Business Plus Baby

Modern parents who need to come up with ideas that will help them balance work and family life. It’s so important to try to nurture your business while also raising a family at the same time. It seems like the great impossible feat, but it’s actually becoming more doable than you might think. Take a look at these ideas to help you nurture a business and make time to raise a family as well.

Image credit: Ran Zwigenberg

Work From Home

Working from home is the best way to run a business and raise a family. You need to make sure you spend as much of your time working at home as you can. Indeed, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics has reported that around 21% of adults work from home. You can bet good money that a lot of these are probably going to be parents too! This is something you can do by setting up your own home office. It will help you to dedicate more professional time to running the company. And you’re going to be home already so it prevents you having to travel. This means you can spend time with the kids as soon as you finish your work.

Make Time for Your Company

It’s really important to ensure that you make time for your company as much as you can. And working from home gives you the opportunity to achieve this. It’s important to try to find the time to get your company up and running. As a parent, you will always find time for your kids, and you should do the same for your business. So, it’s crucial to come up with all the tricks you can to make time for your company. Time management is a great way of ensuring that you free up time to focus on the business. This is going to mean that you can help the company flourish in the beginning.

Balance Work and Home Life

The real trick is to try to get that perfect balance between work life and home life. You’re a parent, but you’re also a business owner, and you need to make time for both. A census has shown us that 75% of working parents in the United States feel like they don’t have enough time for their kids. And you definitely don’t want to be one of these parents. So, the best thing you can do is to try to get that fine balance between work and home life. A good way of achieving that is to structure and organize everything so you don’t waste any time. Getting the right balance is crucial on for developing a successful and long-lasting brand.

Make Your Days Shorter

One of the best things working parents can do to ease the problems is to try to make their days shorter. If you can shorten your working day, you will have more time to spend on personal chores and on seeing the kids. That’s why this is such an important step in the process. But, you need to realize that it’s important to make sure you aren’t negatively affecting your business by doing this. And, the way to achieve that is to make sure you make changes that will improve the business. Things like contract management software are an excellent way of achieving this. You can make the business much more efficient and self-reliant. You’ll be implementing a leaner ethos into the business, and this can only be a good thing.

Structure

The best thing to do is to make sure you have some structure to your working day. If you can do this, you’ll have more of an idea about what you’re doing, and you’ll be able to get more done. Patrice Tartt, author of ‘Mommy Divas on the Move’, suggests planning everything out the night before. This helps make the process more doable amend prevents you running into problems with scheduling conflicts. Having the right structure is crucial for helping you nurture your brand successfully. If you’re gaining it the right amount of care and attention it will blossom nicely. This is a similar approach to raising a child if you think about it.

Photo credit: jnyemb

These days so many of us double up as both parents and business owners. And it can often be really tricky to find that work/life balance. That’s why you need to know as many tips and ideas as possible to help with this. It is entirely possible to raise a child and a business and give both of them the right amount of attention.

If you want to start a business, you don’t necessarily have an idea. You just know you want to make some money, and you need to figure out how. However, when you’re trying to come up with something, you can only think of the same old stuff. Selling products from clothes to electronics or offering a service you’re skilled in probably come to mind. Finding a niche is essential, and that’s easier if you’re willing to think outside of the box. Consider these unusual ideas and whether they could work for you.

Cash in on the Sharing Economy

Starting a business that caters to the sharing economy isn’t all that unusual anymore. You can find sites to share property, vehicles, and equipment. However, there’s still plenty of room to figure out something that hasn’t been done yet. Being able to think creatively is extremely helpful if you want to come up with this kind of idea. What do people have that they don’t use all the time, and other people might pay to borrow? It’s been done with spare rooms, RVs, and parking spaces. You can even rent chickens. If you can come up with something no one else is doing or that you think you can do better, you could be onto a winner.

Open a Parking Lot

When people have some land, they usually think of what they can build on it. But what if you don’t have to do much building at all? If you’ve acquired some land, or you’re thinking of doing so, paving over it could give you a business. Of course, you’re going to need a few more things to turn it into a proper parking lot. That is, unless you have bought an existing parking lot. After ensuring that any legal issues are covered, you’ll have to develop the lot so it’s suitable. Painted lines will keep everything in order, while LED flood lights and security cameras will keep it safe at night. You might have a parking lot attendant with a boot, or you might rely on machines for it to operate without any staff.

Hyper-focused Retail

Have you ever heard of the store that only sells purple things? The Purple Store sells a huge range of items, but every single product is a shade of purple. This Seattle online store might seem strange and quirky, but it’s very successful. They have managed to capitalize on people who love all things purple. They have everything from jewelry to teddy bears and kitchen appliances. You could come up with a similar idea that focuses on something specific. It doesn’t have to be a color or anything along those lines. Some businesses choose to sell just one or two products, but they ensure those products are as good as they can be.

