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Anyone who has ever read the Little House on the Prairie series will be familiar with most of these sayings:

• Strike while the iron is hot
• Make hay while the sun shines
• A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush
• Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched
• We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it

They’re all sayings that I use regularly as guidelines in my financial & business life.

Strike while the iron is hot equates to taking advantage of great opportunities that present themselves at just the right time. This can also mean acting on an idea WHEN I have it, as opposed to putting it off and missing out on what might have been a great opportunity. It’s the most effective time to act on and follow through with an idea.

Make hay while the sun shines has saved me on several occasions. As a small business owner, it’s especially important. To me it means that when I have the opportunity to make and pile up money, I do so, even if it means that I’m extremely busy. It helps that I come from a farming background, and know that when the hay is ready, you’d better get it put up, even if it means working some insane hours in the hot sun. You also store the hay to feed the livestock through the long, cold winter. You’d sure be in trouble if you didn’t have anything to feed them then. This is the point of an emergency fund, and an operating fund for irregular income.

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush helps me through financial indecision. It means that the thing you have for sure is worth more than a larger, better thing that you might have in the future. While it’s not always true, it’s true often enough that it’s a good bet. Birds can fly away if you don’t have a good grip on them. And of course acting on what you do have doesn’t preclude you from ALSO trying to get the thing you might have in the future. Most times, I take the sure thing while simultaneously working on the nicer possibility.

Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched reminds me not to get so excited about something in the future that I ignore the present or act as if the future has already come to pass. For example, while it can be fun to daydream about how great it might be (for me) if I were to end up with a $300,000 house several years from because I purchased tax liens on it, expecting that $300,000 house and planning my life around it is not only silly, but downright dangerous.

We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it is probably my favorite saying. To me it means that there’s no point in worrying excessively about potential problems or difficulties that I might encounter when trying to achieve a goal. I don’t have to be paralyzed with indecisiveness or fear. I can move forward with what I do know, and deal with problems if they actually do occur.

Do you have any sayings that you use to help guide you in your financial life?

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