Use What You Know to Become Your Own Boss

A great way to become your own boss and grow a work from home career is to use what you know. And being able to bring in income while growing your side-hustle into a full-time business is a big bonus. That’s just what Kimberly from the Organized Home School is doing.

I love taking with other solo entrepreneurs about why and how they started their business. I recently had the opportunity to interview Kimberly, a mom of four busy daughters and certified public accountant, about her goal to grow her side-hustle blog into her full-time job.

Kimberly shared with me that during a recent birthday she took some time to reflect on her family, career and her love of helping others. She discovered that she was ready for a career that was more than just being a CPA.

Kimberly realized it was time to focus on growing her blog into a full-time job. It was time for her to share what she had learned so other moms could experience the same joys of a happy home and fulfilled dreams.

As a mom with my own business, I was excited to interview Kimberly to learn how she manages it all why she’s decided to take on even more. Below is our interview:

Can you tell me a little about your blog?

At the Organized Home School, I offer tips for moms to help simplify life as much as possible so they can carve out more time for pursuing their dreams and goals. We only have one life to live and we can live abundantly while raising our little ones. We don’t have to wait until they are grown!

I teach moms the routines and the tips that I use to run my home efficiently while having a career too and share how I trained my children up to help with household duties to help our home run more efficiently. I just wanted to share my knowledge. I wanted to do something more significant to help other moms and encourage them to fulfill their dreams. Honestly, I just lost my passion for accounting.

I’m so passionate about sharing my journey of being a mom the last 17 years and the different ways that I’ve come up with morning routines, evening routines, household chore routines, meal planning and all that stuff that goes into running a home. I love sharing how I made it work while also working at home and I’ve also worked outside of the home. I just want to encourage moms that they can do it!

Kimberly had me at “live abundantly while raising our little ones” because that’s what we all want, right? We want to live full lives. And if you are anything like me you also want those routines she makes sound so effortless but don’t know where to start. So for you (okay really for me!) I asked Kimberly to share more.

Moms just have to prioritize and make sure systems are in place so that it just becomes a natural habit without thinking too hard. If things are done consistently, you don’t have to spend a whole day cleaning the house, you don’t have to spend 2 to 3 hours meal planning each week and you can enjoy life more, live it more abundantly, and spend quality time with your kids when you’re done at the end of the day with your job. You don’t have to be exhausted all the time. I also want to mention I consider being a full-time mom a career as well. I’m not excluding moms who don’t work on their own businesses or work for an employer. Raising children is a full-time job no matter which way you look at it.

So how does she do it all?  What do her days look like?

Each season of life has been a little bit different with trying to accomplish the work-life balance. When I worked outside of the home, my hours were set from 8 to 5 so I was limited on the time that I spent with my kids. I picked the kids up from school at 5:30 and then we had the evenings together and tried to make the most of that time.

Now that I work from home, part-time as a CPA and part-time as a blogger, my goal is to replace my CPA income with my blogging income soon and get my business routines and systems in place to outsource more tasks. This way I can bring my 2 little ones home permanently to homeschool them like I did my two oldest daughters for nine years. Right now my 3,7 and 14-year-olds go to the private Christian School at our church. My 17 year old is a senior at our public high school. So right now during the day, I spend the bulk of my time working and then when they get out of school I get to spend quality time with them knowing that my workday is complete.

About that CPA income, I couldn’t help but ask the question I’m always curious about, how does she find clients?

I still do accounting work part-time from home while I’m trying to increase my revenue from my blog to a full-time income. I get new clients for my CPA work just by word of mouth. It’s actually been really easy to grow my accounting firm from home because I’ve done it for so long and that’s what everybody comes to me for. All my friends and family know that I’m the go-to person if they have a question about taxes or accounting and so word of mouth basically is all I’ve had to do. I haven’t had to advertise at all. In fact, I end up turning people away because my passion is to grow my blog into a full-time income so I can quit accounting altogether. Right now I have 3 clients that I’m working on consistently each month. I try not to take on anymore work so that I can focus on my blog and help moms streamline life.

Before we wrapped up our interview Kimberly was gracious and shared a tough business lesson she learned and advice she has for other women considering growing their own business.

I wish that I would’ve had more confidence in myself as far as blogging is concerned and confidence that the few courses and training that I took at the beginning were enough. I should have just put my head down and did the work and kept that consistency going from the beginning. I wish I would’ve been full-on committed at first and not treated it as a hobby. I’ve been blogging for over 3 years and I would go for months without even touching it because tax season would come and life just gets in the way. I always knew that I wanted to grow it into a full-time income because that’s what my passion is but I always used my CPA license as the back door. It gave me a way out if the “blog thing” didn’t work out. In the back of my mind, I was telling myself I can always go back to accounting. I’ve since learned that you can’t succeed unless you’re ALL IN. Your dreams can’t come true unless you’re ALL IN. Yes, make a plan to make sure that you’re financially okay and you’re not going to put your family at risk of going hungry or bankrupt, but if you want to be a full-time blogger or run a successful business and be a success at it, you have got to go ALL IN and be committed. You have to do what it takes even if it means staying up late at night or waking up early in the morning. Do it now and don’t wait. There will never be a perfect time. Don’t have a plan B and that back door like I did for so many years. It really held me back.

Thank you to Kimberly for sharing her story!  If you’d like to learn more about Kimberly and her awesome home organization, parenting and homeschooling tips you can find her at the Organized Home School.

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