Money and Business

This week we read an article that talked about seeking riches, called United in Building the Kingdom of God, by L Tom Perry.  This was an interesting read as I have pondered over the last couple of weeks with my family's financial situation changing.  As you know, I quit my job of 17 years at the end of April.  My husband and I had been planning this change for a little over a year.  We had worked on paying off our credit card, the car loan and purchased another rental property.  We thought that I would be able to not only manage the rental property business more, but I would also open an Etsy store.  I have done both of those things but we really haven't made any money at it yet.  We were smart as we worked through this change, we never relied on needing the other income to be able to meet our financial obligations.  We knew that it would take some time before I would make any money with the Etsy store and we knew there were serious repairs and upgrades that needed to be made at the rental property using the money we have been saving from the income each month.  So while we still haven't technically made money on either business, we are laying the ground work and eventually hope to make money, just to supplement my husband's income.  Maybe we will be successful with both businesses but maybe we won't and that will be okay because we have what we need.  It seems that people born in the late 70's and beyond want everything and want it now.  They want to own fancy cars, buy big houses and clothes to impress their neighbors and friends.  We have also found that as your income grows so do your expenses.  My husband and I have been talking about ways to downsize.  While we aren't planning on downsizing our house, we are considering selling the second car and some of the other "things" that we really don't need.  I think that we are coming to realize that we don't need all those things and the money we have been seeking in the past doesn't mean much if we end up spending it all, plus some and have to go into debt to get those things we think we want, but definitely don't need.  Elder Perry teaches us that we need to focus on seeking the kingdom of God and not necessarily the riches of the world.  If we are lucky enough to have both sought the kingdom of God and earned the riches of the world and are willing to use those riches for good, then I think we have achieved something few have.  However, if we are poor as dirt, but have the gospel and truly live it at all times, then we will be blessed beyond measure in the world to come. Ultimately for my family, we have decided that we would like to start making money with our two businesses, but it will just be able to be used to save money for our future or speed along the process of paying off our house sooner rather than looking to become wealthy or never having to work again in our lives.  However, if those things do happen, it will just be gravy on top.

For my $100 challenge, I fulfilled all the orders I received at the end of the last week.  I spoke to a couple of friends at church and other places I saw them and asked if they wanted to order anything.  I have realized this is definitely not a business I want to do.  It takes too much time and energy to fill these orders.  I feel like I don't have time to do anything else and am either making bread or delivering bread.  This is way too labor intensive for me...and during the middle of the summer in Florida, way too hot!  Since I am leaving on vacation and will not be back until class is ending, this is the last week of my business.  I posted on Facebook on Wednesday my going out of business sale so that I could sell the remaining loaves of bread that I have ingredients for or have already made that were the extra from the batch I had to make.

As a response to Brother Broderick's request to comment on his intro video.  The only thought I have is that if this is the first video students have watched of yours they won't be able to comment on what you need to do differently or be able to grade if they would watch them or not.  I would wait until week 3 or so to make that type of request.  Just my thoughts.