If you’d like to catch up on this on-going series, start here, then go here, and here. Then come back here and read on.
There, now that you’re caught up, you know that my wife quit her job about a year ago. Sometime around last August, she and two of her friends (and ex-coworkers) decided to start a business together. And as of the last update, you knew that the business was going well.
Now, the business is still doing well. Better than most of us expected, I think. On May 1st, they began working with the clients that the certification that they picked up allowed them to. Because of that, all three of them should be seeing full time hours fairly soon. My wife has been working full time and then some for several months, but everyone else has been relegated to doing most of the office work (that is unpaid). That’s good for us, but wasn’t all that great for everyone else, or for business partner morale. Unfortunately, much of what my wife does is limited to people with certain qualifications. Qualifications that only my wife has. And, until the business is able to help pay for the others to get those qualifications, she’s got to do it. With the new program that they just started, that should become more of a possibility towards the end of the year. Of course, if the new program continues to do well, it might not be something that needs doing anyways.
As I expected, due to the added insurance costs, and some increases in withholding for ChildCare, my checks are much smaller than they were in 2009. We had planned on that, and since a lot of the extra is pre-tax, it will help us in the long run. It is a bit sad to see your net income be less than 50% of your gross income though. To try and compensate, I’ve re-doubled my efforts here and at my other websites to try and make up some of the difference. Income is increasing there, but it’s a very slow process, and it has yet to be enough to make any significant difference anywhere.
Due to my wife’s increased work load, we’ve been able to keep up with our bills and haven’t had any major issues. It hasn’t been good enough for us to return to aggressive debt payments, but we haven’t added much new debt either. That’s a win if you ask me.
The rest of the year looks pretty good. My wife’s business looks like it will continue to grow and, with any luck, so will my side endeavors. I’m hoping that we might even be able to start our debt snowball rolling again.
I started this blog to share what I know and what I was learning about personal finance. Along the way I’ve met and found many blogging friends. Please feel free to connect with me on the Beating Broke accounts: Twitter and Facebook.
You can also connect with me personally at Novelnaut, Thatedeguy, Shane Ede, and my personal Twitter.