At a Crossroad. Choosing to Invest in Family

A significant change for me this past month.  I (along with the support of Hubs) made a decision.  It was a decision for me to be officially self-employed.  This past Friday was my first full day in my new role.  Yep, I quit my office job and will now focus primarily on my business.   I still plan on taking care of the baby 1+ day a week (the + is for the occasional extra hours they ask me to cover.)  I know.  A lot of you are saying “What?”  There are many reasons for the change.  Family is first, but also the math.

Since taking on the Monday-Friday office position, I realized just how little time I have with the Hubs.  Given his line of work, he is away from home for weeks at a time.  So when he is home, I want to be able to spend time with him.  Sad that in the last 4+ months, I can count on one hand how many full days we’ve had together.

I also realized that getting away at a moments notice became near impossible.  Being my elderly dad’s DPOA, I truly need more freedom.  My dad is currently at the top of the list for a room in assisted living, so when I get the call, I will need to go.  On my last day on the job, I received a phone call regarding my father falling again (third time in just a few weeks).  With that call, I knew my decision to quit my job was the right thing to do.

In addition to my father, I want to be able to see my family more often.  Visiting with them in July made me realize just how much I missed getting together.  Not that we ever saw each other a lot, but it will be nice to be able to go when there is a special occasion.  Two weeks ago, my brother and SIL threw a “last hoorah” at their cottage before it is dozed.  They are building a new (huge!) home in its place.  While I might not have made the trip for that, it would have been nice to have had the option to do so if I had wanted to.

Another biggie for me quitting is that math wasn’t there.  One would have thought our income would have gone up, but yet it didn’t, or at least not by much.  Hubs never thought I was paid enough to justify my time, and he was right.  The time spent at the office took away from my focus on my business, and I saw the decline in that income.  When I apply myself, I make far more working for myself.  I think my hesitation to cut ties with outside work was driven by fear.  Now that I’ve made that cut, I am no longer treating my business as a hobby, and am working it the way I should have from the start.

So what will this change do for our push to get out of debt?  For the next couple of months, the plan is to keep reinvesting profits back into the business.  With the busy season ahead of us (Q4), the more money I can reinvest, the more money I can earn.  We also want to get a better feel for this change in our finances.  Since Hub’s check fluctuates, I can’t precisely say how much extra we will pay toward our debts.  What I can say, however, is that our debt will continue to go down.  We will still see this through.  Now that I have more control over my earnings, I believe paying it off will happen sooner rather than later.

Yes, I was at a crossroad and chose to invest in us!