£67,031.92 is a frightening number indeed....

apple_muncher

Just a thought - you might find useful business/entrepreneurial stuff on earlytorise.com. That's if you have any spare time to go and look at it!

Sea_Shell

That's life in a nut-shell really. There are only 24 hours in a day. We have to sleep, so that leaves the rest of the time to cram everything else in, whether that be work, household chores or "quality family time". Unfortunately, in a lot of cases its the latter that goes by the by, as there just aren't enough hours in the day. And, if you make a point of prioritising family time, you end up with no clean clothes to wear and no food in the fridge!!

Something has to give...eventually. Just a question of which one?

*snow*white*

Hi just popping out of lurkdom to say you sound really positive Glad to see you back posting. Good luck :T

snorfing_along

Hi TOPM, popping out of long term lurkdom to say hi and I'm so pleased you're posting again! Your new venture sounds very exciting and I hope sorting out the franchise isn't too difficult in the end

ellen_vannin

That's good that your OH is fully supportive, half the battle really.

I would really like to sign up to your website, blog etc but totally understand if you wish to keep this private. You could possibly send me a link by pm - but just disregard this request if not appropriate.

It's interesting that now you are devoting full time to working you can see how much time was spent on family jobs before.

Hope all goes well in the new direction and will follow your diary with interest.

KxMx

ToPM I think it's great what you are doing career wise and the initial rise in debt is going to be a really good investment long term.

I'm another one wrestling with housework/ life balance at the moment.

I'd suggest as you are in effect now working full time to have a re-assessment of both your standards and who does what. As the balance in the household has changed with you being less available, perhaps the kids could do more. And perhaps you could find some areas where standards are lowered a little. That would enable you to do the things you need and want to prioritise.

What I would also suggest is to have 10 mins each evening where you and DH each do one or two quick jobs. It's not a big commitment daily but come the weekend it would save a chunk off the chore list.

Sea_Shell

Treadingonplaymobil wrote: »

Life coaching was great yesterday, and I feel nicely confident in the route I'm going down. I also have a hard metric to track to make sure the growth I need is coming - social media followers in the first instance, then newsletter sign ups once that launches next month. I've worked out a minimum growth level of both of these to ensure I'm on track to have a sustainable business by the end of the year. It means I'll be able to judge a lot sooner than December if things aren't moving in the right direction, and shift as necessary in order to get the growth I need. I also have a really clear checklist of things to get done by the time we meet again.

It's strange how we feel invested in you doing well, since we've been following your diary from the start. I'm sure you've thought of these, but in respect of your new business plan...

Have you a specific demographic that you are targeting? I get the impression that you'll be offering a "high-end" product/service or be discussing/writing about that subject, or is it something for "the masses"? Say, the fashion industry... are you Armani or Primark!!??

Is your product/service a "nice to have" ? If so, how will it be affected by people "tightening their belts" financially, if we enter (or continue) in a downturn.

What's your USP? How are you going to be different to what else is on offer, currently.

Who's your competition? Is there another website/blog already doing (or similar to) what you're going to be doing, and how can you lure them over to you?

How would you pitch it to a bank, if you were to approach a bank for a business start-up loan?

Sorry if this comes across as too nosey, and don't feel you have to answer (on here), but I wanted to just "put it out there" as food for thought. I hope these are all things that you've already taken into account, and form part of your business plan.

We're all rooting for you!!

FacelessNumber

Hey TOPM

I don't post on the forums very often, I think I have done once or twice on here.

Just an 'interesting info' post really, I'm a bit behind but when you mention placebo there is actually evidence of the following:
You will get better results if you take a capsule (the little plasticky ones) rather than a tablet.
You will get even better results if the capsule is see through and you can see the little balls in it :rotfl:

There's so much other stuff - you're more likely to get good results with physio / doctor / other healthcare professional if they smile at you for example (can you tell I work in healthcare....?)

Business wise, it all sounds interesting and good luck! I really hope it works out, and I especially hope you manage to maintain your work / life split as it's such an important balance to get right in terms of mental health.

Lexie105

Hi TOPM,
I’ve been reading your diary for ages and wanted to say how inspiring I’ve found your diary and reading along.
I’ve just lost my job and am taking the plunge into full self-employment now, really interested to see how your ‘no house work during work time’ policy works as that’s an area I think I’ll struggle with!

Keep up the amazing work ��

Treadingonplaymobil

Hello everyone, just popping on for a catch up while DH puts the DCs to bed.

Looking forward to a proper day off work tomorrow - the novelty of this not working all weekend every weekend lark! Tons of house jobs to do, but at least I am clearly focused on them, not trying to split myself between work and home. DH and I are still very much finding our feet with this new division of labour, but no major dramas so far. Me actually stopping work in the evening has meant poor old DH hasn't been left with all the washing up to do every evening, as I've quite often been able to do it, which I think he is seeing as rather a treat! The real test is whether we can get through all the life admin stuff tomorrow and still spend a bit of quality time with the DCs, and feel ready for our second week of this enterprise. The next couple of weekends will be like this - one day of me working, one day off, before we get int February and I am firmly down to one weekend day working per month.

Also going to make a big batch of marmalade tomorrow - I refuse to abandon the things I love doing and that we value as a family under the new regime, so I'll be carving out a couple of hours with DC1 to get that done, as we do every January.

Sea Shell - great points on the business, and all ones I've covered over the past couple of months. Working on the branding with some external has been great because it's forced me to really articulate all the vague ideas I had and create something coherent from them in order to be able to explain the business to someone else.

FacelessNumber - love the placebo facts! And my capsules are indeed see through. :rotfl:

On the work front, I'm really pleased - I've already exceeded my January social media growth goal. Obviously growing 10% is a far smaller number when you have 500 followers than when you have 5,000, but I'm still pleased to have overshot it only half way through the month, it sets me up well if I have a quieter month later on in the year.

Our new looser menu plan is also working well so far. We are definitely eating more veg now we have the big organic veg box to work through. DH made an amazing veg soup with toasted seeds on top for dinner tonight, and we'll roast most of the remaining veg to have with turkey leftover from Christmas for lunch tomorrow. Next veg box delivery is on Tuesday, and I think we've chosen pretty much the right size of box, as we'll have run out by then I reckon. The real test is how long we can go without a supermarket delivery - ideally we won't need one for at least another week, preferably longer, which feels realistic at the moment.