Monday, March 23, 2015

There are no shortcuts!

Since I had left my career in the automotive industry in May of last year, things had going pretty well. I left so that I would be able to be home with my kids and work toward my teacher certification. That is until I went off my path.

In January, I went down a path of shortcuts. I will not go into details, but basically, I stopped working toward my goal of becoming a teacher and started working toward a goal of making money as fast as I could. But life doesn't work that way. There are no shortcuts. No fast ways of doing something. You need to work hard and be persistent.

My original goal was to find a part time job to earn the money to cash flow my teacher certification and get us into a house. Instead of finding a traditional part time job, I decided to try something where I could work from home. But the amount of work and money that I had to put into it, did not result in any money coming in. We started to get behind on our bills. Stress and anxiety became the norm and it became clear I had made a mistake.

I have spent the past month in a severe depression filled with anxiety. I have contemplated returning to work full time. Full of doubt and scared of spiraling out of control, I sought help from a friend. She has helped me get through the rough points and guided me to have faith. I ended up praying a lot to God to show me where I had gone wrong.

What resulted was me having a dream that was very vivid. It showed me going back to work full time, back in the automotive industry. In the dream I was at work and I kept running around the cubicles crying and looking for my daughter. Every time I came up on a sign of her, she would disappear again. It was horrible! There was no way I could go back to that way of life.

I woke up and there was a voice in my head that said, "What was your goal that you have forgotten? That is what you need to go back to." It was like that light bulb moment I have been searching for the past month. My goal when I left work was to get a part time job and go back to school and get my teaching degree. My goal got lost along the way.

Becoming a teacher will fulfill my lifelong dream. Just ask my family, for as long as I can remember, that is what I wanted to be. Teaching, beyond fulfilling my dream, will allow me to have summers and holidays off with my girls. I will have the fulfillment of working and giving to people. It will not be easy. It will not make me a millionaire. There is no fast way to make money, it takes hard work, diligence and perseverance.

I will be getting a part time job as soon as possible. I will continue with our family business we have been working on opening (to allow us to participate in our hobby). I will go back to school as soon as I possibly can. I will use this as a lesson to make sure I stay on the right path.

So here I go, back on track to accomplish what it was that I set out to do, so very long ago.

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Starting A Business Is Hard

My husband and I have been working hard (in the background) on starting a new business. It came time for us to stop planning and start doing. Let's say that it is both the most wonderful thing we are doing right now and the most stressful. Our ultimate goal is for me to be able to continue to stay at home, but also have something that is financially and emotionally rewarding. We want to be able to get into a house and not just live on the edge, but firmly on the other side of stable.
Out of desperation I made a mistake that I thought was right at the time, but turned out to take me away from what was our ultimate goal. I decided to take one of my other passions (essential oils) and turn it into a business. The promise of all that money, turned my head from being on track to a complete derailment. I ended up dividing my time between two businesses and everything suffered. My house fell apart. My three year old wasn't getting enough of my time. Money invested in one business should have gone toward the other. In general, we went backward in our goals.
We were hoping to move this summer and we are wondering if that will be a possibility or not. Going back home to pay my respects to my Grandmother, who passed in October, is not going to happen. My bill paying schedule is all out of wack. Things are getting paid, just not to avoid the dreaded late payments. I find myself not eating lunch in hopes of keeping a little more food on the table for the girls.
So there you have it. I messed up. Me and only me. Now how do I fix it?
Fixing It
With our finances being pulled to extremes, we are doing everything we can to make up for our little detour.
Attempt One: I am trying to sell shirts to make up the few hundred dollars we "lost". I am hoping that if people will buy some of the shirts, they will be getting something, but also helping my family. So far we haven't had any luck at all. However, the good thing is, if the shirts don't sell, we are not out of any money. They just don't run the campaign.
Attempt Two: I decided to swallow my pride and launch a gofundme campaign. I have gotten a horrible response on this one. Friends are telling me that of course you will go into debt to start a business. No way will I see a profit in the first year. So on and so on. But here is the thing; if there is a chance that I can get some funding without going the loan route, that is what I will do. I will either have to build the business slower (using cash) or not at all. I will not under any circumstances get a business  loan. It just isn't going to happen. I have too much debt already to add to it.
Attempt Three: We are forgoing everything and anything extra. We didn't go out for Valentine's day. My 40th birthday will go by with nothing special. We are selling anything and everything we can on our website (launching it earlier than expected), in hopes of bringing in any kind of money.
In the end, we have once again learned a really good lesson. We are moving forward and trying our hardest to come up with ways of fixing what went wrong. The important thing is to keep moving forward. Keep trying. Have faith that everything will work out as planned.