Oh, Ladies, what a busy day! Last night, I sent out a little email about $1 memberships ending Saturday at midnight, and I spent my day calling 72 of the most amazing people who wanted to find out all about it. They didn’t know when they put their phone number down that I was going to call them personally. It was kind of fun when they answered to say, “Hello, this is Angela Coffman from the Grocery Shrink” and wait for their response. Most people were kind of weirded out and I think I would have been too, lol. But what a joy to get to know some of the readers and actually hear their voices.
I’m already a day late on talking about Raising your income, and tomorrow I need to make more phone calls PLUS write the menu plan that goes out on Friday…..So I’m just going to write and hit publish and hope I can get my thoughts together for you. That’s part of practicing what I preach, right?
Saving money is good, but if you don’t have enough income–it can’t be your end all solution. A reader wrote in the comments last week that she was a money saving genius (my words) and lost her house anyway. I don’t want that to happen to anyone again. The truth is, we are really good at saving money around here, but it’s not enough to send our kids to college, replace our 20 year old cars, or finish the remodel project gone bad.
Earning money is the hard part for me, because it involves getting money from other people. There really isn’t any way around that. So my goal is to provide such a great service or product that the other person is better off for spending on it. Take this fitness program for example. I spent enough on it that I thought about it for awhile before pulling the trigger. Enough that I had to think about where the money would come from. BUT when I got it, I read it all immediately and then used it and it WORKED. If it had been free, I don’t think I would have been as motivated to get so much out of it. And Holly spent a lot of time putting all of that together to help people. Her family had to do without her for those hours. She deserved every dime I gave her.
You should pay people what they are worth. Which means, YOU should get paid what you are worth too. Being stingy when paying others can make it hard for you to accept your due when it’s your turn.
Here’s what you should ask yourself when you think about a business:
1. Is the amount of your paycheck tied to the number of people you help? (The more people you help, the bigger your paycheck.)
2. Is your product or service consumable? Will the customer use it up and want to replace it? (like with laundry soap, personal training, music lessons,–or gasoline!)
3. Do you feel good about what you are doing? Can you work with a clear conscience and with integrity?
4. Are you tied to an hourly wage—like teaching music lessons for so much $$$ per half hour. Or is your income potential open ended—like selling an e-course on music theory.
5. Are you using your God given gifts?
6. Do you enjoy the work?
The fastest way I know how to earn money is to work for an hourly wage. You can run out and clean houses, mow lawns etc… right away. I did that. I taught music lessons and did custom sewing. Then I used part of what I earned as seed money to start a business that wasn’t tied to an hourly wage. Because an hourly wage severely limits your income potential. It’s an ok jumping off point, but not a great goal.
Personal Entrepreneurial Job Ramblings
The following is not meant to be a text-book, just simply my journey so far. If it’s helpful great. If not, please don’t tell me I’m a mess. I already know that.
I started earning money for my family by teaching singing and piano lessons. Then added custom sewing for a little shop in Nauvoo, IL and then to dabbling in weddings. As my family required more and more of my time, I moved from custom sewing for an hourly wage to designing sewing patterns and starting an online shop. Yes, they took time to create, and there was bigger risk (what if no one bought them?), but once the pattern was finished I could replicated it 1,000 times with no new time spent. This instantly moved me away from an hourly wage into an open ended wage potential. Eventually, I moved from physically printing patterns to selling download and print e-patterns, which removed more risk and eliminated more of my ongoing time commitment (since everything could be automated.)
At the same time I was doing patterns, I wrote my Grocery Shrink ebooks. The same principle was there. It took hours and hours to write them, but I could sell unlimited copies through ejunkie (who automatically collected the money and sent the download links to customers for me.)
While I was figuring out internet marketing (ok, I’m still figuring it out) I signed up with Mary Kay. I could go out in an evening and sell products and come home instantly with cash. This saved our necks during my husband’s 6 month job loss 5 years ago.
As time rolled on, I was no longer able to go out in the evenings. There were too many music lessons and sports practices to take children to….I didn’t have even one free evening. I still had a few Mary Kay customers to take care of, but the income stream wasn’t at the level I needed it to be. I hired a business coach, who helped me realize that making meal plans for families as a subscription was the logical next step with my blog. It was hard for me to justify the expense of hiring a coach but it turned out to be the best decision ever. And Grocery Shrink Plus was born. I still work actively in that every week and recently added smart phone friendly shopping lists and video classes. Fun stuff! It has a great income potential, but I’m really hesitant about promoting myself…..so it’s not reaching it’s potential.
Recently, I also joined Sandi Sullivan at MomCeo. What a rewarding job! I hemmed and hawed about it for 3 years before taking the plunge, forehead smack. I get to talk with amazing ladies every week and help them find natural home solutions that fit into their budgets and do business training for new associates. I can do it around our busy schedule and completely from home (no parties!) This appears to be the long term income solution we are looking for.
So anyhoo, that’s our journey so far. Our dream would be for husband and wife to work together and have the freedom to travel, help others, and just be a family. It was a reality check when my daughter turned 15 2 weeks ago, that if I wanted to realize this dream while she was still home, I needed to get a MOVE ON. So….I did.
Where are you on your income journey? Do you have dreams too? Would simply saving more of your current income be enough for your family to realize them?
