Hey, everybody. It's another solo episode of the Streamlined Solopreneur. No big story. No big setup. I think, you know, if you read the title, and you clicked on it, you're probably very interested in this topic. And so I thought that today's episode would be kind of a reflection/kinda doing it, living the solopreneur parent lifestyle.
The mission of this episode is for busy solopreneur parents. That's who I wanna be for. So, I'm gonna kinda dive right into it. If there are show notes, they'll be at [streamlined.fm/420]. Of course, there will also be the opportunity to hear this episode ad-free. I'm not gonna do an extended version of this, because right around this, I'm also doing my month-in-review episode for what will be May. I just recorded so you can get an idea of my recording schedule here. I just recorded, April's month in review. And so those are when I do solo shows like this where I feel like I'm gonna be talking for a long time. Those bonus episodes are really where the value is for the extended conversation.
So, as this episode comes out, it is the last full week of school, and my wife and I have decided that we're not going to do Summer Camp, which means that we're both modifying our schedules. I thought it'd be interesting to talk through that, how we made the decision, how we're adjusting, and how it affects me as a solopreneur. If you're a parent, you could be considering this as well. Or if you're a soon-to-be parent, it might be something that you're thinking about. So, let's do it. Let's get into the intro and then the episode.
Welcome to the Streamlined Solopreneur, a show for busy solopreneurs to help you improve your systems and processes so you can build a business while spending your time the way you want. I know you're busy, so let's get started.
Okay. So first, let's go through the decision. We have done Summer Camp in the past where to level set if you don't know, if this is like, your first episode, we have 3 small children. They are ages 7 to 2 down to 2, and we send our kids to Catholic school. My wife is a nurse, so she has a flexible schedule. She works 3 twelves, and I am fully self-employed as a solopreneur. And we've done Summer Camp in the past because up until this point our 2 littles were in daycare, and they had to stay in daycare anyway. And so the additional cost for my daughter to go to Summer Camp part-time each week worked out to be about the same as the monthly tuition for school. And so while it was annoying that we weren't seeing any respite from tuition. Right? Because tuition for school runs usually only 10 months, and so you get, like, 2 months without having to pay any tuition. That money, that otherwise, money went to camp.
Now, with my son going into, he was in the school as well, so we were paying tuition for him as well, which means that we don't have daycare for him, which means that he'd be going to Summer Camp as well. And so we were looking at the Summer Camp, and it would have cost us $3,000 all in for all child care. So that's with my daughter being in daycare as well, my youngest being in day care as well. And so, really, my 2 big ones going to Summer Camp would have cost $2,000 a month. And then my daughter being in daycare, $1,000 a month, $3,000 a month for June to August to be in Summer Camp part-time, because they'd only be there the days that my wife works. It is, so that's I mean, if we're looking at the end of May to August, we're looking at $9, maybe $10 depending on how some things shook out, depending on weeks and certain days, maybe a little like, less the week we're on vacation because, with the Summer Camp, you can pay, like, day to day in some cases.
So the combined cost with daycare is because we do need to stay in daycare to keep, to remain enrolled and keep our spot. If we had dropped out for the whole summer, we would have potentially lost our spot, which is frustrating. But, I know a lot of teachers go to our daycare, and so, you know, it's maybe that the brass, I should say this is nobody that I deal with. Right? Because it's like a chain daycare, or at least there's like a number of daycare. So, like, I know the people that I talk directly to empathize and understand, but they're also not making those decisions. Either way, we're very happy with our daycare. So to remain enrolled, we do have to keep paying for daycare, at least some. And so, that cost became nearly untenable, or at least, like, upsettingly expensive. That is, you know, it's a lot of money that we could maybe put towards better use.
And so, luckily, my wife and I both have flexible schedules and supportive families. Like, I can't discount that either. And so we decided to adjust our work schedules for the summer and save that money for experiences and maybe also tuition for school since our tuition's going up for the school too. But, you know, I'm gonna, like, I'm gonna, I know it's a choice for us to send our kids to Catholic school, and so I'm like, I'm not gonna complain about that tuition because we did decide to send our kids to a Catholic school over very good public schools in our area. Right? But, you know, that's a personal decision that we made. So I'm not gonna complain about the school's tuition because that's our choice, and we have good options.
