Stealing a few minutes for personal to-dos right now. It's been a busy day so far with no signs of slowing down anytime soon. As soon as I get this entry written, spellchecked, and posted I need to get outside dressed and do a post office bank run. Then I need to pick up Miss Sara from school and we're catching a bus down to the Zellers to get some proper winter boots for us both. I also need to remember to visit the nearby dollar store there to get some padded shipping envelopes and packing tape.

I knew I was running low on supplies for SkyWorks earlier, but I didn't realize how many various things. I know better too. I know to stock up when I can and when I realize what I need immediately. Instead I waited and now I need to find hundreds of dollars to finance a major shopping trip. Doesn't help that I've developed a spending habit with the business debit card.

I was pretty bad about spending business money on various things when I started selling. Once I realized that I'd have to account for all the money and where it went when I became a legal business, I reined myself in fiercely. If it wasn't for the business, it came from personal money or wasn't bought. Period. Plus at the time I needed a monthly loan from the personal accounts anyways.

About a year ago I realized that I was busting my ass for my business for no reward and I was sick of it. So I started letting myself buy little things here and there from the business account. Then I bombed out on the business. I got depressed and stopped caring if money was coming in, if I had money to buy supplies, if I had a well-stocked inventory. I spent any money that came in, dipping under my preferred minimum of $100 reserve in the bank account.

Now with the sale finished and some auctions coming in, I have an influx of cash but the bad spending habits are there as well. The cash from the School Bazaar this year has been buying pizza and junk food. I knew I should have put it into the bank account right away. Ahh well. Hindsight, yes?

I think I need to look at my routines and attitudes towards money again. Specifically the money I've been earning for myself. I think I should start writing out a paycheque for myself on a monthly basis, or bi-weekly, maybe. Make it a percentage of sales, but keeping the balance untouchable for personal spending in the business account. Might help. I also need to figure out what I really need to get right now and what can wait.

It's been a while since I worked on the shopping lists and the various budgets for supplies. That means my costing sheets aren't accurate and I really don't know current costs of supplies. Something else to be added to the to-do lists for this month. I'm trying to spend about 3 hours a day on the business. Sometimes more. I could spend every breathing moment working, but all that gets me is burnt out.

I love that I can control my time expenditure this way. It's more important than money for me. I've been casually chatting with one of the women at my post office about my being available for part-time work if they ever need the extra help. She asked for a resume a couple weeks ago, but I don't have one that I would show anyone right now. And I don't have the time to write one out. Well to be honest, I don't want to make the time to write one out.

That was another important thing I did when I reined myself in when it comes to work. There are work hours and then there are home hours and they do not cross. I don't work when I have my family home. I have dinner to cook, I have TV shows to watch, I have airplane models to work on, I have watercolours to paint, and I have forums to read. I'm trying so hard to keep my life balanced. And as stubborn as I am about personal time being sacred, I am the same way about work time. I want to be alone so I can focus and get myself into gear.

I've sketched out a rough routine of 9am - 12pm being work time, 12-1pm being lunch, journal & photoblog time, and 1-3pm being personal responsibilities time. Now that we have Sara fulltime the chunk after school until dinner ends up being filled with her homework and needs. I need to figure out where in there I can fit my own School needs and responsibilities. I got the parcel this week from ILC with the first unit of the course, and after a fair amount of struggle I managed to sign up for the ejournal as well.

I figure I'll start that this Monday.

And that's 30 minutes. (and massive errors from my MT, so I'll post this later)