On a lark, the last couple of days I’ve been running a GoFundMe campaign to replace my broken Xbox series S with an Xbox series X. It’s a $500 goal which seems like an enormous amount of money to ask other people for, especially for something frivolous like a video game console. I set up the campaign partially because I am frustrated that this piece of hardware that is less than two years old is broken, partially because I thought it would be something fun to pay attention to, and partially because I thought it was kind of funny.

Maybe surprisingly, maybe not, a few friends have donated to the campaign. As I write the total stands at $244. I was talking to a friend who put funds toward the campaign and she said something interesting: “I think we should do this more often as a people. Because how often do your friends want something that’s like, $500, and you could throw $25+ toward it and help?”

And the thing is, if a friend had something frivolous or impractical that they wanted but otherwise probably would not buy for themselves, I would absolutely toss a few bucks their way. Why not? I want my friends to have the fun stuff they want. If it makes their life a little better, or helps them get through the week with a little more sanity, or just makes them feel delight, I want to support that.

We should be doing this for each other all the time, for everyone, for complete strangers, but honestly? We should especially do it for our friends.

So that got me thinking, if you had a group of 24 people who all put $20.84 into a pot every month, then every month a member of the group would get $500 to blow on literally anything they could think of. I’m not talking about very practical things but on things you would otherwise hesitate to buy, or one of those “maybe someday” purchases, or something that you’d just dismiss as a little bit silly, or extravagant, or even embarrassing.

As it stands, 5 people have donated to my Xbox fund. Those five people, if they want to be, are automatically in the $20.84 club. Anyone else who donates to the fund can be in the $20.84 club if they want to be. And if we can find 18 more people to be in the club then we’re off to the races.

I can think of a lot of reasons it’s naive or stupid to put this out among total strangers on the Internet. Maybe it’s one of the stupidest ideas I’ve ever had. But hell, life’s too short to worry about five hundred bucks.