The first thing that a stay at home mom realizes when she sets her mind to starting her own business is that “they” really do know what they are talking about when “they” say… it takes money to make money. So what is a stay at home mom supposed to do to get the money it takes to make money?

Thought I was going to have an answer? Wrong. I am currently going through this situation as we speak. I was fortunate enough to be interested in a business idea that doesn’t take all that much money to start up. But when you are dealing with little to no extra money… it’s a challenge.

Although I don’t have any specific answers to how someone could start up their business on a budget, I can tell you what I have done so far.

Logo

Everyone needs a logo. You need it for your website, your business cards, fliers, and signs. Because your logo is usually the way that your company is remembered… it can cost a lot of money to have someone design your logo for you.

I was fortunate enough to have a husband that is excellent at graphic design. I worked with him and he was able to create a perfectly simple logo for my business. The best part? It didn’t cost me a thing. Well… it didn’t cost me any money anyway.

My suggestion to you is to find someone that you know (you must know someone) that is into graphic arts or web design that would be able to design your logo for you at little to no cost. As you go along in your business and you are a little better off cash wise, you can always have your logo enhanced and perfected.

Web Design

For the time being my website will be used to provide information about my company as well as provide ways for potential clients to contact me. Because of this I was able to, once again, ask for help from my husband in creating my site.

To make this process easier, I had everything ready to go for when he was able to sit down with me to do the actual creation of the site. Prior to this time I had come up with my color scheme, come up with every word of content that would be put on the site and I had my logo (thanks to my husband).

If you are fortunate enough to know someone that can create a website for you (this is very common these days) it would be a good idea if you were COMPLETELY prepared when the time comes for you to actually sit down with this person.

Start simple and add features as you get along in your business. Check out my site Body Art by Erin to see a very simple, yet very stylish body art site.

Advertising

As of right now I cannot afford any money for advertising. What? How then, do you expect people to know that you are out there? Well, for now I am trying to book a spot for myself at local festivals, craft fairs and things of that nature.

Does this cost money? Most of the time, yes. But to me, these festivals and fairs are not only just a way to make money, they are also a way of getting my name out there and showing people what I can do.

So for now, this is how I will do most of my advertising. As I begin to gain popularity and hopefully bring in more money, I can look at other more effective ways of advertising my business.

Materials

Here is the part that there really is no cutting corners on. For me, I have to use quality materials that are FDA approved for use on the skin. There is no way around that, I want to be as safe as possible.

What I have been doing is buying the bare minimum that I can get by on. Some people in my industry have every shade of every color paint there is. Me? I have primary colors that I have learned to mix into various shades.

Some people in my industry have brushes of all sizes that are used for large areas or used for intricate outlining. Me? I’ve had to learn how to use my small number of brushes to create every size line possible.

So for me, starting out with the bare minimum in supplies has actually helped me improve my fundamental skills. As my business begins to take in more and more money I will be able to invest in some supplies that will make my art easier (I can’t wait!).

So you see, a stay at home mom is able to start her own business using a small budget. Sure it may take longer and require a little more begging, but it can be done.

He dropped everything he was doing to work with me in creating this site. It actually came out almost exactly as I had imagined it in my mind… how often does that happen?

Since this site has sort of taken on a stay at home mom/work at home mom niche, from this point on I will be talking about some of the struggles that a stay at home mom faces when she is starting her own business.

I can tell you the first one I’m facing… self confidence. It’s tough to always believe in yourself but if you aren’t believing you can do this, no one else will either. Moments of self doubt will arise but you just need to push your way through.

The second challenge that some stay at home moms face while trying to start their own business… money honey. Luckily for me the overhead for creating my site, getting my gallery up and running and stuff like that has been little to no cost.

As I move forward I’m going to need to come up with money to be able to register for local fairs and stuff like that. There are actually two upcoming events that I am interested in going to and will need to come up with the money in less than a month. The pressure is on but I am absolutely determined.

I’ll let you guys know how that goes.

I figured I would let you all know how it’s coming. I have most of the content ready to be put online and I have been working feverishly to document all the different face painting and body art designs that I have done. Now that I’ve figured out a technique for taking my own picture this is going a lot quicker.

For some reason I am unable to upload any images in my posts here at the moment so I’ll just provide you a link for my flickr page where you can check out some of my photos.

I have two festivals in September that I plan on attending and am working to spread word of mouth about my services being perfect for birthday parties.

