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Grandma’s Rainy Day

Make Grandma proud. Carve something out every day, week or month.

By Mark Riffey

Almost every Saturday, my grandmother and grandfather would load up the LTD and my grandmother would head to the farmer’s market. In their area, it was a massive open air building under a roof. Every booth had a waist high table with edges and a hanging scale. We’d spend the day there, selling vegetables, butter and a few other food items.

After we got home, the first thing we’d do after I helped her unload the car is head to her dresser. She’d pull part of the day’s take from the farmer’s market and stuff it into a bank bag she kept in the back of her dresser drawer. The rest would stay in her purse. One day, I finally got curious enough to ask her about it. She called it “her rainy day money” and explained the idea to me. As a farm family, you never know what unexpected weather is going to bring. Even as a young boy, the possible impacts were obvious, even though I had no understanding of how devastating a major storm at the wrong time would be to their cash crop.

Prediction isn’t protection

That’s the problem with storms. Several decades later, our weather detection and prediction capabilities are much better, but it doesn’t matter all that much. Even with days of notice before the arrival of a massive thunderstorm, hurricane or untimely freeze, there’s still not all that much you can do about it unless you can harvest your crop before it arrives.

Sure, grandma can cover a reasonable amount of garden plants with a sheet to prevent freeze damage. You can’t easily cover dozens of acres to protect against a hailstorm or similarly damaging event. If you’re my grandparents and your only income is from that farm, then the rainy day fund could literally be a life-saver.

Hurricanes and other threats

Hurricane Camille (1969) and Agnes (1972) both hammered their isolated farm with very high rainfall, yet I don’t recall my grandparents ever being in dire straits as a kid. Sure, grandparents don’t always share the extent of their financial situation with young kids, but kids notice things in adult behavior, particularly if it changes. I never saw anything that made me wonder – or they were good at hiding it.

My grandparents’ primary cash crop was tobacco. Extremely heavy rain early or late in the growing season can devastate a crop. Their crops were on sloping land, which I suspect was by design. Hail could destroy a crop.

Farmers face many challenges, including market fluctuations, global relationships, and “Big Ag”. Grandma’s rainy day fund protected my grandparents personal economy on a scale that was workable for their small farm.

Another term for rainy day fund is business reserves.

Hindsight is 20/20

Today, a lot of businesses are in a bad spot. Some have closed. I don’t know their situations, but I suspect some portion of them could have benefited from having a rainy day fund, or perhaps a larger one. I’m pretty sure that every business that’s been hit hard would look back and be grateful if their former self made sure they had 60 days of reserves.

I don’t mean to make light of this or bust on you when you’re down. I’ve been there. I know how it feels. Building business reserves is hard, particularly when starting up or starting over. You’ve got demands at home. You want to take better care of your staff. Growth and other projects want their share. Every single dollar of revenue has multiple demands on it. Old news, but still true.

Work on your rainy day fund

I hope businesses that have taken a hit can restart and get back to business. It’s hard. You think back to all the challenges you faced over the last five years or so – knowing that restarting means you’ll probably have to face some of them again.

Whether you’re starting over or not, knowing what you know now, consider budgeting a rainy day fund into your monthly business budget. Not “I should do this someday”, but a specific amount or percentage. Decide how much you want to have in reserve for some future rainy day. Carve it out every day, week or month. Maybe you already do this. If so, double down on your business’ ability to take a punch. It’s something you’ll never regret, plus Grandma will be even more proud of you.

Want to learn more about Mark or ask him to write about a strategic, operations or marketing problem? See Mark’s site, contact him on LinkedIn or Twitter, or email him at [email protected].