Update on the 'Sweet' Side Business

I wrote awhile ago about potentially milking some profit out of an after-work pursuit that I get a lot of pleasure out of: baking cupcakes. :o) I spend a ton of money on premium ingredients for cupcakes for my friends, and why not make a little cupcake catering business out of it? Very low budget, on the side kind of thing.

I also recently read an online article on whether or not your great idea could be a real business. According to Forbes, the three questions you have to answer in order to know:

--- Do you have a compelling value proposition?
In other words, will people pay for it? On a per unit basis, yes, I think so. Because these are small purchase items, and people find it easier to part with $2 than $20 regardless of what the price/value is. The real trick will be keeping total price low for a dozen, while still making a good enough margin.

--- Is there a viable market for your new product or service?
So, is there a large enough market for it, and is there room for growth? Not sure about this one frankly. There are a lot of good, reputable, convenient cupcake shops in our area. The benefits of this would be personalized designs and free customization at no extra costs.

--- How hard are you willing to work?
This one I’m not sure about either. The other question I’m unsure of – how much I want to invest to make this work. I don’t know how hard I’m willing to work, but I know I can work a bit harder than I have been. My new to-do list: Create a menu of flavors, names & descriptions, and then create a blogsite for cupcakes so I can refer to people.

May Goals

This month I'm going to try to make my goals a little more motivating...

1) Uniting Sustainability and Savings
- I’m bringing in ceramic mug and cups to work – which will keep me drinking the office floor coffee instead of Starbucks, and water instead of grabbing diet cokes from vending.
- Reduce how much I drive each week. Walk to the Guy's instead of driving on nice days. Limit driving for weekend errands.

2) My Own Personal "Stick" for Going Overbudget on Food in April....
- Before I go back to the grocery store, I’m first going to get through every single one of these delicious dinners in my pantry:
... Lentil Soup & Organic Black Chips
... Pasta with Frozen Snap Peas
... Mediterranean Kashi Pizza
... Omlette & Turkey Sausage
... Chicken, Broc& Cheese, Near East Grains
... Chicken, Corn & Near Grains
... Turkey wrap with cheese &spicy mustard
- No more premium grocery stores. Only the value grocery stores (even though they’re way inconvenient in location) for the month of May. Maybe I’ll even head back to Super Target, since they’re definitely the cheapest.

Carrots & Sticks

I read an article in Money Magazine once (while on the elliptical, so I have no idea what issue, etc. and can't provide a handy link) about how to keep yourself motivated towards your financial goals – and they debated whether carrots or sticks were more effective. Money ultimately recommended a combination of both. So you grant yourself a reward if you make your savings goal, and “dock yourself” in some way if you don’t make the goal. To me, carrots have always worked better, and I’m really not sure how the concept of a money “punishment” would work. But maybe I just have the wrong ones? Anyone have an effective combo of carrots & sticks to keep them motivated? Obviously from my last posts, I could use it.

April Goals Review

So I had four main goals for April – let’s review.

-- Really lock in on my budget (Not really. I feel like this month was unique, with two different trips. I DID record everything meticulously. I DIDN’T do very well with keeping my spending reasonable. I will record everything for May, and try to keep costs down so I have a reasonable budget estimate).
-- Budget equal posts/time to my writing and my literary interests as well as pf (Not so much, I think I only had 2 all month…)
-- Keep birthday celebration expenses low. (mmm, depends if we count my New York trip as part of my birthday… cause that’s where I blew it).
-- Move up to 85% of my emergency savings goal (No again…. I actually moved down to to 72%)
I guess the only good news is that I moved up in my B-School savings, which wasn’t one of the original goals. Sheesh. Maybe I should post my May goals somewhere where I see them more often and am able to put a greater focus on them.

April Read/Bought Review

Weird that it's already the end of April....

Bought:
Last Night by James Salter $6 at Housing Works bookstore in NY. Worth it, since it’s $6 towards a good cause. Housing Works is a non-profit that benefits AIDS research and related initiatives. They also have thrift shops across NY. Very cool, this would definitely be something I’d volunteer with eventually.

