In 2018, I am trying to cut things out of my life that take too much time or cause stress and concentrate more on things I enjoy doing.
As a first step, we sold our rental property in May. That place was just one more building to upkeep. When you look at the bottom line, it was not worth the effort. Plus, having one less building has renewed our interest in finishing the basement at the office, so now that project is underway and making some good progress.
Secondly, I put my bike up for sale. You might wonder how a motorcycle is complicating my life. As it turns out, I just don’t enjoy riding as much as I thought I would. I mean, it was fun at first, but lately it has seemed like another thing that “has” to be done. The bike’s bought and paid for, but there are ongoing costs (insurance, upkeep) that make me feel like I need to put it to use, when I’d really rather be doing other things. Who knows if it will sell or not, but I haven’t even been out on it this year. Worst case, I can probably just trade it in when we get a new car in a year or two (or if Brian takes me up on my offer of a new bike for him). Jake was all interested in motorcycles last year and I thought he was going to be riding it, but he quickly lost interest when motorcycle season started up again.
Thirdly, I’m closing Everyone Drinks. While I still enjoy making crafts, I haven’t been able to get my sales up to a level that makes it worthwhile, so I’ve decided to hang it up later this year. I’ve been waffling on this for a while now, but Etsy made some changes this year that are making it all but impossible for a small company like mine to sell anything, so that was like the last nail in the coffin.
The thing I’m looking forward to the most is cutting my paperwork load in half when we merge our two companies down the road. But, that is still a ways away.