I’ll keep you guys posted on my forward progress.

This has been a very interesting couple of weeks for my kid since I have used him to practice many of my face painting designs.

This weekend was a big hit and I have really learned something important about myself throughout all of this… I love face painting.

I have always loved art and think of myself as being pretty talented at drawing. People would ask me why I didn’t get a career in the field. My answer was always that I was afraid that if I made art my job that it would feel like just that, a job. I was concerned that if I was forced to do it… I wouldn’t want to.

Then came the day when someone mentioned they needed a volunteer for face painting at their function. My eyes lit right up. I had only ever painted my own face for Halloween but right away I knew that I would be great at it. It just seemed right.

I put in a lot of practice time and did a lot of online research to learn the best practices that most professional face painters use. This included not only technique but also hygiene and things of that nature. My family thought I was crazy because all I talked about was face painting. But you know what? All of that really paid off when the function arrived.

I felt confident in my skills and my knowledge and it really showed. I was a huge success and the kids really loved their face paintings.

So now this has me itching for more. I’ve decided to start a body art business which will include face painting as well as henna tattoos. Sure, I don’t know how to do henna tattoos as of this very second but I know how to create some pretty great designs so that just leaves me with the task of learning how to use henna to apply those designs on someone’s body.

I’m super excited about this new interest in my life and I feel that it fits in perfectly with my stay at home mom lifestyle. I will be able to schedule my time around my main goals of raising my child and taking care of my household.

I have secured my new domain name for my face painting business but the site has nothing on it as of right now so I’m going to hold off on posting the actual url. I’ll update this post with it when it’s up and running.

It’s great having a new passion in my life and it will be interesting to see if I can make some money doing something that I really enjoy. I’ll keep you posted.

There have been times in the past when I was left disappointed on Mother’s Day. It could have been because I thought we were going to do one thing or another and didn’t, I had to run around to all the other “mother’s” houses in my life, or I still found myself doing things around the house on my special day.

Making your Mother’s Day special this year is easy. I’m going to give you just a few tips that will help you make your Mother’s Day count this year.

Let’s be reminded of who we are expecting to make our Mother’s Day perfect for us… our kids and our husbands. You can see where problems could arise right?

Let’s take a look at a few things that you can do upfront to make sure that your Mother’s Day is a relaxing, special day:

• Plan To Do Nothing – I don’t mean you should plan to not partake in any celebration of Mother’s Day. I’m mean that you should go into Mother’s Day with nothing looming over your head that needs to be done. No laundry, no dishes, no picking up, no food shopping. Make sure that you do whatever it takes on Saturday to take care of all of your Sunday duties.
• A Little Direction Goes A Long Way – Maybe your husband has great intentions about what he would like to do for you on this Mother’s Day but he either doesn’t know how to pull it off OR what he has in mind wouldn’t be what you would consider as a Mother’s Day celebration activity. You can certainly give suggestions and hints prior to Mother’s Day that would allow him to plan for something that YOU would enjoy doing. A little direction does go a long way with these fellas.
• Get Rid Of Your Expectations – Today’s expectations turn into tomorrow’s resentments. Get rid of any expectations you have about how your Mother’s Day should go because you’ll only end up disappointed.
• Take Full Advantage Of Mother’s Day – Like I said, we only get one day for us per year… take full advantage of that. Make sure to schedule some alone time into your Mother’s Day. This could be an hour doing yoga or maybe you go get a facial. Also… Let people do things for you. I know that a lot of times it’s hard to sit back and let people do the things that you normally do around the house but for just one day give up the control and allow yourself to be taken care of.

Another situation might present itself that can be kind of troublesome. What if you have both a mother and a mother-in-law in the area. It’s Mother’s Day for them too. How do you give them the recognition that they deserve on this day without forgetting about yourself?

I usually see if we can take them out to dinner the day before. That way we are still taking them out and celebrating Mother’s Day with a nice dinner but we’re not running around like crazy people on Sunday.

I would also arrange to have something delivered to their home on the morning of Mother’s Day just to keep them feeling special.

Have a happy Mother’s Day this year. You deserve nothing less.

After all, not only do you have your work at home job to do but now that you run your home like a business your time management is very important.

But do you know what’s even more important than running your home smoothly? Your health and the example that you are setting for your children. If mama’s not healthy, ain’t nobody healthy.

You get up, you get dressed down to your shoes (at least you should be), you get everyone ready for their day and then you set right into doing some housework or performing tasks for your stay at home mom job… what’s missing? Exercise.

