Happy (belated) third business birthday Mrs E!
So I've been having a bit of a rough ride of late, business hasn't been as busy as I'd hoped or indeed come to expect, my beautiful Nan passed away at the end of September and I've started a ridiculously vegetable-heavy, pastry-free diet in an attempt to get rid of some excess chub before Christmas. It's safe to say, there have certainly been times this year where I have wanted to pack it all in, dissolve the business and go work in the local Co-Op (they've just had a refit it looks dead smart).
I had a ridiculously busy summer, July actually saw me earn more money than I ever have in a month in my entire working life and I was riding high. Spending like a baller, bragging to my husband that I was the bread winner "Oh let me get that" and other cringeworthy, unattractive statements fell out of me like rain from the sky. Ignoring the advice not to treat my business bank account as an extension of my own and to save 25% of my earnings to make sure my tax bill is always covered, I had a fucking great time and felt invincible.
*obvious turnaround in fortunes approaching*
So then it happened, every freelancers nightmare, I lost a steady, long-term, part-time contract. It wasn't out of the blue and I had been given generous advanced notice and even the option to take on the role as a full-time employee *shudders* and yet carried on with my head up my arse, imagining that they wouldn't really go through with it and trying to pretend that everything would be alright. I've got plenty of other work, we're cool. And then every freelancers WORST nightmare happened, I lost a contract out of the blue. Now let me tell you, that is like being punched in the guts and winded (and I'd know, I had a brief 'career' in boxing). I'm pretty good at not worrying about things that are out of my control, trying not to take things personally and believing in things having a habit of sorting themselves out, but FUCK that hurt. So obviously, I chose this time to do my online tax calculation.
*spirals into despair, puts on a onesie and gets in to bed for the foreseeable*
I watched two seasons of Stranger Things amongst other Netflix/Amazon series' (it's very unlike me to watch anything popular and longer than three episodes) and became a recluse. Living in a onesie, hair unbrushed, and hardly venturing outside.
But it's not all doom and gloom, I've picked up a couple of nice new little contracts, a bit of temp work in a studio that I have stalked for quite some time and have started applying for part-time design jobs. And then I realised (thanks to Facebook memories) that I had reached my third business birthday! That's impressive. 50 percent of small businesses fail in their first year and 95 percent fail within five years. So if I can just drag my arse through the next two years I'll beat the odds and finish paying for my car.