Light at the end of the tunnel.

Well after a marathon effort over the weekend I have all my business tax paperwork ready to submit. The results were a pleasant and unexpected surprise!

Before crunching the numbers I had seriously given a lot of thought to dropping the business and getting a second part time job. I did not think I made any real profit. The last seven months I have only worked enough hours to pay the bills due to the responsibilities of caring.

Well I did make some money! The potential is there for income.

I can now see where I can make savings. Many expenses were reasonable for a newly set up business such as office furniture, training, mentoring, equipment. This year I will not have those expenses.

When I orginally set up I did a business plan. I also spent just less than $5,000 on business mentoring. While it sounds a lot it was an excellent investment in my future that I believe will save me much time and money over my career.

I had lost track of all the business excitment over the last few months. Now I see that I can still build my business, I will just keep it part time for a lot longer than I originally planned. There is a second full-time income there if I work smart. All of it can go to the mortgage.

I need to also look into how I manage the caring and how I can streamline that also. I do not want to get burnt out. Caring for my dad will only get more demanding as the years go on. That is another reason for me to pay off the mortgage as fast as I can. Then I can work less.

Yesterday I found this inspiring story about a couple who paid off their house in 3 years. Paying off the mortgage has become the number 1 priority now for us. If we can reduce our living expenses to what we had when I went to uni then we could pay one wage straight off the loan.

Now if I also increase what I earn by working smart in my business, then that is like adding another wage that could go straight off the loan. The easiest way to do that is to raise my fee. I have just done this with no complaints or loss of business so far. This has given me an instant 10% payrise.

The next thing that I am working on this week is to streamline my billing, reporting and paperwork systems so that I am more efficient and less stressed about it. Once that is completed then I think I will put out the message I am back on deck!
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It's good to see a crack of light at the end of what felt like a very long tunnel!