Yesterday, I got my required permits and business license (which I should have done last year!) with the help of my little assistant Jax. I still have yet to open up a separate bank account - but I plan on doing that next week. I also got a business loan (GULP - not a big one but enough), I know in 2013 most everyone, including myself - was hopeful of having less debt. But if I am really serious about this - then I need to invest in it - while investing in blood, sweat and tears is great and all (and I have plenty of it) it doesn't pay for some much needed equipment and insurance. We, as in the hubs and I, have decided to give up our master bedroom for the guest room so that we can turn the master bedroom into a studio & office. This way, I can have clients come in and not have to go through our entire house because it's located at the back of the house by the kitchen that has a separate entrance. I can also lead clients to an outdoor space if we wanted to meet outside too - or if they had their kids, they could play in our backyard.

I can't wait - I am so excited to rearrange everything. I can already see where everything should go in my head!

Anyway, aside from that - I am excited to be a part of my friend's birth team and got to accompany them on the tour of the hospital last night. I brought my camera along and also my promo flyers - and I thought it was the perfect opportunity to reach out to prospective clients - but, I chickened out!! I had a stack of my lil promo flyers that I made and spent money on but I was too nervous and I mean - these women were here to see where they were going to give birth - where all of the magic happens - I didn't want to interrupt that with a sales pitch - although they were all looking at me with my camera - since I was taking photos of my friends.

I know I know..I need to get over being shy or rather being laughed at and rejected - but I'm not requiring them to buy anything - just taking a look..sheesh..anyway..all the mamas to be were so cute..it almost had me....yeah, no. :)

Oh - for those of you who can still do a little shopping-if the holidays didn't already burn too many holes in your pocket book, I wanted to mention that Shabby Apple is having a site wide sale, and even better the sale is even on sale!! HA. So use code: NewYears to save 20% on EVERYTHING on their site:


Now back to business - my business, really OUR business. You see, when Charlie and I first started dating we had shared one major passion and hobby - photography. He was still using film while I was getting more into digital at the time (this was early 2008). He was really good for someone who never took a single photography class in his life! I had even built him a website once but then it was too much to focus on that as well as my old blog and then we got married, we had kids and we had a lot more responsibility than ever before. It was always a lofty dream of mine to have a multi-disciplinary business as husband and wife. Of course, Charlie's real passion is teaching and watching him go thru his credential program and teach kids and go to work doing what he really loves doing - was one of the inspirations for me to get my shit together and just do it - do what I love, of course while still maintaining all the responsibilities - which is not fun at all. Since my desk job provides us with the steady paycheck AND the health insurance - it's really hard, but I'm dedicated. Just like having a newborn, you don't sleep much - and well with all this business stuff or rather pushing my passion from hobby to a business - I'm not sleeping much and that's ok.

Anyway...

So - in other news, I got 100% funded for a peer to peer loan using Lending club except I can't freakin' find my 2011 W2 (nor my file folder of our 2011 taxes, where I KNOW that's where I would find it!) and I am missing the one paystub for that year end to date. These are the last of the required documents in order for me to receive the loan! If you haven't heard of peer to peer loans, it is a platform where the funding of the loans are done thru other people (investors) and not a bank. With Lending club, you request a loan - they check your credit score, give you options on amounts and payments and when you agree to it - they put it up on their board and investors take a look to see if it's something they are interested in putting their money in and if there are enough investors you can get fully funded. For my particular case, 45 strangers are investing in me, well in my business (it's not a major loan. I only requested an amount I know I could make the monthly on - for 3 years). You have the option to write a note to the potential investors and I stated it was to jump start my dreams & passion of photography - and make it a business. I stated it would pay for the required licenses, permits, insurance and some equipment too.

Here is the link to wikipedia for more info on peer to peer lending. I think aside from Lending club there is also Prosper - but you will need to have close to excellent credit to qualify for a loan at Prosper (which I didn't have and so was not approved).

As I was continuing this post, which was from yesterday and was supposed to be my Friday Perspective post - but as you can see, it is now Saturday..anyway, I was able to slash my auto policy monthly in HALF! You can too - especially if you haven't had a policy review in over a year or even 6 months. Things change, things get better or worse, so it's a good idea to call em up and see what they can do for you. Next up is cable - either canceling it completely or seeing if they can lower our monthly too. By doing this, it allows me to keep with our budget and include my loan monthly payment without sacrificing much of the necessities. Charlie might argue that cable (sports package) is a necessity - I wish I could just buy a sports package and nothing else but local cable.

Anyway, my focus these first few months of the year is finding ways to cut our expenses and grow our business. On top of my other responsibilities, of course...

speaking of responsibilities..have you read this blog post about how you are never failing as a mother? - Well, you should.

*Disclosure: Shabby Apple above - is an affiliate link. All other links are merely something I wish to share with you all - no strings attached ;) BUT if you are interested in learning more about Lending club - they do offer a referral program, so if you want to sign up, email me - and we can split the rewards (at the time of this writing, it's $100 - so, yeah...)