Have a Great Financial Year Every 30 Days!

When I was pregnant with my last child, I finally crunched the numbers and saw that my income would basically pay for childcare.  It was at that point that I decided to quit my job and open my own daycare based out of my house.  I did the research and pulled comps in my area to see how I could meet or beat their services.  When hubs and I told family and friends we heard different things like, “Don’t you need to be licensed?”, “You’ve never even worked in childcare,” and “that’s a tough market, I know people who have tried to do it for years and can’t get clients in the door”.  I know they were just concerned and thought they were helping, but that didn’t really give me the emotional support that I needed. That’s a whole other subject that we’ll talk about later though.

So, there was some skepticism in the beginning, and now two years later, I can proudly say that the daycare business has been fruitful..or childful.  Before I even opened, all positions were filled and anytime a family left, there was another waiting to start.

A year after I opened the daycare business, I really got into photography and, some of you may already know this, photography can be an expensive hobby.   But I loved it and if you know me, when I want to do something, I will find a way to do it. So, in my husband’s words, “she woke up one morning and decided to be a photographer.”
Again the supportive words of, “what do you know about photography?”, “Do you even have a portfolio?”, “do you know how hard it is to get in the wedding industry?”, “you only have a semi-pro camera,” came flooding in from friends and family.  I captured 11 weddings and countless portraits and headshots.  Currently, I’m only using referrals as my marketing tool as I catch up on my work.  I’ve learned a lot in this last year and will only get better in the years to come.

I know some people think I work too much or that I’m a little loopy for starting businesses that I have no experience in, but you know what else? I’m doing what I want. I don’t sit around wishing, hoping and thinking about it. I make the decision and do it. Timing might not be perfect, budgets might be constrained, endless nights might be required, but when I go to bed I know that I’m going somewhere instead of wondering, “where am I going”.