Don’t Eat Your Seed Corn

I guess I’m getting to be an old man, reminiscing a lot about long gone days when lessons were learned. So please indulge me while I tell a story from those childhood days — one that’s guided me for decades.

My mother’s family were small farmers. They ran a dairy and a truck farm — that’s a farm that grows vegetables and fruits not just to feed the family but to sell in nearby towns and cities. (If you ever wondered why Texas has so many “Farm‑to‑Market” roads, that’s part of the reason.)

Summers on my grandparents’ farm were paradise for a young boy. One afternoon, while the cows were being milked in the dairy barn, I found a couple of big, heavy burlap sacks filled with kernels of corn.

“Is that for the cows or the hogs?” I asked.
My grandfather laughed. “No, it’s my treasure. It’s seed corn.”

He explained that those kernels were what he planted each year to grow the next harvest. No matter how hard times got, you don’t eat your seed corn. If you do, you might survive the moment — but you give away the future harvest. You sell your future short for a temporary fix.

That simple lesson stuck with me. I never became a traditional farmer, but I’ve been self‑employed since I was 20 (1971). I’ve had abundant harvests and seasons of drought. Through every cycle, I kept some of my “seed corn” set aside. I refused to give in to the temptation to consume what would grow my next season.

Sometimes that meant eating Ramen while others were grabbing fast food. Sometimes it meant taking a small amount of what I had, hunting garage sales, and reselling finds at a flea market to turn a little seed into more seed. The idea is the same: conserve and reinvest what will produce tomorrow

What is “seed corn” for you?

Seed corn isn’t literal corn — it’s anything you put aside now to create future income, security, or opportunity. That can be:

• Cash savings (emergency fund)
• Business reinvestment (inventory, marketing, tools)
• Time invested in learning or building skills
• Relationships and goodwill (networking, mentoring)
• Health and energy (sleep, exercise, preventive care)
• Intellectual property (writing, course creation, product development)

If you don’t have any seed corn, you’re not alone. Many people were never taught to set some aside for the future. The good news: you can start today.

How to grow your seed corn — practical steps

1) Identify your seed corn
Decide what, specifically, will generate your future harvest. Is it a savings account, the development of a product, a course, or tools to scale your work?

2) Start small and be consistent
You don’t need a fortune to begin. Even a small weekly amount can compound into something meaningful. Consistency matters more than size at the start.

3) Prioritize reinvestment
When you make money from a side hustle, business, or side sale, split the proceeds: spend a portion, save a portion, and reinvest a portion back into whatever grows your future.

4) Trade convenience for capacity
Fast food, impulse shopping, and instant gratification eat your seed corn. Swap a few conveniences for long‑term capacity: cook at home more, delay big impulse buys, and redirect that money into your seed.

5) Create micro‑business experiments
Garage sales, flipping items, freelance gigs, or digital side projects can quickly turn small seed into larger returns. Treat these as low‑risk trials to scale what works.

6) Protect the seed
An emergency fund is literally seed corn insurance. If a crisis hits, having reserves prevents you from destroying your long‑term plans to fix a short‑term problem.

7) Invest in skills and systems
Learning a new skill, automating processes, or buying a reliable tool — those are investments that pay harvests over years.

Real examples

• The $50 you spend on a domain name and a simple product page could become a recurring income stream if you add a small digital product or newsletter.
• The $200 you spend at a garage sale and then resell those items for $600 at a flea market becomes $400 of fresh seed after expenses — then reinvest.
• The time you spend learning spreadsheet automation could save you hours per week, freeing you to create more income.

Questions to ask yourself today

• Do I have any seed corn set aside? How much?
• If not, what’s one small thing I can do this week to start one?
• If I do, how am I protecting and growing it?
• What convenience or expense can I cut now that will increase my future harvest?

A challenge — start identifying your seed corn

Pick one task from the list below and commit to it this week:

• Open a separate savings account and schedule an automatic weekly transfer of even $10.
• List one item from your home to resell; take good photos and post it.
• Spend three 45‑minute sessions learning a skill that will help you earn more income.
• Create a simple plan: decide how you’ll split any extra cash (spend, save, reinvest).

Join the conversation

How are you treating your seed corn? Did someone teach you this lesson? What strategies worked (or didn’t) for you? Share your stories and tips in the comments — let’s help each other grow future harvests.

Closing

You can survive a single feast. But the harvests you don’t plant today are the opportunities you’ll miss tomorrow. Don’t eat your seed corn.