Mar
Every Day I’m Hustling!
Remember how I said we’re implementing a full-blown, whole-hog hustling program around my house? Well, it’s working.
I had projected almost no income for February for my small business, and only a few hundred dollars of writing income. It ended up being a record month. Additionally, we got the balance of our tax return (adoption tax credit). Overall our February income exceeded $11,000 for the month (both of us). We normally budget off of a minimum income of $4,400. March looks to exceed $7,500 (no tax refund this month either!).
We will still be carrying over a huge tax credit into 2010, so we changed my husband’s withholding to be far less than he was even withholding before, because that will get us the balance of the credit week-by-week rather than next year in one lump sum. This will keep our snowball rolling.
So—what caused the massive income boost? A few things at once.
1.Tax refund.
2.Some new clients who’ve doubled my small business’ volume.
3.Old written-off client invoices suddenly paid.
4.Extra overtime for my husband.
At the same time, some planned expenses decreased.
1. Health insurance co-pays were recently reduced. One Rx went from $108 a month to $40.
2. Adding gleaning cut our monthly food expenses by $250.
3. Bartering with friends. Trading piano lessons for babysitting allows me to take on more small-business work while my husband is at work. Normally, I only schedule my work appointments while my husband is home—this new arrangement is for “drop-in” babysitting, so I can take a job while my husband is working, and my friend will watch the kids. This costs me 90 minutes a week in piano lessons for her three kids, and allows me to increase my income by $300-$500 per week.
I’m encouraged. We had more expenses than we expected (Murphy-type stuff) in February, so we didn’t make all of the progress that we had hoped to make, but we did not expect the higher-monthly-income to last beyond February.
Just today I learned that one of my husband’s employees will be out for another month, so my husband will be working six days a week (or more) for another month. I added new clients in February and already in March. Another client informed me that they’d be giving me a raise, and they account for about 50% of my volume.
We still think we’ll be debt free in July, and if my small business volume remains this high, we’ll be debt free by June.
Similar Posts:
- 4 Steps to Making Variable and Freelance Incomes Work!
- When Things Don’t Go As Planned
- Do You Zumba? (Video)
- Feeling Financial Peace In Tough Times
- How to Check your Federal Income Tax Refund Status
