OFB Update


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OFB Update

Hello! We just wanted to pop in and talk about life outside the world of OFB for a second! We haven’t been able to engage with OFB as much as we’d like to lately because we’ve been trying to hit self-employment full force, and it’s been hitting right back. In some ways that’s been good, and in others it’s been a little overwhelming.

We’re learning a lot right now, and we’re spending lots of time planning ways to improve and grow. We’re always making plans for the future, financial and otherwise — we can’t help ourselves. It’s a juggling act for sure, and self-employment is affecting almost every aspect of our lives:

Kids

Luckily, our kids are young enough that they don’t really see how anything has changed since we’ve started up our little biz. They don’t understand that Johnny and I are talking about work stuff 90% of the time or that daily trips to the post office are any different than some other car ride or that Mommy and Daddy are very tired some days. We’ve started having them watched about 10 hours/week so I can work a few mornings each week. It was a big adjustment for both of them initially because our girls are very much homebodies like their parents. But it’s been great for both of them to have some time away from me to interact with other kids, and they’re both loving it now.

Home

I feel like my self-proclaimed title of “homemaker” has run away, never to return. Our house stays tidy enough, but we always seem to be weeks behind on folding laundry and maintaining organization. Despite our best efforts, there are always Cheerios on the ground long enough that they get smashed, triggering one of Johnny’s biggest pet peeves. The time to catch up on house stuff just simply isn’t there at night, and the girls demand all of my attention during the day. So for now, I’m just trying to give the girls my attention and be okay with the lack of organization in my home.

Health

Surprisingly, maybe because of the extra pent-up stress, Johnny and I have both made exercising a priority. Even when we’re sleep-deprived, we both crave the need to get out and do something a few times a week. And speaking of sleep deprivation, we’re pulling later nights than ever. This has resulted in lots of weird late-night conversations and laugh-crying at really unfunny stuff at 3:00 a.m.

Our food choices have taken a hit in the past month. Other than the Blue Apron meals that we’re getting (which Johnny continues to cook, might I add), there’s never enough time to cook good meals. Our diet consists of caffeine, frozen meals from the freezer, and take-out (though we do try to order salads whenever possible). We have some plans to remedy some of that ickiness, though!

Finances

Our finances are weird right now. We have a steady income with Johnny’s consulting, which is great. And we’re bringing in income from a few other sources, but we’re also taking money and investing it back into our side business. As soon as our money looks like it’s growing in Mint, we use another chunk of it to buy more inventory for our business. Overall, though, we’re both feeling really good about things and we’re still managing to save money somehow.

The biggest change has really just been time and not having enough of it. Despite some of the extra stress and time-crunch, we’re having a really great time working together! It’s been a great side project that we both look forward to working on each day. From marketing to packaging to shipping to customer service to bookkeeping to photography to plastic injection molding (what?!), we’re learning everything as we go along. We have no idea where it will take us, so we’re just trying our very best.

We hope once the holidays are over and life gets back to normal, we can give OFB the TLC it needs and deserves. In the meantime, we’ll continue to post and check in a few days a week. Happy December!

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11 Comments

  • Reply Joseph Beckenbach December 2, 2015 at 8:06 am

    Mass-cooking on the weekend works well for our household. We jumped up a size when we replaced our fridge recently, and decided we wanted to get back an hour each weekday evening, as well as being more sociable. So, Sundays we spend three hours on preparing simple food for 20 people, host 12 for dinner, and eat the rest during the week. No cooking for weekday lunches or dinners! Occasionally we even rotate a few meals into/out-of the freezer for variety. We had no net change to food budget, by the way.

  • Reply Britt December 2, 2015 at 8:30 am

    After seeing a letterboard on one of Winnie’s poctures I looked all over for one! And I read your blog religiously. I finally found it via Instagram and ordered one, but it would have been so much easier if you had actually mentioned your “side business” by name a long time ago. 😉

  • Reply Money Beagle December 2, 2015 at 11:41 am

    Sounds like lots of ups and downs, and a lot of trade-offs, which is exactly what to expect when diving into self-employment. Thanks for sharing and I wish you success as you move forward. Thanks for sharing and please continue to do so.

  • Reply Jennifer December 2, 2015 at 12:44 pm

    Hang in there guys! I really enjoy your blog.
    And the dirt can wait. Those babies are only going to be little for so long.
    My baby turns 13 in a few months and I just can’t wrap my head around how fast the time has flown.

  • Reply Stefanie OConnell December 2, 2015 at 5:07 pm

    I’m in a similar position of reinvesting everything back into my business as its grown over the last few months and agree that it’s a very bizarre time. I’m making more money than ever, but I’ve never been so cash poor. I call it the growing pains of business ownership 😉

  • Reply Cat@BudgetBlonde December 2, 2015 at 7:36 pm

    I’ve been investing in my business a lot more lately too and it’s definitely difficult to remember sometimes that it’s for the best. 🙂 Hang in there!

  • Reply Bethany R December 3, 2015 at 9:21 am

    I read something Tuft and Needle wrote about why they won’t ever participate in Cyber Monday sales and the like, and it seemed like something you guys would also say. But then you did (thankfully) have a promo last weekend. I’m curious if you read the same thing and what your thoughts are!!

    • Reply Joanna December 27, 2015 at 1:55 am

      We didn’t read that! But I think I can guess what their reasoning probably was, and that makes total sense. I don’t think we ever want to be in the business of doing lots of promotions as some sort of sales tactic, but we do like to have sales for special occasions. I know as a consumer myself, I often wait as long as it takes for items I like to go on sale, so we’d like to offer that from time to time.

  • Reply Amanda December 3, 2015 at 9:55 am

    Whew! Joanna, it seems like you never got a break from working after you quit WGU! I don’t know how you do it. I hope you are doing ok. Stress and not enough sleep sound hard.

    • Reply Joanna December 27, 2015 at 1:57 am

      Thanks, Amanda! Life is pretty busy right now! I’ve recently been hitting the road/treadmill a lot more, and running has somehow helped me manage everything else. It’s my stress outlet!

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