Last night, my husband suggested we go to our local brew pub for a burger and a beer. I had planned on cooking and while the outing is cheap, I was also in my “conserve at all costs” mode. Still, it sounded really good and I agreed. Reaching across the table, he grabbed both of my hands and said simply, “I wish I could convince you not to worry. That we will be fine and that your business will grow.”
Now, if anyone else had said that I would have been irritated by the platitudes. But not my husband. He doesn’t do platitudes. In fact, it’s a little bit of his social awkwardness that he can’t do platitudes. Nope. He does sincerity. And the fact that he was so sincere made such a difference to me. Regardless of what I feel like is my daily struggle to find work, he genuinely believes in me. And with that belief, we came up with a plan.
Honestly, he earns more than enough to cover our very modest expenses. Day-to-day, we were always going to be fine. My concern – and it wasn’t unfounded – is that we are working our backsides off to retire early. Without significant extra income from me, I could see our retirement date slowly slipping away. Additionally, that cash cushion I built for a downturn in my little microbusiness? I had become really fond of the extra layer of security it gave me. The idea of dipping into it at all was upsetting to me. Finally, I had seen too many people hold on too long to the idea of their own business until it financially ruined them. I was determined not to “throw good money after bad.”
So, that plan? Well, it turns out that buoyed by some late last-minute work from a client, my January didn’t turn out half bad. Still not great, but not awful either. And definitely enough to add a little bit to our savings while also paying for my gotta-get-away Florida trip. So, we are not starting as “behind” as I had emotionally thought we were. And we agree that the cash cushion was built exactly for this scenario. Therefore, we decided that we would set a benchmark of $10,000. Once we had run through that for our regular expenses – if we ever did – that would be our warning sign that we needed to honestly assess if my business was going to make it. Since it’s unlikely that we will need to touch that money unless for a project, it’s a good marker. It should both give me ample time to recover my microbusiness without the daily pressure I’ve been applying to it and never jeopardize our financial security. Finally, the goal is that I pay my own “mad money” every month (an allotment of cash we each give ourselves that is simply our own money to do with what we will) and that I earn enough to put at least $10,000 into retirement each year. (Let’s face it, $20,000 would be better, but small baby steps.)
Just like that, today feels better. I’ve got no more new contracts today than I had yesterday. But I’m out of panic mode. Being out of panic mode means I can think more clearly without emotion or self-imposed pressure and make smarter decisions. Suddenly it does all feel doable again. Maybe more importantly, it also feels like there is time. It may take six or eight months to fully rebuild my pipeline and get steady work coming in. I doubt I’ll ever be fully comfortable until that happens, but I can also relax a bit and reduce my own sense of urgency.
Since today is the very last day of January, I’ll also be sincere myself: I’m not sorry to see it go. In the consulting world, January is usually a pretty hard month and while this one felt particularly hard, it’s nice to leave it behind me and not have it be the failure I thought it would be. As we move on to February, I feel like I may finally start to see some of the fruits of my January labor and if just one or two contracts finally break, I can relax just a bit.
There is hope now. And I am sincerely so grateful for that.
The Yuppie Homesteader 