Money for Home Business: Can You Afford It?
Let me guess. You can’t afford it.
You’d really love to [start a home 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.
I could tell you about the time I spent six months in a homeless shelter. I could tell you about rolling pennies to buy a half-pound bag of generic rotini.
I could tell you what it feels like to have no money for baby formula. To fill the empty can with flour and return it to the store, claiming it tastes funny. To lie and steal to get free milk for your kid. To be 20 and single and totally unprepared for motherhood and dirt ass poor.
You don’t care and I don’t blame you. But don’t tell me you can’t afford it.
When I had Jack, Jamie took parental leave. In Canada, we get 55% of our salary for 50 weeks, up to 35 of which can be taken by the father. People looked at him like he was crazy. People came right out and said he was crazy. “How can you afford it?” “You’ll never be able to afford it!” “I wish we could do that but we can’t afford it.”
Here’s my open reply. We did not have a car. We did not have a house. We did not have cable TV, or a Best Buy account, or a shoe habit. We did not take vacations. We did not have a gym membership. We did not drink non-negotiable morning cappuccinos.
We sacrificed a damn lot and we got six blissful months of doing nothing but getting to know our new baby son.
Is this for everyone? Absolutely not. Are there things I will not give up? Hell, yes. But if I don’t do something or buy something or go somewhere, it’s not because I can’t afford it.
It’s because other things are more important.
When you say you can’t afford something, you are giving away your power. There might be damn good reasons for you to keep your day job. You want to save up some money first. You like the security. The health benefits come in handy. You can’t stand the sight of your wife. Hell, maybe you actually enjoy it.
Those are all choices, and they may be good ones, but they’re yours and you’re the one making them. Stop wimping out and start telling the truth.
This is the end of my ranting about money week. Next week, I rant about marketing your home business. Subscribe to the feed, you just might get to watch me explode live on the Internet.
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Loved this. Before I took the leap last week, Mike and I looked at our finances, and were both like, “Are we crazy? We can totally afford to have me take a paycut while I build up the business.” Sometimes it just FEELS that way, until you look at the cold, hard numbers and you realize that it’s more do-able than you think.
Hi Susan. So true. Half the time we say we can’t afford things without even thinking about it. Sometimes I think we say it because that’s what everybody else is saying.
Woohoo, you, by the way, for ditching the job that receives the dubious honor of being The Most Soul-Sucking Day Job in the History of Work.
“We did not have a car. We did not have a house. We did not have cable TV, or a Best Buy account, or a shoe habit. We did not take vacations. We did not have a gym membership. We did not drink non-negotiable morning cappuccinos.”
For the record, we still don’t have a car, we still don’t have a house, OK, we have cable TV now (thanks hon!), but we still don’t have a Best Buy account or vacations or gym memberships or cappucinos. But damn do we have a good life :)
[...] Money for Entrepreneurs: Can You Afford It? In just a few weeks Ittybiz has become one of my favorite blogs. Naomi Dunford knows how to put her words to make us think about our lives and the actions we’re taking. You should read all her posts, but to get started, check out this one about whether you can afford the things you really want or not. [...]
See that awesome comment up there? That was from my husband who kicks ass and stays up till 4 in the morning reading my blog.
Thanks, honey!!
I LOVE what you are saying here. When someone says they “can’t” afford it, they are really saying “I won’t make the necessary sacrifices to be able afford it.” What better to make sacrifices for than getting to know your own brand new baby. Kudos to both of you for doing such a brave thing. :)
When you want something bad enough, you’ve often got to sacrifice big time. When me and my now ex husband wanted to start our own businesses, we ditched our corporate jobs leaving behind a guaranteed $140K per year. We left our kick-ass apartment in down town San Diego with a pool on the roof overlooking the city and moved to this cheap rental house in a hillbilly area of the desert 150 miles away - a city with a population of about 300 people, 2 convenience stores, and no mail delievery. We gave up cable and all the little luxuries to cut expenses so that we could start our own businesses.
It just depends on how bad you want it!
Hi Christine. That hillbilly walk-up… is it available? Do the convenience stores offer a wide selection of cigarettes and rolling tobacco?
More seriously, though, I don’t attach any moral judgment to whether or not someone wants something badly enough. I attach moral judgment to the dishonesty associated with saying you can’t when in actuality, you won’t. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with “won’t”, just don’t dress it up in a fairy costume and call it “can’t”.
(What did I just say, there? Did someone put Bailey’s in my coffee this morning?)
In our case, I keep bugging Jamie to move back to Toronto. However, the vast majority of Toronto is one big dive. There are a few apartment buildings we like but we’d have to pay about $1000 a month more than we’re paying now. Can we afford it? Yes. Are we doing it? No, because at this point it’s a really freaking dumb idea. Maybe in six months. Maybe never. But if it ends up being never, it’s not because we can’t afford it.
Amen, sister!!
I was nodding the whole way through reading this. It’s so refreshing to hear the truth. It’s all about priorities and individual choices. The victim mentatlity is so overused.
This is how my husband and I feel about stress and busyness. People act like they have no choices, but, in reality, choices are all over the place. Keepin’ up with the Joneses is, in act, a choice that many people choose.
Thanks for being such a great example of the possibilities that are out there.
Naomi. You’d better watch out. You’re getting dangerously close to being added to the list of people of whom I am jealous.
I’m just saying, these sustained levels of awesomeness in your posts come at a price… ; )
Kim! You came! That’s so cool! (Attn: Everyone Who Is Not Kim… go check out Kim’s website with she shares with her equally awesome hubby, Jason. She just wrote a similar post about people whining about being too busy. It’s awesome. You should read it.)
