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I live in Vermont.
We do things different here.
Sunday I went to a chicken swap -- my second actually. We had introduced Guineafowl to our flock and had too many so we decided to cut the flock in half. So off I went -- birds in tow -- to the chicken swap a few towns over in Randolph Vermont.
I figured it would be a quick deal -- I was offering them for free. And I was right.
As I was walking back to my car to leave, a truck pulled up next to mine and pulled out two cages with two black bunnies -- complete with wooden name plates that read, "Jasmine" and "Ruby."
"What cute bunnies," I remarked.
"They're free," the man replied.
"I'll take 'em," I shouted without a bit of hesitation.
"Free," I thought on the drive home. "Can't beat that."
But the story doesn't end there...
I hadn't even thought about the other expenses. Nope, not one bit.
- This is how many people deal with their expenses. They have a vague idea about where the money goes but no specific detail.
- This is how many entrepreneurs deal with their income. And their expenses.
That's why I challenge clients who are concerned about money to track every penny and build that into a statement which they can then assess to create a budget. I have a series of coaching tools I offer to make this process easier.
The tracking doesn't end there. You need to track money going forward. Otherwise you are guessing. You might as well be talking about the weather patterns on Mars (I assume you know little about this subject). Similarly, I have financial coaching tools to make this easier.
Where are the bunnies in your finances? And what are they doing to those seeds you planted in a retirement account? Are they wreaking havoc in your financial garden?
©2007 True Azimuth, LLC
Business Coaching, Relationship Coaching, Life Coaching
Labels:
Financial
7 comments:
Nice way to start out with an entertaining story and end it with a lesson. So, have you figured out how much those 2 bunnies are costing you?
I'm glad the free bunny situation made it into public record. It's such a great example of the loopholes in our finances, and how tiny little distractions and impulses can become large expenses. I have a similar story about $3 chickens. (I spent $1000 paying someone to build me a coop--who estimated it might take about 300 dollars, plus materials). Free roosters are an even worse idea, since the hens tend to hoard all the eggs if they are fertile. Though sometimes the tradeoff actually works out in the long run: My $50 dog has caused me to work about 6 fewer hours with clients every week. However...I'm spending those hours walking in nature--which gives me my exercise (which I wasn't getting before), my meditation time, a chance to explore a whole bunch of places I had never bothered to explore, and a chance to connect with friends, when I can convince them to go walking with us. She also makes me laugh, and gets my boys to say "I love you" to something cute and fuzzy. I figure this is adding more than 6 hours a week to my physical and mental health and overall quality of life.
What a great analogy for how we don't always 'know' where our money goes and we do get tripped up by those 'FREE bunnies' in our lives. Great story. Thanks for sharing. I'll leave with this....the old saying about "Nothing in life is free." certainly seems to be supported by situations like this.
So - what happened to the Bunnies?
So - what happened to the Bunnies?
I do miss the guinea hens - I haven't seen them since the neighbors objected.
Of course, we aren't likely to see fowl but the turkeys until spring...
Very informative site, lots to think about!
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