La Bene Vita

Monday

I need to boost my income stream a smidge. There are about four ways I could do that: (1) pull a salary from the business account; (2) sell my house (although that's technically cutting expense, it amounts to the same thing as pulling a salary, because paying for that stupid house is an unbudgeted business expense that I've managed to support); (3) write articles, and (4) gig.

Option #1 makes the most sense. The more time I invest in the finances of my business, the more savvy I'll be as I start implementing expansion plans. I'm holding out for our August/September volume ramp up, because we're counting on big fall growth based on our experience in this business, but I don't know yet exactly what that will look like. Also, pulling a salary for myself now will push back other staff additions that I've promised. So at this point, I plan to add an owner salary, but not until I reach a certain volume. ...and I'm not there yet. I project that I'll be there around November, which is *gulp* sooner than we all think.

Option #2 is theoretically the easiest. Somebody tell that to my real estate agent, who is the fourth I've had in two years on the market, since I first listed in August 2009. Happy Anniversary.

Option #3 has the benefit of brushing up my writing skills. It doesn't take a lot of time, and I can pick and choose the articles I write, basically deciding how much time I want to invest and how much I want to earn. I would need to budget time for this. I can't even keep up with my business blog or my Writing.com blog, so what makes me think I can find time to write articles??

Option #4 is my favorite. But the gigging itself is the easy part. Cutting a new CD, creating business cards, and marketing to local venues will be expensive, time-consuming, and frustrating. This is why entertainment acts have managers.

Option #5, which I did not mention, is to get a part-time job. I deliberately didn't mention this one.

My problem is that I'd like to do all of them, so I waffle. Story of my life. I should pick one and focus.

Reach 300 students at MTMS   by 12/31/11.
Hovering around 200. For the curious, if I sell my house, I can redirect funds and pull an owner salary immediately. Otherwise, I'll start earning when I hit around 250.

Writing:
(1) Blog at MT.com   by the end of Wednesday: Nope.
(2) 30 minutes of daily freestyle writing: Nope.
(3) Search top blogs and analyze: I feel like this was a one-time shot, which I accomplished. I would set a goal to read top blogs, but I do this every day, every time I open Yahoo to read my email and catch the latest title on the Yahoo front page. I keep thinking that I'm smart enough to launch a successful Internet business or publishing business, so I keep trying to research these things. But neither of those made the Top 5 list above. Maybe once my current brick-and-mortar business is running itself, then I can think about starting additional businesses.

Count points: Nope, and I feel ill.