Delivered to Their Door

People like when things come to them, instead of them having to leave the house. You can see the success that apps such as Soothe, the massage app, have had. Not only do people want to get a service to come to them, but they want it to be instant. They want to be able to tap a couple of buttons on their phone or computer and have what they need within the hour. Of course, you can get plenty of businesses to bring you food. But there are even services that will come and clean your house the morning after a heavy party. In fact, Hangover Helpers in Colorado do just that, and they bring you a burrito and a Gatorade to perk you up. There are surely still many ideas along the same lines that you could come up with.

Subscriptions

Similarly to having services that turn up at your door within minutes, people love subscriptions. They can sign up to have something delivered to them every month, or even every week. It works well for things people don’t have time to do. It can also be for people who want to explore something new, or a regular purchase it can be tedious to keep ordering. For example, you can get a subscription for an organic, recyclable cat litter box. Women can order boxes for their periods, with everything from sanitary products to chocolate. You can buy subscriptions for coffee, beer, and groceries. If there’s something you could turn into a regular delivery, it could work as a subscription service.

If you can identify a need for something, you could come up with a successful business idea. Think creatively to come up with something unique.

When you run your own business, there are a lot of balls to juggle and a lot of people to please. You constantly have to look at how to keep staff happy whilst balancing the books and keeping the orders coming in. The thought of being able to save money doesn’t really occur, as it can be a struggle to see where you could be more efficient. In today’s article, I’m sharing three ways that you can do just that. Read on if you want to know more about maximizing on marketing, and making the most of the best software on the market.

1. Be clever with marketing

The type of marketing and advertising you do depend on the kind of business you own. If you’ve just started out with a shop on Etsy, chances are you won’t even be thinking about marketing. If you’re selling a local service, perhaps you put together some flyers for the area. These days though, you have some incredible advertising resources at your disposal, and they’re completely free!

Becoming active online in popular social media circles will do two things for you. First of all, it will serve as a means of providing free exposure for your brand, as you can create a Facebook page, Twitter account or Instagram feed with zero cost, but with tons of potential for engagement. Secondly, it will serve as a customer service tool. If someone has a complaint or query, it will come straight to you and you can handle it within minutes. This gives a huge boost to your reputation, but of course, it’s completely free!

2. Streamline your processes

A lot of companies don’t see the value in investing in the right software, thinking it too expensive for their current situation and only focusing on the short-term. However, sometimes it’s only by investing that you can get the most out of those departments and maximize on their efficiency, saving money in the long-term.

A great example of this kind of forward-thinking strategy is the HR software by Cascade. They focus on ridding a business of the complexity relating to things like payroll, training, expenses, timesheets and so on. Whether you have a small team and you’re planning for the future, or you have a large team that needs overhauling, this kind of software is worth considering.

3. Don’t be scared of recycling

In recent years, there’s been a decline in the number of companies that want to buy office furniture as new. This is part of a trend amongst eco-savvy business owners who want to do their bit for the environment, whilst saving a few pounds for themselves.

The idea is that, by taking a mix-and-match approach to buying furniture, it means that when one chair breaks you don’t have to replace everything at once, because it’s a sign that all of your furniture is wearing out. You only need to replace one item at a time, and it will save thousands each year.

Do you know any other money saving tips for businesses?

Is it time  to get started on your family budget? It can seem complicated at first – how do you categorise everything? What about expenses that fluctuate or don’t come in monthly? The best thing to do is take a step back and look at some practical steps toward formulating your family budget. Here are some tipsto get you started:

Estimates and actual figures

Remember that your budget is a tool, not a dream machine. Goals are important, but a family budget should first focus on the numbers you’re dealing with. That’s the basic first step. Once you have a grasp on that, you can begin to dream a little, such as planning holidays and other desirables!

Start with your net income

First, figure out your net income for each month. This means your income minus taxes, national insurance, pension contributions and so forth. If you are self-employed, subtract estimated taxes, insurance costs, retirement account savings, etc. At this point, you just need numbers.

Now, your expenses 

Next, work out your monthly expenses. If they vary, figure out an average by looking at the last three to six months’ worth of expenses.  Alternatively, you could take the highest monthly amount and go with that.

It’s a good idea to keep your categories as general as possible while still preserving clarity. Otherwise, you might get confused or overwhelmed by all the “hair splitting.” For example, instead of having “food, paper products, drug items, etc.” as categories, you can lump all those expenses under “groceries.” Items like “pet supplies” can be their own category, but you might want to include vet bills in that category. Here are some suggestions for categories:

• Paying off debt
• Home (mortgage, rent, property tax, insurance, repairs, etc.)
• Vehicles
• Utilities
• Health Care
• Birthday and Christmas gifts
• Cushion (this is money set aside to offset surprises, mistakes, or unexpected expenditures)
• Personal (eating out, hair appointments, etc.)

Stop and Look

At this point, stop and take a look at what you’ve got so far. Are your expenses greater than your income? It’s time to cut back significantly, or find another source of income (or both).

Actual Expenses

So far, you have two columns – income and estimated expenses. Now you need to add another column: actual expenses. Keep track of the real numbers each week over the next month and see how much/if they differ.

Now you’re well on your way to a workable budget!