It’s snowing outside. And here in Seattle, where there are (maybe) three snowplows, everything stops. I mean everything. And of course this fairly rare occurrence would fall during one of my busiest client weeks. I could just scream! I am stacked back-to-back with clients every day this week, partially because I am not seeing clients the last two weeks of December. Today, I can’t even get to my office. And even if I could, many of my clients could not get to me. (Of course my clients that hale from the mid west laugh at us ridiculous Seattlites, and then exude exasperation as they take their four wheel drive vehicles onto roads that are not cleared of snow and try to weave between Seattle drivers who don’t know how to drive in the snow. It’s like being inside a video game. But I digress.)

The bottom line is that this is costing me a lot of money. So what is to be done? First of all, as soon as the weather forecasters started forecasting, I sent a proactive email to all my clients scheduled this week with a snow back-up plan. I offered to convert their appointments to the phone. Several took me up on it right away, as this is also a busy time of year. (Yes, not all of you can do your work via phone, I know. You can’t mail in your haircuts….) For my part, I took all my client files home with me on Tuesday in case I was at home the rest of the week.

Yesterday, I worked at home on the phone and “saw” many clients. It was quite nice, actually.

But there are some clients that I simply have to see in person. Two of those clients are cancelling today and will be re-scheduled for January. This one is truly no one’s fault. Many of my clients are self-employed and they “get it”. They don’t lightly cancel on me. (I have a clear cancellation policy in place that I do enforce, so generally speaking, my clients are very respectful.) But if neither of us can leave our house, well….

Why am I not super stressed out? (Okay, this is stressing me out somewhat.) Because at the end of every month, I add up my total business revenue (the total amount that was paid to me that month) and I tuck away 5% of it into a separate saving account. This is not my tax savings account. That is different (and a higher percentage!) This is simply my “five percent fund”—my business safety net account. A safety net account is used when there is an interruption in income, regardless of the reason. That is it’s only purpose. Maybe you pull from it to go on vacation (no clients that week!) Or maybe you pull from it when it snows and many of your clients cancel.

Sigh. At least it is very beautiful here. But I do confess that I’m one of those awful snow drivers you don’t want out on the roads.