When life gives you lemons

My wife runs a Licensed Preschool and Daycare out of our home and has done very well in her goal of not having to work outside the home while our children are in their formative years. Rather than pay someone else to raise our kids while she’s at work, she decided to stay home and do it herself. To help with the bills and whatnot so has built a successful small-business that brings in a fair amount of money dong the same thing for other families. (I can’t put into words how much I appreciate her resolve in accomplishing this!)

Unfortunately, the slumping economy has hit some of her clients. This typically means one of the two parents is out of work and can now stay at home with the children. This is both good and bad. It’s good for the parent/child relationship, but not so good for her business.

In terms of money this basically means we don’t have enough to make her credit card payment, or her van payment. In the past this would have been a big problem, even now, she was starting to feel the pinch.

The purpose of this article, is talking about positive attitude and finding opportunities in challenges. My wife could have gotten down and depressed, and let that attitude fester, but instead we looked at where we were, what we could do, and what kind of attitude would be best to see us through it.

Before long we realized that this time she has an additional income stream (read about it here) which will help offset the loss a bit. Not only that, with my second job I’m able to cover the loss entirely. Of course this means that our debt snowball will be delayed until the income stream is restored, but we’re still able to cover all our bills, put food on the table, continue reducing our debt, and keep Mom at home to raise the kids.

“Problems” are just “opportunities” that you don’t recognize yet.