Decisions

It has been over a year since I have created a post on this blog. When I first wrote this blog a lot was different including an important fact I was only working part time. Now I work four, ten hour shifts a week and I am only off of my feet for lunch break. It is labor intensive my new job and yet I burn no calories! I have gotten tired because where I work the days are long! I have been using my free time on researching, working out, enjoying my new found weekends off and day dreaming.

I actually got inspired by a good friend who blogs five days a week on her blog Luxe Austerity. She blogs a sort of quick good things list for Fashionistas on a budget. You got to love friends! I love her blog and it gave me inspiration! I realized that I do not need to write long blogs and over do it! So I am saying thank you to Poppy B! Reading her blog gave me the kick to start writing again on this blog! I am not saying I will not be verbose BUT it will help me write more with less pressure!

If you have been following me you will see that I had a desire to create an online bakery of some sort for extra money. Friends, co-worker, and family love my cookies! I had a list up of the cookies that I was selling only to my friends because I do not have a commercial kitchen.

So I learned about the WBDC which targets women and minorities who want to open a small business. It is a great resource and there is a WBDC I can walk to! I decided to go to a class at a local Women's Business development Center. It was a four week class in June that  met from 6:00 pm until 9:00 pm on Wednesdays tailored to running a food business in Connecticut. It was a good kick in the butt that I needed.

I had been starry eyed for a couple years thinking that when Jon and I move to a house I would build a kitchen in the basement. The idea was that we could write off the basement that I used, that it would cut down on over head costs, and we would not have to renovate a space and pay rent on it. However this class set this idea straight. Connecticut and it's taxes are no joke and they have been cracking down on home businesses related to food! There is a scale tax for an instance for every food and packaging scale and you have to pay people to come out to properly adjust it! That is just one crazy thing that makes your money fly out the window! A lot of the people that spoke to us at the WBDC were able to work from their homes or out of a friend's kitchen. They had some loop holes that we cannot follow now and the penalties are very severe. So they were able to save money and at the time that the rules changed they had enough money to pay for rent/renovations of a space. But new rules and regulations make things hard but also help protect consumers and your business. But still it kind of stinks that I cannot cook out of a nice basement commercial kitchen far from my cute little dog, Penny!

There is one major issue and reason I will not in the next couple of years start this online bakery and it is money! You have to have a lot money and have to rent spaces which you normally have to renovate first before you do that which is more money. In order to qualify for better loans and for free money you have to be in business for a year. They are not going to waste money on new businesses because everyone wants to be in this business and there is a lot of over head costs that put people out of business. But the major one is insurance related. If I were to purchase a place with a basement to do a basement kitchen and have commercial  kitchen and there ever was a fire resulting from a commercial kitchen I could lose my insurance and be uninsurable. This is important. I would get no money to rebuild my house, lose property and personal items and get no money! So I would then want to renovate get into a house and not be able to get a mortgage because the fire was caused by a commercial kitchen which would not be covered by home mortgages!

I do not have 100,000s of money to just renovated and get a good kitchen started. So I have been looking into a different vein of small business. Not going to reveal it now but I am doing some research.

What to expect on the blog:
1.) I learned while researching that some companies give out free merchandise for blogs to give away and to try out. I am going to try to go to the companies that I love and try to do merchandise giveaways.
2.) When the heat wave dies down more baking and cooking posts!
3.) More information on trying to start a small business.
4.) More blog posts! I am hoping for at least once a week!