Chuck - I actually keep a harem of MENSA members locked up in my basement. That’s the secret.
Actually, that’s totally not true. I don’t even have a basement.
[...] Read the rest of this great post here [...]
BUT WE WON’T EAT IF I STAY AT HOME!
Oh wait, we don’t eat anyhow. I might as well stay at home and get the joy of loving on my little boys instead of slaving away at a job for 8 hours for pennies.
Thanks for this post. I, too, am peeved by those who don’t understand the true meaning of not being able to afford things. Your words are also an encouragement, because at the time when things are darkest for us financially - I’m about to make the leap to be where I’m needed most - at HOME.
Looking forward to seeing how you come back from exploding live on the internet ;-)
You are so right, it is all about choices.
I used to hear envious “Oh, I couldn’t afford that” when I was working part-time in a call center so that I could make art and study web design. I couldn’t afford *not* to… Four hour shifts with a headset on felt like insane water torture to me.
Now I need to work on the “I don’t have time” part that is really just the choices I’m making…
@ Lisa - Thanks for coming to the blog! I know what you mean… as much as it seems like we should be out there working for a salary, often in the worst times we’re at our best at home. Good luck, and please let me know if you need anything.
Hi Tzaddi, I did my time in a call center for a bit - I know how you feel. I like “I couldn’t afford not to” - that’s a point more people should be aware of.
Good luck with the time thing. It’s a tough one.
I just read this, blog surfing. Something that I already knew, I think the challange for me comes in wondering if there will ever be a life partner who is willing to handle my financial philosophy, at the moment, I have a lot of things that I don’t need.
But when it comes down to it, I wouldn’t trade my childhood for any of the material things that I have now as a single childless person. And I would trade (most) of those things to be able to give my poetential children the same love and attention I recieved from my mother who quit her job , so she could take on, full time, 24/7 the job of raising and educating me until I was old enough to join the educational system.
There is absolutely no way to compare material objects/comforts with the value I put on that time, that love, even just that education (learning to read at three, learning to play the piano, sing, learning about religion and about the world and universe in general).
Thats off topic I suppose, the point really is, there are things that you decide are important and ‘necessities’ but other than the basics (food/water/shelter). I agree that all of those are choices, and that its up to us to make our own priorities. :)
-Kay
I am doing it right now, because I can’t afford not to.
I can not work for The Man anymore, using my time to make his fortune.
I can not watch my own dreams go unrealized because my best efforts go into his dreams.
I can not sit still and watch the world go by, I must help others realize their dreams too.
The universe is just too big to let it all go to waste.
Thanks Naomi for being such an inspiration!
Hey Kay and Stephen - Thanks for coming. I especially liked “I wouldn’t trade my childhood for any of the material things that I have now as a single childless person” and “I can not sit still and watch the world go by, I must help others realize their dreams too.”
This is a great site, we have taken the initial steps, and yes we understand about scraficing some things, thats why we have NO-let me repeat NO CREDIT CARDS, NO CABLE, and NO REAL BILLS.
But my daughter is a happy child, and we eat well out of the garden(probobly better than most folks) Best of all We are half way to totally self employed, and stepping up to the plate for fully self employed and lovin it
[...] It’s going to cost money. Get over it. The days of slapping some shit up on the internet and waiting for the Adsense dollars are not only [...]
Due to my high levels of intolerance on these types of issues, it drives me crazy when someone says to me “I can’t afford that” when I know they’re busy taking ski vacations twice a year, buying new cars every year, and spending their days in the mall. Those types of people just shouldn’t use the word afford. Ever.
At least they should be honest and say “I don’t want to spend money on that,” or “I’ve chosen to blow all my money on designer shoes so I don’t have much left for charity.”
for most people, being able to afford something means being able to afford the monthly payments for something.
I bought my wife a 2 year old Acura TSX cash while our friends leased 3 series BMWs. We bought everything with cash. Loans are only for buying appreciating assets (like real estate, which appreciates in the long term due to the effects of inflation).
Not having thousands of dollars in debt to feed every month affords great freedoms. Like taking 3 months off to visit Thailand and India or spending 6 months with your newborn son.
As Warren Buffett once said, citizens of the US have become sharecroppers, bound by financial slavery.
Congratulations on your choice for a free lifestyle!
[...] —from Money For Entrepreneurs: Can You Afford It? [...]
Another great post! I’ve never read about any other entrepreneurs who have admitted to, as you put it, “hanging out on the upper echelons of homelessness”. I was extremely naive when I went out on my own (Who WOULDN’T want to pay me to help them out?) and ended up coming very close to complete financial ruin (neglecting massive student loan payments, WAY behind on rent, taking the change jar to the grocery store and debating “eggs or bread?”.
Through all the EXTREMELY tough times, though, I could always fall back on the fact that this was a conscious lifestyle choice I was making, and I was headed for much better times when my business took root. It’s really something you’ve just got to believe–for a while there, there was NO good reason NOT to get a steady job doing something else.
You’re absolutely right about people not recognizing that there is a choice to be made. I personally think 95% of people are f*ing nuts for NOT going out on a limb for a while (be it in business, or life in general). I wouldn’t recommend that just anyone jump into entrepreneurship, but if you’ve got something to offer the world, then take the risk and OFFER IT! Take the hits as they come (and come the will), and keep moving forward. (That might be from a Rocky movie . . . but it’s damn good advice!)