New years always get me so excited! I know I’m not the only one. You gets to start fresh. After looking at last years recap and income I’m determined to absolutely crush it this year. We will be having a lot of adjustments with a new baby coming and my husband being home for 3 months while we all get to bond. During that time he’ll be helping me grow MY businesses into OUR family businesses. That’s always been the ultimate goal, for us to all work together and be in control total control of our time and lives.
Main focus for 2018
Although I’ve always had a lot of income streams and projects going I’ve learned that it’s really important to focus on one until you grow it to where you want it to be or else you just end up insanely busy with little to no success. It’s something I’ve struggled with for years! I’ll be spending 80% of my time growing eBay and the rest working on our other income streams.
Ebay is something my husband and I can do together and something I feel really good about because I truly believe in buying second hand to save money and to help out the environment. My husband isnt the most tech savvy, but he’s awesome at pretty much everything else. Right now, while working his full time job, he’s also keeping our inventory organized, helping me with shipping, pulling orders, etc.
Now that 2017 is behind us it’s time for a recap! I have to admit that the year didn’t go as I planned. I had all these grand plans, but by the time summer hit I had things pop up (gallstones and pregnancy) that pretty much stopped me in my tracks for a good three months. I’m still recovering and trying to build my eBay sales back up to where they were before that happened, but considering everything that happened I’m still pretty happy with the year.
When I started as a freelance designer in 2012 I basically gave away my blog designs. I started on Etsy to find clients. As my portfolio grew, my rates went up and I moved to my own site and was able to stopped selling my services on Etsy. Since I was on my own I had to find a new way to invoice clients. Paypal was the first payment system I used to invoice my clients. I’ve been using Paypal for years from buying and selling online, I already had an account so it was an easy choice.
In an effort to simplify I’m constantly going through the house to donate or sell items that we don’t need anymore. We are always bringing new items into our homes and I do my best to make a conscious effort to also remove items from my home on a regular basis. My absolute favorite way these days is to sell on local Facebook groups! Some people call them Facebook Buy/Sell Groups or Facebook Yard Sale Groups. Whatever you want to call them, they’re basically local groups for a city or regional area where people can list items they want to sell. I’ve mad at least $1,000 doing this over the last 1-2 years and you can too!
Note: This post was previously published on an older blog of mine.