I was raised to believe that you should do what you can to help other people out. But years later I’m starting to wonder, does there ever come a time when you need to start saying “no”?

My husband Blayne and I have always done what we could to help others out. Sadly, most of the time we’ve just been taken advantage of and we end of wishing we hadn’t gotten involved to begin with. But we don’t seem to learn our lesson.

Over the years we’ve had people living with us six different times. Unfortunately, only one of those people didn’t end up taking advantage of us, and only one of those people ever paid us any money. To be fair we didn’t ask for compensation, but one would think the decent thing to do when you’re living with someone else, eating their food, using their electricity, washing your clothes and taking showers, would be to pay a little rent. Nope.

Part of the problem has been that we never actually set a time limit. We just assumed people wouldn’t take advantage of a free place to live and only stay for a short time. 

One month led into another, which led into another, until we finally started telling them they needed to find a place to rent. After nearly five months they finally did.

A number of times we’ve helped people out by borrowing them money. Only one has ever repaid us, and that’s only because he’d given us a gun as collateral, and he wanted it back.

Blayne has a large shop where he works on and builds our vehicles and other personal projects. It’s not a business. He has a hoist, welders, and just about any tool a person could possibly need.

We’ve found out that when you have a fully equipped shop people tend to think one of two things. One, he should work on their vehicles for free or a greatly reduced price. Or two, the shop is free to whoever wants to work in it.

Just recently Blayne finally decided he’s had enough, and he’s now telling everyone they have to pay the shop rate to work in there. His declaration hasn’t been met with enthusiasm. People haven’t been happy.

We’ve also helped others out in lots of smaller ways. Snow blowing a driveway, pulling a car out of a ditch, running errands, watching pets, etc. Those don’t take much time or effort and they’re almost always appreciated.

But a problem I’ve run into is that once you do a favor for someone, they start to expect it. I like helping out but I’m starting to be run ragged. I can’t even get my own projects done anymore I have so many I’m working on for others.

You shouldn’t help a fellow human being because you expect to gain something from it, you should help because it’s the right thing to do. But a smile and a thank you from the recipient goes a long way in making the person helping out feel that what they’ve done is appreciated.

It saddens me that I can’t trust people not to take advantage of our goodwill. It saddens me that I’m starting to wonder if I should actually help people out or not. And it saddens me that I need to learn to start saying no.