Why use credits?
Every Home Is Different. Every Household Is Different.
The more homes I worked in, the more I realized there's no such thing as a "standard" home — and there's definitely no such thing as a standard homeowner.
I had one household that handed me a key and said "do your thing" — but then wanted a call before every single decision. Fully delegated, deeply involved. Both at the same time.
I had another that only needed help with chores and meal prep. Not a single maintenance task. Just "please, for the love of all things holy, handle dinner on Thursdays."
Then there was the once-a-year guy. One big project, once a year, and the rest of the time? He didn't need me. And that was fine.
But the one that really stuck with me? A family that hired me to keep an eye on their aging parents' home. Not because their parents couldn't manage, but because they lived hours away and the worry was constant. They needed someone to make sure the house was safe, maintained, and that nothing was slipping through the cracks. That one changed how I thought about what this service could actually be.
The Problem With Selling Time
Here's the thing about billing by the hour or by the job: it puts the customer in a weird spot. They're constantly calculating. Is this worth it? Should I just do it myself? Am I paying too much for this one thing?
And for my customers (executives, dual-income households, people whose time is genuinely their most valuable resource), that mental math is exactly what they're trying to avoid.
I kept coming back to one observation: these folks aren't trying to spend less money on their homes. They're already spending it. On contractors, on repairs, on the random Saturday afternoon that turns into a four-hour project. The money was always going out the door. The question was just how chaotic the process was.
Enter: Credits
So I started thinking about it differently. What if instead of quoting jobs one at a time, I gave customers a monthly pool of credits — a budget — that gets applied to whatever their home needs that month? And what if I was the one coordinating, scheduling, and overseeing all of it?
It's not necessarily a new concept. It's how a lot of subscription services work. But in the context of home management, it just… clicked.
Service credits do a few things that matter to the people I work with. They make costs predictable — you know what you're spending each month, no surprises. They give you flexibility. If your HVAC needs attention one month and your yard needs work the next, the credits shift with your priorities. And they simplify the whole process. Instead of vetting five vendors, getting three quotes, and coordinating schedules yourself, you hand that over to one person. Me.
For an executive used to managing budgets and delegating execution, it's a pretty natural fit. You're not spending more. You're just spending smarter — and spending less of your time doing it.
It Wasn't One Big Realization
I wish there had been a single "aha" moment where the service credits idea came to me fully formed. It was more like… I kept listening. I kept watching what my customers actually needed versus what I was offering. And slowly, the model started building itself around them instead of around me.
That's the part I'm most proud of. Stardust isn't built around my availability or my hourly rate. It's built around the fact that every household has different needs, different priorities, and a different relationship with their home. Service credits let us meet each one where they are.
What This Means For You
If you've been thinking about getting help with your home but didn't know how to even frame it — this might be the answer. You don't need to have a list of tasks ready to go. You don't need to know what things cost. You just need to know that your home matters to you, and that you'd rather someone else handle the details.
That's what we're here for.