If you take into consideration all the stress that is involved with maintaining a full schedule such as the one a work at home/stay at home mom keeps it really does make sense that a little exercise would be needed in order to relieve said stress.

Let’s forget about ourselves for a minute. What better way to make sure that your children grow up knowing the importance of exercise in their lives than to lead by example. After all, it really doesn’t matter what we tell our children if they see us doing the exact opposite. Actions speak louder than words.

Scheduling Exercise Into Your Stay At Home Mom Duties

In my opinion, daily exercise should be scheduled into your day just as you would schedule any other task that needs to be completed. By scheduling it ahead of time you won’t be able to use the excuse that there is no time. But who would use excuses to avoid exercise… hmmm?

Treat your exercise as you would any other task on your to do list. Figure out what is needed and how much time you need to allot for your exercise and stick to that. This will help it become a regular routine that is easier to follow.

Perfect Exercise Ideas For Work At Home/Stay At Home Moms

Not all stay at home/work at home moms are able to pop off to the gym during the day. I fall into that category.

Now at first I used this as the perfect excuse to avoid exercise. But finally I began to realize that I was in dire need of daily movement. Just movement. I didn’t need to be at a gym lifting weights or taking cardio kick boxing. I just needed to get myself moving.

I have now incorporated a morning walk into my schedule. My son rides his bike and I haul ass behind him trying desperately to catch up. It has worked out really great for both of us. Plus by involving him in this routine it keeps me more accountable than if I was just going it alone.

If you think about it, there are tons of things that stay at home moms/work at home moms can do to get in their daily exercise right in their homes or neighborhoods.

• Walk on a treadmill or in your neighborhood
• Work out programs available on your cable’s On Demand feature
• Get a small trampoline – did you know that 5 minutes of constant jumping on a trampoline is equal to a 15 minute jog?!
• Dance with your children in your very own living room

The point is, that if you want to schedule exercise into your day it can be done and it should be done. So get moving!

Do you think this sounds crazy? Think again. There are countless future uses that your child could be using their own name as a website for. What better way to ensure that your child has all of their options open then by securing their domain name for them now?

It is estimated that over 10,000 domain names are secured everyday by both individuals and companies. What are the chances that by the time your child gets older and decides they want his or her name as their domain name it’s going to be available? Not very good.

I’ll give you a for instance. Take my child’s name, Jakob Savage. Being the forward thinker that he is, my husband secured JakobSavage.com when my child was born. In the 5 and a half years that we have had this domain name we have been contacted numerous times by other Jakob Savage’s looking to purchase the domain…not gonna happen.

By securing his name as his domain name we have kept our child’s internet future wide open. Who knows, he could be running his own business at some point using this very domain name. But what about the present time?

Building Your Child’s Domain Name Authority

As we discussed, securing your child’s domain name and tucking it away for future use is a good plan. But an even better plan would be to put your child’s domain name to use now and begin building it’s online reputation.

In this age of search engine page rankings and Alexa ranking systems the more authority a site has the better. You can begin to build your child’s website authority now by putting it to use.

So you should come up with a business idea for your child’s future? No, no, no. Nothing like that. What you could do is use your child’s site as a place where family and friends can come and catch up on anything having to do with your child.

Again, take JakobSavage.com for instance. This site is used as a place where my husband and I essentially keep a journal of Jakob’s life which include blog posts and pictures. Not only do our family and friends love to visit the site but Jakob loves being involved in his own website.

You know how you love to check out the baby books that your mother and father kept about you while you were a small child? You get to see your life through their eyes. Now just think if you had a whole website dedicated to your former years…pretty cool right?

We have decided to keep JakobSavage.com has our child’s journal until he is old enough to decide what he would like to do with the site.

In my opinion securing a domain name for your child now is going to give them a leg up in the future.

Every person in the world has days from time to time when they are feeling a little off and their motivation is in the toilet. But not every person has to try and be productive on these days while they are sitting in their own home. Now that takes some doing.

Mama told me there’d be days like this but she didn’t really tell me how to deal with them. Luckily I’ve figured out a few tricks that help me keep my motivation on bad days.

There were times in my not-so-productive days when a bad day would be written off as just that and I wouldn’t get anything done. Some people call these mental health days but for me, they didn’t really do anything but make me feel guilty about all of the things I neglected to do.

