There are lots of advantages that come out of being in a healthy marriage. A healthy marriage takes work, and lots of communication, especially about financial matters.
Over time, I've come to view differences of opinion on money matters with my wife less as argument, but more as different perspective. Partners have different ways of looking at money, and taking both into consideration is better than either perspective alone.
“Oh we've got eggs now …”
We've talked for around a year about getting some chickens. We eat a fair number of eggs — as do our dogs, from the dog food we make. Raising chickens is one way to work towards our own egg source. It's also an exercise in hedging against dependence on external grocery supply chains. (Prepping on a small scale, if you will.)
My wife did a lot of the legwork for deciding which breeds to get. We tended toward breeds that were more or less egg-laying machines. She and her parents also did a great deal of design and construction work on the garden and coop area in our backyard. Though we bought a few female chicks, we also had the opportunity to take over care of three hens.
The hens (at least one, maybe two) started laying eggs again after they had overcome the shock of the new surroundings. When the chicks we have grow up, we probably will be getting a few dozen eggs a week. That's more than we would want to eat.
Naming the chickens: Two philosophies
The majority of the chickens we got were either Sussex or Red Star hens. The Sussex, being an English breed, got names of queens: Elizabeth, Mary, etc. The Red Stars, though neither Russian nor Soviet, got names of Russian and Soviet first ladies: Yekaterina, Raisa, etc.
I was a bit more pragmatic with my naming (which didn't fly): Egg Laying Profit Machine 1, Egg Laying Profit Machine 2, etc.
This also feeds into how I saw us distributing the fresh eggs that we weren't going to eat. We have about three months before the chicks will be old enough to start producing.
Selling the extra eggs: Two perspectives
I wanted to start up the bidding war. The eggs will likely be brown (which commands a premium in the right circles) and will be free-range and organic, which also command premiums. Therefore, sell the limited supply of extra eggs to the highest bidders — the people within our circles that were willing to pay the most for them.
Well 🙂 this was flatly rejected. Her plan was to sell them at a more nominal price to friends if they wanted them, or give them as gifts. Initially I was thinking Why why WHY are you underselling them like that?! but I suppressed being too heavy-handed and heard that her take was to build relationships.
That simmered me down a bit, because there's a lot of merit to that. Taking care of friends is indeed extremely important — not because there's the expectation of getting something in return, but because good friends are a lot more valuable than the few extra bucks per dozen that some people might shell out for the eggs.
Eggzactly!
