Our Self-Employment Progress This Week

Posted by Scott in Scott on November 1, 2009 | 2 comments

We made some good progress over the past week and scratched a few more items off the list. A little while back, we started off with a long checklist of steps we needed to take in order to start our businesses, and each week we’ve been crossing things off the list. It a great feeling. Tammy and I like to talk about where we could be in a few months at our current rate of progress, and what our lives could be in 6 months to a year. We’re very optimistic but we also keep ourselves in check.

If we were both in our twenties and had fewer responsibilities and obligations, we may have taken a different route to become self-employed. But at this stage in our lives, we are very careful and thoroughly analyze every option before we make a decision. It’s too easy for unexpected bumps to appear in the road so we like to plan with an eye on security. And the greatest security I know of is to be financially self-dependent; to be responsible for your own sources of income rather than be totally dependent on your employer’s business doing well, or the economy remaining stable and not losing your job. Considering the fact that so many people’s lives have been uprooted due to losing their jobs, it seems like less of a gamble to start a business while I continue to work 40 hours per week at my current day job. So we keep chipping away at our business To-Do list. So for this week, here’s what we’ve done:

• Met with our attorney to review and approve our Operating Agreements for our LLCs
• Tammy registered a “fictitious name” or DBA (“doing business as”) for her website and filed it with the SCC (State Corporation Commission)
• Opened business checking accounts
• Reviewed Business Group Health Insurance Plans

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Our Self-Employment Progress This Week

Posted by Scott in Scott on October 24, 2009 | no comments

Step-by-step, we’re getting closer to having all the detail work completed. But the details are essential to starting an online business. Of course, the details can also be boring, frustrating and tedious. What’s the detail work? Things like filing articles of organization to establish an LLC (Limited Liability Company), obtaining a business license, setting up business checking accounts, and much more.

If you’re visiting A Couple of Quitters for the first time, here’s a summary of who we are and what we’re doing: I’m Scott and, along with my wife Tammy, we’re starting work-at-home businesses so we can quit our jobs and live the lives we always hoped for. Our businesses are online or Internet-based businesses. Guided by the Internet Business Mastery Academy, we’re following a proven plan which should result in both of us having successful Internet businesses. The Academy is filled with courses that lead you through each step of the process and includes tons of audio and video guidance at every step of the way. Each week, we post updates with general details about the steps we’ve taken toward establishing our businesses. We offer our own observations and lessons we learn along the way, plus our own suggestions for helping you navigate through the process too. Here’s a rundown of what we did this week:

• Met with a small business attorney
• Talked about health insurance options with a local broker
• Obtained health insurance plans from an NFIB Member Health Insurance Plans representative
• Obtained our EINs (Employer Identification Numbers)

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How To Protect Your Business Funds From Hijackers

Posted by Tammy in General, Planning, Tammy on October 22, 2009 | no comments

This month, we’ve been making some decent progress getting all the legal aspects of our businesses set up. Not exactly fun stuff, I’ll admit, but necessary. Friday we’ll be seeing an attorney who specializes in small businesses. Hopefully he’ll be able to answer the questions we have and help us get all the legal aspects finalized. One of the next things on our to-do list is to open our business checking accounts. When you’ve established a business, it’s important to keep your business and personal finances separated. It just makes good business sense – for bookkeeping and legal purposes. You can file all your LLC paperwork correctly, but you need to actually operate your business as a business in order to ensure the legal protections (like limited liability) that creating an LLC can provide.

As you know, we’ve been studying the courses at Internet Business Mastery Academy and using their step-by-step instructions for launching our internet businesses. Of course, we can’t pass along all the information we’re learning there, because it wouldn’t be fair to Sterling and Jay, who have put a lot of time and effort into creating the Academy. With that said, once in a while, we learn something at the Academy that’s just too important not to share with you. In a recent course, Sterling and Jay shared a really good tip for further protecting your business funds. Whether you’re going to formally establish a business, or go the more informal route – if you’re doing business on the internet, this is an easy but essential step you should take to protect your money. And because it’s so important, we wanted to pass this tip on to you…

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