Beating Broke

Personal Finance from the Broke Perspective

When Should You Hire Help?

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Running your own business, whether that’s in the form of a blog, or consultancy, or any other form of business can be draining. As the owner, you’re the first employee.  You’re also the only employee in some cases. It’s stressful, hectic, and tiring. It’s not for the weak. As your hustle grows, however, you might begin to feel a little burnout. It’s not necessarily because you have lost the passion for the business, but just that the work is starting to overcome your ability to stay awake. Starting your business is the first hurdle you must overcome. Knowing when you should hire help is the second.

Should you Hire Help?

When Should You Hire Help?
When should you Hire Help?

The answer to this question will likely haunt you for a while until you come to a decision. If you hire too early, you might struggle to pay the help, or have to pay yourself less than you are.  Or you might find that you don’t have as much work as you thought you did, and lose the help due to lack of work. Hire them too late, and you end up playing catch up to try and keep the pace.

If it’s such a hard decision, how do you decide?  I think you have to seriously consider a few questions.

  1. Can you afford help? Seriously consider whether your company has the resources to pay for the help. If it doesn’t, it’s time to take a very serious look at the methods you’re using for your company, and if there are ways you can improve the business in order to fund this expansion. Don’t be afraid to look for someone to help part time, or to try out a virtual assistant to help with smaller tasks that you can offload.
  2. What sort of help do you need? Before you really get down to finding someone to help, you have to know what it is that you need help with. What are your strengths that you must keep doing for the business?  Keep doing those. If you’re the face of the company, you’ve got to keep doing the PR work. Find the things that you don’t like doing, or that take you away from the strong work of the company and hire help to do those things.

Where can you hire help?

If you’ve answered those questions, you’re well on your way to hiring help for your burgeoning empire. Now, it’s up to you to find the help. Where you look will depend on what it is that you need help doing. Depending on the area you live in, there might even be local help that you can find. Local can be a great place to look for an accountant, for example. Accountant help is probably something that you’d rather have local anyways.

But, if you’re just looking for a little part time help writing content or scheduling social media, there are plenty of places that you can look. Check out online exchanges like Upwork or TextBroker.  You can find any number of freelance workers there who will work in a very temporary manner but that can also be more long term if you desire. Fiverr can be a great source of help for simple one-off projects.  If you’re looking for design work, someplace like 99Designs might be a good place. If you’re lucky enough to just be looking for some help with managing growth, maybe all you need is a business consultant.

Find Referrals when you Hire Help

Another great place to look is in professional groups on Facebook. Look around for groups that are for entrepreneurs, business owners, or that are related to your trade. Join them, and participate, as they can be a great source of knowledge for you.  They can also be a great source of help. If you’re looking for something in particular, you can usually post and ask for referrals for someone who does what you want to have done.  It’s a great way to find someone who has done that work before and done it well enough to earn a referral from another business owner.  And there’s a pretty good chance that the person who you are referred to is a small business owner as well.

Yes, owning a business can be hectic. Yes, it can be stressful. And, yes, it can mean working more hours than you’ve ever worked before. But, it can also be immensely rewarding and freeing. You’re doing your work, your way. And people are paying you to do it.  What could be better?

Don’t be afraid to hire help for your business, but make sure that you’re doing it the right way. Don’t rush to hire someone, but, similarly, don’t wait too long either. It’s your company, run with it. Enjoy it.  And hire help when you decide it’s necessary.

Teen Employment: 4 Questions to Ask Before Your Teenager Takes a Part-Time Job

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Working part-time is a rite of passage for many teens.  Teen employment can lead to increased independence—new friends at work, extra spending money, money to save, etc.  However, teens should think carefully before applying for and taking a job.  Ideally, they won’t just by default apply to the local restaurant or fast food restaurant.  Instead, they should choose a job that matches their goals and aspirations, if possible.

Before the job search begins, you and your teen should consider these questions:

Teen Jobs Employment
Orig. img. credit: Innovate Impact Media on <a href="https://flic.kr/p/azRhag">Flickr</a>

What is your teen’s interest?  What is your child interested in and good at?  What kind of job could he do that he would enjoy and that wouldn’t feel like a grind after a few months?  If he loves animals, maybe he could consider working at a pet store or a dog groomers.