It seems that I’ve been able to pull a few tricks from up my sleeves that allow me to get through these bad days and still be productive:

• Pull yourself out of bed, get yourself groomed, get yourself ready for the day down to your shoes – The only thing you are going to accomplish by staying in your PJ’s is to subconsciously be ready to dart back to bed.
• Have some caffeine – if you’re into that sort of thing. Skipping coffee when you are used to having it will only make you feel worse.
• Prepare a list of the necessities that you need to get accomplished today. Remember…just the imperative things. Everything else can wait until you are back to your normal self. So how many imperative things could you really have for the day? We’ll say four.
• Start with number one. Work all the way through until it is completed. You will see that completing this first task has made you feel like you are getting something accomplished. Oooh, just think how it will feel to finish another thing on your list!
• Go for number two and then take a well deserved break. Eat your lunch, take a walk, whatever you can do to make yourself feel a little refreshed.
• Now finish with number three and number four. Guess what – you did it.
• Collapse!

No matter how you want to deal with a bad day the key is to have a plan in place BEFORE the bad day hits. It could be like my plan or completely different. The point is not how you get things done but that you do get things done.

The last thing you want to do on your bad day is to remind yourself that even though you weren’t feeling up to it, you got done what you needed to get done. You should also remind yourself that today is over. No matter how annoying, sad, aggravating or miserable it was…it’s over.

Tomorrow is a new day and today has no impact on tomorrow other than a positive one because you didn’t leave things hanging over your head. Good job.

About 10 percent of Americans have a severe allergic reaction to Dust Mites but countless others have slight to moderate reactions which include annoying sneezing fits.

So if the typical used mattress contains anywhere from 100 thousand to 10 million dust mites inside of it, what are we supposed to do? Well before you go throwing out all of your mattresses and sleeping on the floor, there are several techniques that can be used to greatly reduce the amount of dust mites that live in your mattress.

If you are a parent you have probably learned by now how to clean a mattress when life’s little oopses happen. But what you probably haven’t learned is how to properly protect your mattresses from dust mites.

Facts About Dust Mites

Knowledge is power right? Educating yourself is the first step in combating dust mites. Here are a few facts about dust mites that you should know:

• The dust mites prime habitat is in a mattress
• The dust mites main food supply is human dander. That’s right people, dust mites are munching on the dead skin that we shed
• Dust mites also inhabit pillows, carpets, and upholstered furniture.
• Dust mites cannot be seen with the naked eye so just cause you can’t see them doesn’t mean they aren’t there.
• The dust mites feces and their shed skin is what causes allergic reactions in humans
• The dust mites feces and their shed skin is a large part of what makes up household dust
• Dust mites prefer warm moist surroundings such as the inside of a mattress with YOU on it

How To Control Dust Mites

There is no eliminating dust mites from your home…you can only hope to control them. The techniques I’m going to be listing are geared towards the bedroom but as we stated earlier, dust mites can be found in carpets and couches to you may want to adapt these techniques to fit other areas of your home.

• Dust Mite Impervious Covers – The best way of protecting your mattress or pillow from dust mite inhabitation is to cover the entire surface with a dust mite impervious cover. This cover will not allow dust mites to work their way into the mattress or pillow case.
• Sanitize Sheets And Blankets – This is done by washing your sheets and blankets in very hot water. This can be done bi-weekly along with your regular weekly washing of your bed linen.
• Reduce Humidity – Ensuring that your household humidity is below 50% is required if you hope to control dust mites. Humidifier in the winter? I’m guilty of that. You can still use the humidifier but only use it at night and make sure that the bedroom is somehow ventilated during the day.
• Weekly Cleaning – Change all bed linen once per week. Vacuum very well around the base of your mattress as well as the mattress itself. When cleaning floors make sure to use a damp mop or damp cloth as brooms and dry cloths just move the dust around and stirs the dust mites into the air.
• Let Their Be Light – Prolonged exposure to sunlight kills dust mites. If you have a window or two in your bedroom make sure you open the shades and allow it to shine in. Remember, sunlight kills the dust mites but does not remove their residue. Cleaning is the only thing that removes the dust mite residue.

So there you have it, a few recommendations for you to follow which will greatly reduce the amount of dust mites that you have in your home. The key to making this work is to follow these steps repeatedly. Make them part of your weekly stay at home mom duties.

For me, finding out a few facts about dust mites and just how disgusting they are was all it took for me to add dust mite controller into my repertoire. I have removed dust mites from my mattress and I work hard at keeping them out. You should do the same.

