Friends and Business

Ever since I have started my homestay business this has been one constant challenge for me. My holiday home lies between mountains and it is a perfect weekend getaway. I have been renting it out for short stays. And yes the whole intention for me and hubby to do this was to have one additional source of income in our retirement days. In the near future we both plan to quit our jobs completely and settle back to India permanently. We do have some savings but then we wanted to create channels for regular income from other sources besides what we would get from our savings. This Airbnb business of ours helps a great deal. It helps us to remove the maintenance money and also have some additional savings.

Now the challenge for me is, that I have a big friend circle and all of them know about my holiday home. They expect that I should give it to them for free if they would want to go. I can do it once, but I cannot do it regularly because that impacts my income. I tell them that I can do it on weekdays for free but weekends is my business time so giving it for free is not ideal for me. Some of them understand but some do not. They feel that in friendship I should not be behaving in this manner. Also if I give it for free even on weekdays then there are some basic cost that gets incurred which goes from my pocket additionally.

Source

I do not like to strain relationships but this does put me in a fix. It becomes difficult for me to say No every time and in my heart I just wish, that they are my friends why they do not understand. These are my friends since years and I do not wish to create distance with them. Some of them feel that I have become arrogant after starting this business and I can see that the communication is not as easy as before with them. My only point to them is that friends should support each other in their business. If they are booking other holiday homes they are paying for it in full, rather then going to other places, they can book my place and support me and not expect that I should give for free. I can give good discounts to them, even that impacts my income and I can manage that once in a while, but every month it is not possible.

Some times it becomes complicated to manage this kind of situations. We friends do need to help each other and that's what I believe strongly but there is a limit to what one can do and cannot do and I wish that some people could understand that. The dilemma for me is what should I give more importance to Friends or Business? It's not that I am very needy for money but then I just feel it's not right and yes it does impact me financially.

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