So, Summer Camp though, you know, school's out for the summer, and it feels very like price gouging or, you know, I don't remember it being this expensive last year. And that I think the dramatic price increase for 1 child and then understanding that it would be 2 children now, that's the thing that kinda stuck in my craw or whatever, I guess, a little bit. I don't, I should also say like, I don't really like talking about finance stuff publicly, but I think this is really important.
A lot of, so like a lot of self-employed people, solopreneurs, small business owners who don't have a lot of employees and support, they need to think about this stuff. Right? Because like, if you have, maybe you have a slow month now, like that daycare money, right, or that Summer Camp money, you know, maybe things are a little tighter than you expected. And now you're wondering like, does it make sense for me to pay for childcare when I'm like, barely working this month anyway? Right? So there are a lot of considerations.
If I had a full-time job and I was making more than I was making now, you know, that we would do it. But, also, if I had a full-time job where I was making more than I'm making now, it's very likely that I wouldn't be as available as I can be for my kids. And that is a choice that I made. Right? That is the mission of this show, like, the whole point of me being self-employed.
The whole reason I left my agency job was because I feared that I would miss important things in my kids' lives. Because at my agency, we were working till 3-4 in the morning. We were told that we had to work weekends if we had to if we wanted to get paid on time. And that's my, that was fine when I was 24. But when I got married and I had kids, my values and my priorities changed. And so that's why I'm having this discussion in the first place.
And maybe if you're listening to this, because I've been there too where it's like I've been working late because I really needed to make ends meet, and I would miss family dinner, or I would miss putting my kids to bed, or I would work on a Saturday. You know, so it's when you're worried about the income coming in, it's easy and understandable to kinda lose sight of why you decided to go out on your own and have that freedom anyway.
And so maybe this is a reminder, you know, that maybe the hedge is that you can get all of your work done in 4 days and have that extra time with your kid. Right? Because it's not about the volume of work you do. It's about the quality of the work you do. And so if you're like, oh, I wrote like 12 LinkedIn posts and like, no, like, no one's ringing the phone, maybe don't spend that time writing LinkedIn posts and instead use half of that time to reach out to people in your network. You know? Anyway, that got unexpectedly deep.
But, you know, I want you to understand why. I'm not just doing this because I'm cheap. I'm doing this because or we're doing this. This is a decision my wife and I both made because we feel that we both have flexible work schedules. And we felt that we could save that near $10,000 and spend it on something better than having someone else watch our kid while we worked too much or while we worked. Right? And I'm grateful that I’m in a position where I can do that. I'm grateful my wife is in a position where she can make her schedule. And so let's get to that. Right? Because we do have to adjust our work and daycare schedules a little bit.
So Erin did adjust her schedule to work an extra weekend and leverage some PTO that she's accrued. And, based on Erin's schedule, I am working the opposite weekdays. Right? This is really important. She is giving up one weekend, one weekend a month so that she can not work on a weekday so that I can work. But I'm, you know, I'm also not working on Fridays so that she doesn't have to work every weekend. And then probably I'll be taking off some of those extra days during the week so that she can have a day to herself because I'm also very concerned about that or well, that's really that's something I think about too. And so we'll, you know, we'll make this work.
We've also adjusted daycare down to 2 days from 3. So, Abby has always been in daycare part-time. Usually 3 days, the 3 days that Erin works, and we're adjusting that down to 2 days. So, like, you know, there'll be days where I have all 3 kids. There'll be days when Erin has all 3 kids. And so that's kinda how we're working it.
Also, adjusting down to two’s saves us some money. Right? So, I think that, that puts us in a really good situation, where, yeah, we'll be working kind of unorthodox schedules for a little bit, but it also enables us to take our family vacation with either of with neither of us working. And again, like, it'll give us more time with the family. I guess I should say that I focused, maybe I have focused a lot on the finances, but it's also about spending you know, my kids are home for the summer, and it'll be nice. It'll be chaotic. Like I'm not gonna paint a rosy picture of like, an only rosy picture. Like, the kids are gonna get bored and ramie, and I'm gonna lose my temper, and that's what parenting is. It's beautiful and frustrating. But, you know, I also recognize that my kids are getting big, bigger, faster than I'd like them to. And, you know, we're you know, like, our library, like, has, like, a free pass to the zoo and stuff like that, and there will be stuff for us to do, and it'll be fun to do that as a family. So I don't wanna discount that part of it. Right? It's the decision was financial, but also, we get to spend more time with our kids.
