Horses and Financial Responsibility

An update on the ankle -- I went into the ortho again yesterday, and I got my cast off! I am now in a walking boot, the main benefit of which is that I can take it off to shower. Thank goodness. I was getting sick of baths. I'm not walking on it yet; he says I can start phasing out the crutches, first one then the other, as I feel comfortable. Basically, if it doesn't hurt, go for it, and if it does hurt, back off. I can feel it a little more than I'd like when I walk with one crutch, so I'm going to leave it alone for awhile. It's still all swollen and bruised (obviously not nearly as much as at first), and my range of motion is just GONE. They gave me some exercises to do, though.

Also, muscle atrophy sucks. That calf is visibly smaller than the other one. That asymmetry is gonna be irritating in the saddle until I get the strength back.

If all goes well, I will get to get rid of the walking boot for good when I next go in, which is Sept 25 (a whole four days before I start school!). I'm just excited that once I get rid of the crutches I can do ground work and longeing.



I was thinking this morning about how much horses have done to teach me responsibility. The lessons are as numerous and as cheesy as the moral of any Disney movie. I could list them, but I have before. I just wanted to talk today about horses and financial responsibility.

First, my purchase of Pandora. This is a big step for me, personally. I'm 18 years old, technically an adult, and I recently took the dive into personal finance by opening a checking and savings account with my local credit union. This mare is mine, and mine alone -- purchase price, board costs, feed costs, any tack I need. The whole shebang. The prospect of me paying for her board, feed, farrier visits, and anything else is a little bit daunting. But at the same time, I know I can do it, and it's a really good first step into self-sufficiency for me. Suddenly it becomes very important how I spend my time: I need to work enough to both support her and funnel some money into savings, and if I don't go out and ride her very often, then I'm wasting the money that I spend on her.

A brief shoutout to my parents -- I really like the way they handled this. They've supported my horse habit for me until now, always making sure that I'm conscious of where we're spending money and why. I am definitely not the expensive-lessons-every-week, please-daddy-buy-me-a-new-saddle type. But I am also very, very grateful that they never said, "If you want horses you need to pay for them." They never asked me to take a full-time job over the summer instead of the part-time I've worked the past three summers, nor did they ask that I work over the year. To be honest, I worked so hard last year between schoolwork and band that I doubt I could have worked enough to support half of the horse expenses, let alone all of them. In return, I've always tried to respect the boundaries of what they can spend. I am now at the point where I can make the decision to take on an additional horse and support it myself, but I was not there before. I like the free rein they've given me and the way they've helped me slowly move towards financial independences with horses and otherwise, at my own pace, when I am ready to take steps. So thanks, Mom and Dad :)

Anyway, I'm very excited for this opportunity (if you couldn't tell by the sheer prevalence of the word 'excited' in my posts since we decided to buy her!). I get to enjoy a second horse without putting any financial strain on my parents, at all. I get to enjoy training a horse and hopefully pushing both of us up to higher levels, and I get to keep all the experience that comes with it. She is my horse in the way that no horse has ever been before. I get to decide when to sell her, for how much, and to whom.


The other responsibility-related thing I've been considering is very closely related: emergency vet funds. A commenter mentioned it and got me thinking.

I don't have one. Between setting aside some money to start an IRA, purchasing Pandora, and paying this month's board plus a deposit, I won't have much more than a couple hundred left. My paychecks for this month and next month will be much larger than board fees, since I'm working a lot due to a lack of school. I'm going to put all of my extra money in a savings account, which will double as my emergency fund. Not the most viable of options, I know, but as a student living at home with virtually no expenses other than my horse, it'll work. Add this to the fact that board is only $175/month (including hay) and other expenses should be minimal, I should still be able to squirrel away enough money each month to build up a decent emergency fund by the end of the school year. If school doesn't overwhelm me.

But it still concerns me. It's never something I've had to worry about before! I will do my best to build my fund up as fast as possible, but I'm wondering how many people have one -- seems that everyone knows they should, but does/is everyone able to follow that?

On the plus side, when I sell Pandora, that money's going to go to good use. The money is going first to pay off my student loans for the year (isn't college fun?), and any after that is going into savings. From that I'll have an emergency fund to work with for the next horse -- but that's thinking very far ahead!

So, how many of you have an emergency fund? Have you ever had to use it? Have you ever made decisions in the past (colic surgery, etc) that were influenced by your emergency fund or lack thereof?