I have a full time job. I decided to sell my soap. I have a basic recipe that works for me. I don't make fancy soap but scented soap with a swirls or two or I will color my soap.
Strangely enough, it is very therapeutic for me to work at this little small business piece of the pie. It is mine, I work a lot of hours on it, I am proud of the product I sell and it is relaxing. I enjoy tinkering with the online website, my FB soap page, I have given out a lot of soap for samples, sold my first bars at work, have had a couple of sales online. Am I going to get rich? Nope. Will I make a little retirement spending money? Hope so.
It is what you make it. :smile:
Yep, this is pretty much me as well!
I'm lucky in that my full-time job is three 12-hour weekend shifts at the hospital, and by Monday I'm ready for soapmaking fun to de-stress from a weekend dealing with the ER
Heck, I'm not even looking to make a little 'fun-money' for retirement! I'll be happy when the day comes that I break even at the end of the year, since I never got into this to make money anyway.
So why bother with the hassle/work/extra cost of creating a business, some may ask?
1) Because I love sharing my products with others. And even if you're just giving it away, MHO is that you still really should have insurance. Just because someone didn't pay for your products doesn't mean they can't try to sue you if their kid eats a bar of your "foodie-scented" soap and ends up in the ER with a bellyache and diarrhea! Just saying...I've never actually heard of this happening, but it COULD...we (unfortunately) live in a very litigious society, and while they most likely wouldn't win a lawsuit like this, I'd rather know I was covered in any case! So if I'm paying for insurance anyway, it just makes sense to try to make enough money to cover the cost.
2) Pride. When you put a lot of thought and work into creating something that YOU would be willing to spend your hard-earned cash on AND never want to be without, then you want to put it out there for the world to see. There is a certain satisfaction in creating a business that you can be proud of irregardless of the amount of money you make from the business.
I knew going into this that I'd never get rich, and I could care less. I refuse to cut corners to increase my profit margin. And I'll spend the extra money for 'branding' so my customers know they are getting something special...I know this is REALLY stretching it, but if you've ever bought something from Tiffany's, I'll bet you're like me and couldn't part with that blue box and still have it tucked away somewhere!!??
Oh, and I'll most likely never be a success in business since if someone seems to really love my stuff but when it comes time to pay, they have to put things back b/c they can't afford it...I just toss it in the bag and ask them pay me by telling their friends and family about my business.
There are other ways to be rich that have nothing to do with money
