MM207 - Xmas Tree Hunt: Money vs. Time

Purchasing a tree from a lot is certainly more convenient than cutting your own tree. We find ourselves balancing between an investment in money and an investment in time. It is the time investment that creates memories.

[INTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

Welcome to Morning Mindset. A daily dose of practical wit and wisdom with a professional educator & trainer, Amazon best selling author, United States Marine, Television, and Radio host, Paul G. Markel. Each episode will focus on positive and productive ways to strengthen your mindset and help you improve your relationships, career goals, and overall well-being. Please welcome your host; Paul G. Markel.

*Professor Paul*

Hello and welcome back to the Morning Mindset podcast. I am your host Paul Markel. Thank you. Once again for being a part of our listening audience. I truly appreciate it, and if I say that too often if I thank you too often. Well, what you can do to get me to stop is write me a letter to add MorningMindsetPodcast.com and say “Paul, stop thanking me. I don't want you to thank me anymore. Alright, but until then I'm going to continue to thank you. During the previous episode, we talked about memories as Christmas gifts.

-

It was most of us have a lot of stuff at least I do. I have a lot of stuff and I don't really need stuff and I think that I'm at that time in my life where I'd rather have the memories than the stuff. So what did we do here just recently? Well my family and I. We went out to the woods. Yes, that's right. We went up into the mountains into the national forest, and we harvested our own Christmas tree. That's right. I bought the tag, and we stalked and hunted and took it out. Now. I probably could have been doing this when I was younger when I lived in Ohio or even Mississippi because I mean, let's face it.

-

There are pine trees, evergreen trees, just about everywhere in America, but here in the west the National Forest Service actually encourages people to go into the woods and harvest their own Christmas trees and you go into the office and you give them a ten dollar. They give you a yellow or pink or orange tag, whatever.

-

It happens to be that year and little pamphlet instructions on how to harvest a Christmas tree in case you couldn't figure it out for yourself. Yes indeed. They even tell you what you should take along with you when you go out into the woods to get your own Christmas tree. So we did this is the second year in a row that we have done that last year. We did it and it was quite the adventure. Yes, indeed.

-

We did not realize just how much snow was actually going to be on the ground already and we went up above 8000. I guess close to 9,000 feet to get her Christmas tree last year. This year we were a little bit more worldly and a little bit wiser and we did not Venture as far up into the mountains, but we were still I guess around 8,000 maybe 8,500 feet up and up there. The snow was about two feet deeper.

-

So way deeper than it is in town. So but we did we went up we part we went out and we got our tree now is the. Christmas tree the tree that we took out of the woods does it look as full and attractive as a Christmas tree lot tree those that are specifically grown on a Christmas tree farm. They were planted and raised and basically genetically designed to be fluffy full Christmas trees. The answer is no.

-

The tree actually looks like a native evergreen tree that you would get from the forest in the mountains.  So the question that many people may ask is would you rather will would you rather have an attractive farm-grown tree and some people will say yes. Absolutely, I don't want some tree that looks like it was growing on the side of a mountain. I want a big fat full tree, and you can go and spend your money and you can stop on the way home from work tomorrow night or in the afternoon.

-

You can drive by the Christmas tree lot and you can exchange $30 or $40 or $50 or however much they're charging for trees and you can take one home and that's great. That's fantastic.  Or you can invest your time, and what we did is we spent way more. We invested much more time in our Christmas tree Harvest than we did money, and when you invest the time you're creating memories, and it's up to you.

-

You can do whatever you want. I'm not telling you that you have to, you know, be Clark Griswold and trudge out into the Wilderness to harvest your own Christmas tree. Remember this if you are going to do that you need a. I saw of some sort whether a chainsaw or what I use is I actually have it's a manual chainsaw. It's one of those pack saws those emergency saws. It has two handles on it. It looks like a chainsaw chain, but it has handles. I'll basically they're leather. They're not in the leather nylon straps and you just hold them and you cut the tree like that and that's what I did.

-

We took along a tow rope this year case we had to pull the tree out of the woods, but it turned out that it wasn't that heavy and Zach the shipping ogre just carried it out on his shoulders. But that was our Christmas tree hunt and we didn't spend a whole lot of money, but we invested some time made it probably took us between the time. We left the house and got up into the mountains and got back.

-

We probably had, you know to three hours invested or so and of course my I also had to buy the family lunch. Because I'm the dad and since we all went out into the cold everyone wanted to stop and have a warm lunch inside on the way back which is fine, which is fine so that when you are adventuring out when you're venturing out this Christmas think about that. Will you do you want to spend the money?

-

Or do you want to spend the time and I know sometimes it's just easier to spend the money because you don't feel like you want to waste the time or take the time but every once in a while is I would suggest that you purposely and deliberately invest the time instead of the money, and make those memories that we were talking about previously. Alright, ladies and gentlemen, I've got much more for you coming up.

-

I'll be back tomorrow with another one and the as the Christmas season quickly approaches. If there is someone in your life that you feel would benefit from the Morning Mindset podcast or the Morning Mindset. You can either go to Morning Mindset podcast.com follow the links and get them the book Morning Mindset: a 30 Day Plan for a More Positive and Productive Life. The book is available as a signed copy from our official website. You can also get a coffee mug.

-

A motivational coffee mug that you can look at every morning when you're listening to this. That's pretty cool. There's a poster on the store, there's a coffee cup on the store or there's the book on the store and if you don't want any of those. You just go to amazon.com and type in the word Paul Markel. That's me, M-A-R-K-E-L and all of the books that I have written will pop up in front of you including the Morning Mindset book.

-

So get it by it. I'm sure that as you listen to the ship plenty of time to get it before Christmas if you want to give it to someone as a gift. Alright, ladies and gentlemen, that's your instructions go forth and do good things. I am your host Paul Markel, and I'll talk to you again real soon.

[OUTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

Thank you for spending time with us today. To get show notes, submit a topic request, for more from your host Paul G. Markel, visit MorningMindsetPodcast.com. That’s MorningMindsetPodcast.com. Please leave a review of this podcast on your favorite podcast player, we appreciate your time & effort, and we look forward to reading your honest feedback.