Finally Functioning Financially (Fingers Crossed!)

As I harped on about it so much in previous posts, I thought I'd let you all know that it seems like I might actually be able to carve out a living for my little family without getting a 'proper' job.

I became self employed in August, and to be honest after purchasing stationery and other office supplies, registering my urls, finding web hosts, losing our healthy start vouchers, increasing our council tax bill and adding on child care costs at this point we are just about breaking even. But when my October invoices get paid I will actually have made a profit!

I am doing a few things:

Mainly I am The Virtual Assistant  I have one major ongoing client at the moment and since I launched the website a couple of days ago I have had an enquiry from a fabulous local artist who paints murals on nursery walls for both private and business customers, asking about a website, facebook page and twitter account so I am really looking forward to that. The Business Training Centre that I went to have also agreed to keep some business cards in their office and to tell new start up businesses about what I can offer, so hopefully this will bring me a bit of trade too.

I have also set up an online bookshop on that well known book selling site, but after just a few weeks I have decided that I am not going to put too much energy into that. It's hard to compete with bigger stores, and the postage that the website adds automatically sometimes doesn't cover the actual cost. I am going to keep it going with the stock I have but I don't think I'll spend too much energy seeking out more books for sale.

With regard to Blissful Mama, I have added google ads to this blog, plus written one review that could potentially earn me some £. I am going to a blogger conference in a couple of weeks to learn how to do this more. Don't worry, it is a priority not to compromise my blog, but if I can get paid to review toys (or essentially to play with my child) then I am going to go for it. Nice work if you can get it, and once the review is written it's there on the site for people to find and earn you money while you're sleeping.

I am also considering setting up another online shop selling things like the bibs BB wears, but I am not sure after my bookshop experience that this is worth the hassle either so it's on the back burner for a while.

In summary, I am feeling like we are out of the woods, and heading for an exciting future. I am not worrying about the money so much, but of course, I won't take my eye off the situation. I am also getting busier and staying up later at night to get the work done, so I think BB might have to have a second morning at nursery soon. I think he likes it there but it's hard to tell. They seem to do some good stuff with him but I think it will be better in a couple of months when he moves into the older class as there are more activities and things to do. At the moment most of the other kids in his room are babies. Once he moves up, I think we'll go for the second day. I miss him though!