I’ve always had an entrepreneurial spirit and I’m crafty, so naturally I’ve wanted to be a creative business owner since before I knew what that really meant. It took me a while to find my ‘thing’ (wool felt!), I first tried several other crafty ideas. I’ve also always wanted to be a stay at home mom, so I had to find a way to make those two dreams work together.
It’s hard work to be self-employed and work from home with kiddos running around, but it’s possible if you’re determined! I want the flexibility of being self-employed so that I can be here when the kids get home from school, or if they need to be picked up. There’s no need to miss a meeting or a soccer practice because I set my own hours. I have systems in place that help me stay on track and succeed as a small business owner. And here’s a great, free printable workbook full of pages to help you set attainable goals and become a master of time management!
I’m a list-maker. Always have been. I make detailed grocery lists, and epic to-do lists and lofty goal lists. But often those lists go unread by other members of the family, *cough* husband *cough*, and things get forgotten. And then I get frustrated. Can you relate? Moms just have so many things to remember and schedule and plan in order to keep the family moving forward. It’s exhausting. But I’ve discovered this free tool that has helped me learn how to be an organized mom!
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I can’t even tell you the number of times that I have carefully written out a list for my husband before he leaves the house, only to have it lying forgotten on the coffee table. Anyone else’s husband do this?!
Not to mention, now that the boys are getting older, they have soccer practices and swim lessons and appointments that all have to be remembered.
It is so handy to be able to keep all that information in one spot where we can all access it.
When I tell people that I work from home the standard response I get is “Oh that must be so nice!”. I have to smile and say that it’s lovely but the reality of my days is far different from what people must think.
I run two small businesses from home with two kids. I was about 178 months pregnant with my second when I started my entrepreneurial adventure so I’ve always been in this balancing act of family and work.
My expectation was that the children would play happily around me while I got loads of work done, kept up with housework, never missed a precious moment of their lives and never felt an ounce of mom guilt.
I’ll give you a moment to stop laughing before you carry on….
I am very grateful for the beautiful and comfortable home that we are lucky enough to have. But the kitchen is TINY. Only one person will fit in it at a time. People offer to help me cook or clean up and I have to decline because they won’t fit and they’d just be in my way! (I’m still grateful, I promise.) So I’ve started this series to document our journey of doing a kitchen reno on a budget.
We’ve dreamed and schemed up ways to improve the kitchen, but short of a major gut job (which we need to win the lottery to afford), there’s not much we can do. The layout of the main floor is such that there’s really no where to expand to.
So we’ve decided we’re going to make the small improvements that are realistic plus pretty it up as much as possible.
I don’t shop at multiple stores. I don’t spend hours searching for the best deal. I don’t always spend time price-matching. I’m a busy mom, I don’t have time for all that. It takes me less than 1 hour a week to save 28% on my groceries. You can totally start using the same system today. Learning how to save money on groceries does not need to be complicated or difficult!
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My husband just finished his university degree. Which is AMAZING because it’s been a really hard 3 years for all of us. But now we are facing the mountain of student debt and it’s threatening to crush us. Yikes.
We’ve developed a strict budget and one of my main contributions is making sure we stay on budget for groceries. It’s no easy task. Food is expensive! It breaks my heart that it would be way cheaper for me to feed my family junk food than real food. But that’s a rant for another day.
I’ve accepted the challenges and developed a system that is working really well to keep us under budget every week by saving an average of 28% on our weekly grocery bill. I mean, it’s no ‘Extreme Couponing’ type of savings, but it’s realistic & maintainable and takes me less than 1 hour of prep to accomplish.
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