Let me guess. You can’t afford it.

You’d really love to [start a business/spend time with your kids/give money to charity/adopt a child from China], you really would, but you just can’t afford it. If I hear that phrase one more time, I’m going to do something drastic.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you’re lying. You can afford it. You’re just choosing not to. In your case, that could be a wise choice or it could be a stupid choice, but it’s yours and you’re making it.

I could tell you about Christine who spent time hanging out in the upper echelons of homelessness. I could tell you about Harri in Finland, busting his ass and saving like crazy to work from home with his two little boys. Read More

Let’s talk about money, shall we? I mean, we’ve been doing that all week, but let’s get dirty about it. Money is not hard to understand. Earn more, spend less, you’re golden. It’s not exactly rocket science. The problem most people have, though, is that they spend all their time trying to do one of those things, while summarily ignoring the other. Half the world busts their ass to make more money and then promptly spends it all on crap. The other half drives halfway across town to save a nickel on a can of peas, but charges fifteen bucks an hour for their SEO services.

That’s really dumb. Read More

I like risk. Risk and I have spent a lot of time together, and we’ve become close friends. Risk has spent a lot of nights sleeping in my bed, nestled cozily between Jamie and me.

Jamie does not like my relationship with Risk. He thinks we’re too close. He thinks I don’t see Its flaws, the problems It could cause, the havoc It could wreak on our home business. The perfect entrepreneur would be halfway between Jamie and me – someone with a healthy balance. (Maybe we could just have Jack take care of it.) Read More

One of the best ways to avoid the whole living in the gutter thing we talked about yesterday is to create multiple streams of income for your home business. This is a very trendy topic right now and I figured I’d clear a few things up.

In order to succeed using this model, there are two main steps involved.

Step One: Diversify your income streams.

When you are starting out, your diversification involves getting lots of clients. If you run a small business or you are a freelancer and the vast majority of your income comes from one company or individual, you do not have a client. You have a boss.

Lots of clients means lots of checks. If one client flakes out, you’re okay because you have other clients. You make your mortgage payment on time, your wife doesn’t leave you, and everybody’s happy. For now.

“Do you want to be homeless and live in the gutter?” Apparently, this is the biggest fear among would-be home business owners. It also seems to be the biggest fear of people who know and love would-be entrepreneurs. When I was about a week away from launching Itty Bitty Marketing, somebody very close to me (thankfully, not Jamie) asked me that exact question. Verbatim. What do you say to that? “Yes, actually, that’s exactly what I’d like. In fact, why don’t you just take my house and my car and I’ll do it right now?”

Many advice types suggest having something like seven gazillion months worth of savings before you make the leap, thus mitigating your risk of poverty and ridicule. While I’m sure that is a nice, safe plan for many people, in our case we would have shot ourselves had we waited that long. Instead, we decided to go with the Back-Up Plan method of small business management. Read More