What career is your teen considering?  If your child is a junior or senior in high school, she likely has a career choice in mind.  If she’s choosing between several, now is the time to learn more and help her narrow down her choices.

When I was a senior, I worked at a vet clinic.  I had the opportunity to work with the animals and even observe surgeries.  I had been toying with the idea of being a veterinarian, but after a summer at the job, I decided I didn’t want to invest all of the time and money it took to become a vet.  The job just wasn’t one I’d enjoy that much.

Ideally, your child’s job can help them discern if this is the right career path for them.  If it’s not, you and your child have saved thousands on an education they might not have used in the future.

What is your teen’s temperament?  How does your child do under pressure?  Is he introverted or extroverted?  Jobs available to teens can vary widely.  Some jobs will have them interacting with the public regularly while others will not.  Choose the job that best fits his temperament.

However, sometimes a good job that doesn’t perfectly fit your child’s temperament can provide learning opportunities, so also consider that a stretch in comfort level isn’t all bad.

Will this job help your child get into college or get a job in his career field?  Ultimately, a job should not just give your teen some spending money but also help her get into college or into her career field.  The jobs that teens take should be stepping stones into the life that they see for themselves.

Also, don’t be afraid to end the job if it is distracting your child from his ultimate goals.  Too often, teens take what looks to be a good job only to be given more work hours than they can handle, which causes their schoolwork to suffer.  Getting experience in their chosen field IS important and can help them get a better job later in life, but they also must focus on their studies.

Did you have a job as a teen that helped open doors for you or helped you choose your career field, or did you simply work whatever job was available?

 

Is It Time to Give Up Your Debt Free Dream?

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From the time my son was three, I’ve been a big Dave Ramsey fan.  When my youngest children were young (two under two), I quit my job to stay home with our three kids.  We decided to get gazelle intense with our debt.  Since my husband was working part-time and attending graduate school, that meant I had to work from home.  Work I did.  I worked a lot, and I compromised my health.

While we reduced our debt a lot, we never got debt free.

Then we had a cross-country move.

We also had significant medical bills this last year when one of our children had a medical crisis, the treatments of which were not all covered by insurance.

Our income, while more than it was years ago when I was gazelle intense, has never really grown much.

My husband and I were talking about finances recently, and I mentioned that I’d like to get gazelle intense again.

But, my husband, not so much.

Give up on your debt free dream
Is there a better way?

He sees our children growing up, and he doesn’t want to work, work, work trying to pay off debt.  Instead, he wants to spend more time with the kids, take vacations with them, and just enjoy them before they fly the nest.  As fast as time is going, that will be all too soon.

Turns out, my husband is not alone in this sentiment.

Recently, I stumbled upon a Daily Worth article where the author’s husband felt exactly as mine did.  He didn’t want to spend all of his time working and penny pinching, not enjoying life, in the hopes that he would one day be debt free.  The author writes of her husband, “He didn’t want to wait another five years to take our first family vacation.  He didn’t want to give up a decade of our lives in order to live my extreme version of the American dream.  He wanted a house in a better neighborhood that was actually big enough for our family.  He wanted to spend some of the money he had worked so hard for.  He was done.”

So, too, is my husband.

That doesn’t mean we’re going to go crazy spending.  What it does mean is that we will save money to take a vacation with our kids.  (The only vacations we’ve ever had were when we took the kids along when my husband attended conferences.  I took the kids to see fun things while my husband worked—not exactly a family vacation.)

We’ll finally start putting money in the kids’ college funds, and we’ll also start funding our Roth IRAs.  (We didn’t want to do these two things until we became debt free.)

My husband is expecting a substantial raise soon, and we will use some of that money to pay down debts, but we’ll also use some of that money to enjoy now.  After all, you’re never guaranteed tomorrow. . .or retirement.

If you’re in debt, is your goal still to be 100% debt free, or are you choosing to live and enjoy your life now while paying down debt?