The Petting Zoo

Have you ever been to a petting zoo? I have fond memories from my childhood visiting petting zoos on several occasions. Growing up in the city, I never had that many opportunities to interact with animals. Yes, there was the occasional trip to the zoo but most of my fascination with animals came from watching television. I cannot remember the first time going to a petting zoo, but I recall always bugging my parents to stop by a place that offered a petting zoo.

For the most part petting zoos are “free” of charge or have very low admission fees. Like so many things in life, they lure you in and zap it to you when you really want the full experience. A big revenue generator for petting zoos that I have come across is the feed for the animals. Yes, it is great to pet the animals but to find out that you can feed them to – what a great experience!

I imagine that most people who have been to a petting zoo and have bought the feed soon realize that they have a dilemma. Maybe not at first, but eventually you are staring the dilemma right in the face. You have trucked along petting and feeding the pesky critters first. A goat will eat almost anything, so they are the first to beg for food. So you feed them for a while and perhaps a few others to only find the cutest little bunny in the background. You look down to discover you have used all of your feed and have none left. You really want to experience the joys of feeding that bunny but you have no more feed. As a young child you probably cried for more food.

Believe it or not you were beginning to learn important life lessons – rationing – or what I like to call budgeting. You should have known a financial matter was coming up. Of course you did not realize that this was a life lesson at the time. You probably just asked your parents for some more money to get more feed. All was well when you finally had enough to feed that bunny. However, you probably threw a fit if they did not give you the money to buy more feed for the bunny.

Isn’t it funny how things really do not change over time? When we use all of our money on things that we “want” then when it comes down to something that we “need” or really “want” we do not have the money available. Sometimes, we still throw fits or throw a “Pity Party” as an adult because we have no money.

So remember that your financial life is like a trip to the petting zoo. Make sure you plan for which animals your going to feed, that way you will have enough feed left over at the end of your tour.

What do you think? Click-on The Petting Zoo link above and leave me a reply.

- Phillip