With the average stay at home mom working about 90+ hours per week around the house it really leaves the question of how to fit your work at home mom duties in with your stay at home mom duties.

My answer to this baffling question is to run your home like a business and perform both your work at home mom duties and your stay at home mom duties seamlessly. It’s not always easy…but I can tell you first hand that it can be done.

First of all, I want to point out that I am not a delusional person who is trying to convince others that she is a perfect person. If for some reason by reading my suggestions you are feeling like you are not as good of a stay at home mom or a work at home mom as me…CUT IT OUT!

I’m not giving advice to you because I run my life perfectly. No, no, no. I’m giving advice to help you try and avoid some of the problems that I have run into when trying to fit my work at home mom duties in with my stay at home mom duties.

As a stay at home mom you probably already have a schedule that you adhere to in order to make sure that all of your household duties are performed on a regular basis.

As a work at home mom you probably also have a schedule that you adhere to in order to make sure that all of your work duties are performed on a regular basis.

Two different schedules? Well, my suggestion is that you meld these two schedules together and perform your work at home mom duties and your stay at home mom duties seamlessly.

Simple? Not really. The entire challenge of this schedule melding rests upon the little people in your home. It’s pretty difficult to create a concrete schedule that you stick to when children are involved.

Time Management

The most important piece of running your home like a business is time management. If you don’t have time management skills…learn some time management skills.

There are plenty of sites out there that offer free, easy to follow lessons on how to increase your time management skills. What? You don’t have time to sit in front of the computer and read all of these articles? Print them out and read them right before bed, read them while your in a doctor’s office waiting room, read them on the toilet. The point is, you can get a few minutes here and there to read these educational articles.

Think of some of the duties that each of your roles as a work at home mom and a stay at home mom has in common. Things that you need to do on a regular basis. Then group all of these similar duties together whether they are for your stay at home mom role or you work at home mom role.

• Errands – No matter if you need to go to the grocery store or the office supply store, you should be grouping all of your errands together and doing them once or twice per week. Take your kid to the doctor, drop off the dry cleaning, stop off and have your business cards printed out. Take advantage of the fact that you are out of the house, plan accordingly and efficiently to get everything done in the same trip.
• Phone Calls – Whether you need to call and schedule appointments for people in your home or you need to call a client to discuss an email, you should be scheduling a time in your day when you get all of your phone calls made. Obviously you are going to want a time when the little people in your home are quiet. Plan out your phone calls the day before if possible by making a list. After making the list, prioritize the list to ensure that your most important phone calls are made first…just in case the little people in your home don’t cooperate.
• Computer Time – Whether you are replying to emails, writing a blog post, or figuring out your grocery shopping list by using an online circular, you should be making a list of everything that you need to get done that involves your computer. Once again, make this list a day ahead of time if possible and try and prioritize as best as you can in case of any unexpected interruptions. Keep in mind that your entire list does not have to be completed in one sitting. Break up your computer time list to make it more doable.

The Importance of Structure

Whether you are performing stay at home mom duties or work at home mom duties, a structured day is going to be your biggest asset.

By structure, I don’t mean that you live and die by a schedule. Things come up and if you are not flexible and don’t know how to roll with the punches you are just going to stress yourself out.

What I mean by structure is to have a weekly plan in place that gives a basic idea of what needs to get done and when. By creating structured weekly plan in your home you will be better able to deal with those little unexpected things that life serves up.

Here is an example of a structured week:

• Monday – Deep clean bathrooms, take John Boy to daycare, 1 load of laundry, change everyone’s sheets, brainstorm for this weeks article ideas, perform research and write 1 article, create weekly shopping list
• Tuesday – Deep clean kitchen, 1 load of laundry, food shopping day, do whatever other errands scheduled while out, bank run if necessary, weekly client phone call, perform research and write 1 article
• Wednesday – Deep clean bedrooms and living room, perform bookkeeping duties (business account and home account), take John Boy to daycare, 1 load of laundry, research and write 1 article

You see, if you set in place a structured weekly plan of the basics that recur each week then you will more easily be able to pepper in the extra responsibilities that are guaranteed to pop up.

After time, your work at home mom duties and your stay at home mom duties will seamlessly come together and you will find yourself running your home like the business it is.

***important***Even though I am promoting the importance of structure and scheduling in your daily responsibilities…DO NOT over schedule yourself. You only get one go at this life, enjoy it while you have it.