The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner One of those insane $25 hardcover, really silly impulse purchase when I was shopping with my parents. But the book does look good… so I will report back next month after I’ve gotten through it.

Read:
A Theft by Saul Bellow.
I read this in an hour on my flight to New York. A quick, emotional, weird read. Bellow is one of those writers where I don’t necessarily relish the story, but rather, the individual lines and images. There’s some brilliance in the way he can imbue these ordinary words and phrases with more depth of meaning than they have.

Last Night by James Salter
A collection of short stories that I’ve been piecing my way through. Very beautiful. My favorite so far is the first, called Comet. Salter takes on unexpected characters for a literary writer. Very refreshing.

9/11 Commission Report
I bookmooched this… and while this sounds so dry, it has actually been so much more engaging than I thought it would be. It provides in clear, plain-English language the history and background leading up to the attacks, how the concepts of “terror” and “counter-terror” even developed. I’m only halfway through because it’s (obviously) not a beach read. I only wish I had read this sooner so I could have been dissecting the news a bit more. It’s sad, but I just know that I can’t trust network news anymore. Too many soundbites, so little nuance. On a side note, Elizabeth Edwards had a fantastic Op-Ed in the Times yesterday, Bowling 1, Health Care 0, reaming the media for their unreliability.

Where will my economic stimulus rebate check go?

So the not so surprise direct deposit of $600 finally arrived. Unfortunately for George Bush, I will not be stimulating the economy by heading to Costco for a stereo system. $400 just went to stimulating my B-School Savings in my ING Account. I want to see some real progress here and this will get the best savings return. $200 will be a little extra cushion in my account, April has been a rough month. Thanks W!

The Story of Stuff

I’ve been a bit spotty of late, but I just got back from a really great two-day conference for work on sustainability. I must admit that I’ve never been someone anyone would call eco-conscious. Sure I recycle and I’ve seen Al Gore’s power point, but I’ve never made demonstrable changes in my life. The past two days had their ups and downs, but the overall effect was profound. Not that I left all granola, in tears and vowing to make my condo carbon-neutral. But a lot of things clicked about my own views and thoughts on sustainability, and I left with a picture of the world that matches up with what I see everyday.

It links back to an episode I had a month or so back in San Francisco. When I told my friend over dinner that I wrote a personal finance blog, she looked a bit stumped and then ventured, “So you would write, say, ‘Oh man, I went to Starbucks today and had a latte and I really shouldn’t have.’ That kind of thing?” And while this is occasionally the scope of what I write about, I was deeply offended.

It hit that personal pride thing. My friend makes more money than I do. In college, this of course wasn’t the case, and we both came from the same middle class families. Her comment was an affront to my personal pride. She implied that I was miserly, watching my pennies, denying myself the latest trend in retail.

But the principles I espouse here are not just about reducing spending to be thrifty, but also about reducing the value you derive for yourself from buying stuff. To expound, stuff is just STUFF and I want to make sure that it never defines me. As nice as it is to have nice things, enjoy music and experiences that cost money, it is not me. Part of this new revelation came from seeing Annie Leonard’s Story of Stuff film. Here she investigates the consumptive patterns and rituals we observe America and the “work—watch—spend” cycle we get roped into. It’s true… as she says, the first thing President Bush told us to do after 9/11 wasn’t to grieve or hope or get involved, it was to BUY STUFF. He appeared in advertisements telling us to go back to our normal lives, go shopping, keep the economy afloat. No wonder all of our ego satisfaction comes from this same stuff.

The first reaction to watching the Story of stuff is to put a moratorium on all spending and to seek out sustainable everything, sustainable toothpaste and reading lamps and beach towels. But as Adam Werbach instructed us at the conference, it’s not about what you do or don’t do, but about how much, and to what degree you’re doing these things. In short, sustainability is about balance and it’s about being a perpetual student, learning where stuff comes from and how the choices you make influence the world. And that is the kind of non-granola vision that I can subscribe to. So I haven’t made any unattainable commitments; I’m just thinking about balance and how I can rethink my attachments to my STUFF. Believe me, I have them…