A Little Patience Pays Off

If I were to list my finer qualities, patience would not be at the top of the list. I'm not a patient person. I want things to happen now, and I get impatient with people (especially my own children) more than I'd like to admit. But if there is one place that I can say Tim and I have learned to be patient, it is with regards to making purchases.

Being patient is absolutely necessary when it comes to parting with our hard earn dollars. We've learned the hard way, finding a way to buy things we can't afford costs you dearly in the long run. We've also learned that a little patience usually pays off.

I can not count the number of times when we've really wanted or needed (or thought we needed) something, but decided to wait for it, and were so glad we did. Sometimes we found we really didn't want it that much, or that doing without it wasn't so bad. Other times we were able to find the item at a much better price, and often for free. We've seen this happen with so many things. There have been small things like clothing, bigger things, like furniture, and really big things like a vehicle.

The latest example of this happened a few weeks ago. For the entire back story, we need to go back about a year. Tim's office used to be a restaurant. When the building owner converted the space he walled off the kitchen to create an office space and a kitchen. A caterer was working out of the kitchen, and then he went out of business.

The caterer left most of the equipment, and Tim approached the building owner about purchasing a couple of things he thought would be useful on the farm. Mainly, at the time, Tim was thinking of the stainless steel tables. He wanted them for deer processing. There were also freezers and stoves, and a few other things. Tim offered a price. The landlord countered, and no middle ground was found.

The kitchen sat vacant for over a year, and then the landlord approached Tim to see if he was still interested in any of the equipment. There was a new tenant coming, and they didn't want most of the things that had been left in the kitchen. The timing couldn't have been better for us.

Our current freezer space really was not enough for the business of the farm. The freezers we did have were old and inefficient. New freezers were on our purchase radar already. The kitchen had two good sized chest freezers, a small commercial upright freezer, and a small walk in freezer. Cash is a little tight, but the owner assured Tim they could work out a plan for payment.

In the end Tim took all the freezers, two household stoves (one that is needed for the canning kitchen, not sure where the other one is going,) and a lot of miscellaneous type items. There was a wonderful commercial gas stove there that I would have loved to have. Sadly, I have no place or no gas for it! He also cleaned up the place a bit. The owner was just pleased to have it all gone, but we offered to trade him some farm goods for the items. A wonderful deal for both sides!

The freezers came just in time as we just had a whole beef and hog processed. The chest freezers are already full. We need to decide exactly where we want walk in freezer, and do some prep work before we can set that up. Tim didn't get the tables he was originally looking at, but those weren't really needed like the freezers were.

No matter how many times it has happened, it still amazes me how a little patience pays off, and how often the need is met just at the right time. We are truly blessed!