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The Editor's Desk - From Beneath the Clutter
Feature Article - Making the Tough Budget Cuts When One Parent Stays at Home
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This is one of those weeks that went by in a blur. I know I got a good bit accomplished, but nothing really stands out. Must be the lack of sleep.
Today's one of the days that I help out with my daughter's preschool class. Things should be interesting; normally there are at least two moms, but this time I will most likely be the only one. Sometimes the scheduling just works out that way, since everyone chooses their own days. I chose this one specifically because there wasn't anyone else, and I know it can be hard for the teacher to get by without extra help. Parent participation is a major part of this preschool program.
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Original Mother's Rings - Because you love being a mom
There are a lot of adjustments to make when you get married. Getting used to each other’s habits, expectations, dreams... it can be a lot of work.
But the one that typically causes the most arguments is money. Managing your finances is not easy even when you’re the only person you need to worry about. Figuring out how to cope with sharing is not easy. And if one person is a stay at home parent, there can be resentment over the income disparity as well as concerns about bringing enough money in.
Being a stay at home parent is not the easy job some think it is. There’s a lot to get done in the day and dealing with the stress of not contributing financially can be difficult. The expectation in many cases these days, after all, is that both partners contribute financially, and changing that expectation is not easy.
One thing that should always be remembered is that the at home parent is contributing in very important way. She (or he) is raising the children and taking care of the home. She probably is also the one doing the grocery and other shopping and may be the one writing the checks to pay the bills, so she may be extremely aware of just how the family’s money is being spent.
When times get tight the guilt starts. Many at home parents start wondering if it’s time to head back to work, putting the kids in daycare, only working when they’re in school or working nights, missing a lot of family time.
In many, but not all cases there is a better option. It’s time to start reviewing spending habits and see where money can be saved.
This is not a fun process. Most couples do this when the decision is made to have one parent stay at home, but often finances need to be reviewed later as well. The process is pretty basic: Write down each and every expense your family has through the month, then see what can be cut.
I won’t get into the details of the easy stuff to be cut - excess phone options, cable and so forth. Instead I’m going to go over some of the less obvious ideas.
Food is not a favorite place to save for many people as you do get used to eating a certain way, but it is possible to change your shopping habits as well as your eating habits to maximize your savings.
Even the time you shop may make a difference. I can buy ground beef for about a third of the price they sell it at during the day if I go to the store at about 9 p.m., which is when the butcher department staff have left and marked down the remaining ground beef. This lets me buy the 15% fat ground beef for $1/pound when the higher fat ones are typically over $2.50/pound, and $3-4/pound for the 15% or less fat in my area. You can also find out when other meats are marked down.
If you have the space, a garden can serve multiple purposes. It lets you grow food, of course, for the cost of seeds, fertilizer and water. Gardening is good exercise. It’s a great way to teach your kids about where food comes from. You have to watch that you do not spend excessively on your garden, but for most it is a very worthwhile investment.
Shopping for clothes at thrift or consignment shops may not sound like fun, but with some patience and persistence you can get some great-looking outfits for far less than you would otherwise. For babies in particular it is not uncommon to find brand new clothes at consignment shops, simply because the parents are given so many outfits that baby never gets to wear them all. But you will sometimes find new clothes in all size ranges.
Think about walking rather than driving. It’s healthy and saves you gas and wear and tear on the car. I’ve been known to walk to the grocery store when I’ve lived within a reasonable distance. Take your kid’s wagon along and lock it up outside like you would a bicycle.
Making the cuts to balance your home budget is rarely easy or pleasant, but it allows you to do things you couldn’t do otherwise - such as be there for all your children’s milestones. The sacrifice may be great, but the rewards will be greater.
Stephanie Foster is the owner of Home with the Kids, a resource that knows that there's more to staying home with your family than just business. For more stay at home tips, visit the site at http://www.homewiththekids.com/ and subscribe to the free newsletter.
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Whether you find your contacts online or through traditional advertising, a contact cannot become a customer until he or she has become educated about your business and you have gained an understanding of his or her needs.
That’s because moving an individual from a casual contact to a customer requires following a three-part process of introduction, information collection and ongoing communication. If any of these vital steps are missing in the process, then a transaction simply cannot take place.
Here’s the painful truth; within 24-hours of filling out your online form or downloading your white paper, your contact has already started to forget who you are. 48 hours after contact, he has probably already contacted one of your competitors. If you don’t have a systematic way of following up with your contacts, then you are counting on your competitors being even less diligent than you. Can you really count on that?
If you haven’t developed a compelling follow-up letter, then now is the time to get started. That’s because from the moment an individual makes contact with your organization, the clock starts ticking down.
The first step is to come up with an email that outlines the most important things you want everyone to know about your company, and make sure it gets into your contact’s e-mail box as quickly as possible after you receive his or her contact information.
You want to think through the kind of information you need to know about your prospects in order to qualify them. For example, most organizations can tell a lot about a contact if they know his or her job title, industry, and company size – and this information is easy enough to collect when a website visitor first downloads a white paper or eBook from your website.
But as you develop your online relationships with prospects, you should always look for ways to develop additional intelligence about them. You might like to know, for instance, which of your company’s product lines the prospect is most interested in, what their budget is, or when they intend to buy.
This information can be gathered by conducting surveys of your contact base, but many times new prospects are unlikely to fill out questionnaires or surveys because they correctly assume that the information will be used to “sell them” later on.
Fortunately, you can gain much of this information through server logs and campaign reports. Most e-mail newsletter software programs give you the ability to track click-throughs. So, the savvy marketer can learn a lot by examining which contacts clicked through to which product areas, and use that information to start building profiles within the prospecting database.
Using the information gained from your e-mail system’s click-tracking software and any surveys or questionnaires you may have distributed, you should then begin to send targeted mailings to brand your business into the brain of your prospects.
If your website sells downloadable music, then you should make every effort to send an announcement of a new Ray Lamontagne album to the people who tend to click on Alternative music links, and send the folks who are more inclined to visit your country music section great deals on Shooter Jennings’ MP3s.
The idea is that you need to make contact, whether by e-mail, phone, or snail-mail, at least weekly for the first six to eight weeks that a contact is in your database. Each time you contact them, you gain more information – and are able to target content toward them that is even more relevant in future mailings.
If you have an online music store, then within the first two contacts you should know the general music genre your prospect is most interested in. By the fourth contact, you should know a few of her favorite performers. By the time you get to the eighth touch, she should be coming to your website on her own because your website always seems to have just what she’s looking for.
And if she hasn’t responded, opened, or clicked through to any of your e-mails over your eight week introductory period? Suppress her from the list and concentrate on greener pastures. There will always be a certain percentage that will give you a false (or throw-away) e-mail address, and there is no point in wasting resources sending promotions to dead addresses.
ProfitChoice helps organizations create and implement solid follow-up e-mail campaigns designed to stay in touch with contacts and help develop them into prospects and customers.
We follow a data-driven and systematic approach to creating e-mail campaigns that work by constantly testing and modifying campaign components to maximize effectiveness, and improve ROI.
Matthew Coers runs ProfitChoice, a site designed to help entrepreneurs create and deploy profitable online businesses. Visit the website to learn more about building your online business, from writing a business plan to marketing to creating an effective website.
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