WMW 2012 -- Entrepreneurship / Making Money

My goal for this series of posts is to describe my life the way we are living it as a basis of comparison with the many other ways out there you'll get to read about over the week.

There are no right or wrong ways to design your life. Couples like us without children tend to lead lives that look different than those who do. Those who live in larger city centers have completely different numbers to work with than those of us in smaller cities or towns.

I believe there is huge value in reading and experiencing other ways to live because inevitably I learn something new and end up incorporating or modifying it to work for us. This is one reason why I love to travel so much. You see what is possible.

I am a one person part time entrepreneur in the health care field which means I do everything from answer phones to bookkeeping on top of working with clients. Full control can be a double edge sword.

My career took a drastic change a couple of years ago when my prior office, where everything was done for me, raised the rent to a point where it no longer made sense to stay. It forced me to step up and truly go out on my own.

My goal has been to work the least amount of hours I can while making the amount of money I would like. I realize not every one's job or career can be scalable like mine.

It goes against entrepreneurship to consider working less and making less money. My goal has never been to be the richest person. I don't have enough desire to work that much to make a goal like that happen.

My goal is to have an interesting life packed with world travel along the way. As time went on, my hours got trimmed and trimmed reaching where I am currently -- 12 hr direct client time, 8 hr admin, making a third of what I was at my peak. This has taken the last 14 yr to evolve.

I cannot see this schedule becoming leaner. Any smaller would mean retirement. It is no coincidence my decreased hours have coincided with better money management. The more adept I became at handling costs, the less I needed to work.

There are a lot of pros with being self employed. The most obvious are tax benefits. In my case, the ability to create office hours that jive well with my energy level is priceless. I do my 12 hr of client time over 2 afternoons and the my 8 hr admin is split over 4 mornings.

Lifestyle balance is something I work towards and am consistently pursuing. The route to what I describe today was not without major potholes. There have been many years where it was literally trial by fire. I've suffered severe depression and professional burnout. Effects of both I am still managing today.

This post is a part of Women's Money Week 2012. For more posts about Entrepreneurship / Making Money, see Entrepreneurship / Making Money Roundup.

Tomorrow I will give you our take on Relationships & Money.