and that she’ll borrow it for this event. Compare these two shared items in one little story arc to the financial cost of doing everything independently, and it’s easier to understand why my grandmother only used to coach me about saving 10%.

Similarly, but non-fictionally, we had a friend call us up this week to ask if we can watch their kiddo while the parents are required to be at something all day on Saturday. And can we take the kiddo to their gymnastics class. And can we host their dog too. We said no on the dog for logistical reasons, but that’ll be okay because neighbors will take care of letting the dog out a couple of times through the day. It’ll cost our friend nothing, they’ll trade us child care some other time, and they’ll trade dog walking with their neighbors, building stronger relationships in the process. Compare this to the cost of paid child care for an ~11 hour day, a kid shuttle to and from the gym, and doggy daycare, with no societal connectivity, and barter looks like a much better option.

Have you read “Your Money or Your Life”, by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez? I listened to the audio version, well read by Vicki, and she does a much better job than I’m doing here – helping you realize how much extra you’ve got to work to pay for covering all the contingencies yourself, when as a society we’ve changed our values to refuse to build social capital and communities. We’ve only got three types of capital to work with (social capital that we’ve created by caring for others, human capital that we spend on future work, and financial capital that we’ve already saved), it makes sense not to ignore any of them.

People are happier when they have social connections. And it saves you money too. Should building more social capital be part of your 2020 plans?