Dear Fodreamers, 

This morning I walked out the back door of my homebased office, took 20 steps and entered another business enterprise! That's all it took for me to have a cup of coffee this morning with my entrepreneur husband. The home-based lifestyle... and we love it. 

I didn't always feel this way because I had been raised with a father who went to work everyday and brought home a regular income. We follow examples in life and found that example of security to be false in our home-based operations.

Once we analyzed the "security" of regular employment, we found a lot of loose ends, stress, less time with our family, and too many deadlines.

In comparison, a home-based living requires the same self-discipline, budget limitations and strict adherance to the plan, the same as with a regular salary. We have found our income is about 90% of what we were making in our regular jobs. We also find that the amount of time we actually spend together, working in our school and local community, or as a family, has greatly increased. We rarely are sick because we are rarely unhappy. And, when we are unhappy, it is usually something we put on ourselves which we later find wasn't necessary.

Comparatively, we have found we are more in control of our decision making than we found in our regular jobs. Quick decisions are made where previously we had to wait for our supervisor or employer to make decisions for us, hence saving time on the production line. Because we totally understand the importance of doing it right the first time, we find our work is also lifting the quality level. Our pride in a job totally produced by our minds and hands, is yet another perk in being home-based.

We don't have time to do everything, so we are very careful on how we spend our time. We evaluate even the short meeting for its production and constantly evaluate our business priorities each day. We both developed a business plan, with a solid marketing strategy and review where we are in the scope of it on a monthly basis.

We began our businesses with a core market. From that market we presented our very best production. From there we receive referrals. We dedicate our business to our market in everything we do. If there is something which will save our customer money, we are the first to pick up the telephone and let them know. Our customer base is as important to us as our own family. What is good for our family, is very good for our customer.

In considering our home-based business interest, we both are doing exactly what we love to do, nothing less. We naturally understand our business because the commitment is present from within ourselves. No individual assigned us to our home-based business because they thought we would be good in that position. We started our businesses in control of our destiny through what controls us the most.

In the next few weeks, we will be visiting other home-based business operations and sharing their vision, passion and rewards with you. We hope you will find other visionary home-based businesses to witness the success of the small business entrepreneur. You don't have to be a million dollar operation to enjoy the home-based lifestyle. 

The next few links are from women just like you, sharing their home-based business stories. We hope you enjoy them, and maybe find a home-based business you'd like to start at the same time. More

Deb Nyberg, Webmistress