And, you know, starting in September, 2 of our kids will be out of the house 5 days a week, like, 5 full school days a week. So, you know, it's something else to think about and something else that we should cherish when we have the summer so we can, and then we have the ability to do what we can there. So, yeah. So we've we've adjusted the work schedule in that way. And, you know, who knows? This may be like a disaster. Like, next year, we're gonna be like, no. It was awful, but I doubt it. Especially as our kids get bigger, things will get easier.
But, you know, we both experience having all 3 kids by ourselves. Right? Because when my wife works on weekends, I have the kids by myself. When my wife travels, I have the kids by myself. When I travel, my wife has the kids by herself. But it's not all by ourselves. Right? We do have a lot of external support, which is the next thing I wanted to talk about here.
So, you know, we have family. We live in an area where my wife's family also lives. We have a really good babysitter. She's starting a full-time job in August, I think, so I think we're gonna lose her, but that's still the summer, which I know like babysitter's child care, but, or paying for child care. But, again, like, the net, the net gain here, right, we're saving a considerable amount of money. But, you know, my wife's family are gonna watch the kids on certain days so that I can get that extra, like, half day work of work in.
We also have a lot of friends and family who are, like, teachers and have nontraditional schedules, who said they're willing to help, which is incredible. And so we're really lucky to have that support system. Right? It's one of the reasons that we moved towards my wife's family when we became parents because we were living kind of in the middle of both of our families, and we quickly realized that, that would be untenable. And so, you know, Erin's family is younger and more concentrated in one area. And so that was a pretty easy decision, and, you know, we're very lucky to have that support.
Okay. So that's all the mushy, gushy level-setting stuff. I wanna talk about how this is going to affect me as a freelancer, maybe some things that you, not a freelancer, as a solopreneur. I had a flashback there. I mean, both, I guess, but solopreneur is the word I'm trying to use now. So, let's take a quick break for our sponsors.
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And then we will come back, and I'll talk about kind of how this affects me as a solopreneur.
Okay. So first of all, how does this affect me? What am I doing to mitigate this? Right? Understanding that I'm probably only gonna be working half weeks. This is something that, if you know my story, you know that this happened during the pandemic, except we didn't have the support that we had, and my wife didn't have the flexible schedule that she had. We also had 1 fewer children like, children. Actually, by the end of the pandemic, we had all of them.
But, you know, this is something that I have a little bit of experience with, except I actually see it coming now. So I'm adjusting my calendar to only have meetings on certain days. I wanna maximize the consecutive work hours I have to do that deep work when I can. There's gonna be some extra planning that goes into my week.
In my April retro, I did talk about like, one big project per month. I think that's gonna be extra crucial over the summer. So, you know, I'm gonna do a little extra planning to really time box when I can. And, again, I don't wanna, I'm gonna be as flexible as I can with meetings. Right? Like, if I have a sponsor who wants to pay me $10,000, I'm not gonna be like, sorry. I can only meet, like, Wednesday evenings. But I do need to guard at least one full day against meetings because those are probably gonna be my most productive days. So I'm gonna adjust my calendar to that.
And then plan, like, do some extra planning. I'll probably plan out a full month. Usually, on Sundays, I sit down and I plan out my week. I'll probably kinda high-level plan out the full month based on the stuff I'm working on. I'm also gonna have as few time-specific obligations as possible, so, like, no live courses, maybe fewer webinars. The exception being live streams since they slot into my current schedule, which is Thursdays at 2 PM. You know, I've had that slot open all school year, and so I'll continue to have that slot open all summer.
I'm also gonna reduce the number of side projects and focus only on core content and client work for now. Luckily, I'm pretty ahead for this podcast, and so I'll probably batch a bunch of solo episodes as we approach, you know, I'm doing this one, but, like, as we approach the end of the school year since I'm recording this, like, almost a month ahead of time, I'll batch some more so that I have that flexibility. I also do take a summer break for this podcast for a few weeks, and so I'll have that as well.
And then as far as, so I know, like, some of the projects. Right? So I'm an rss.com evangelist. I'm gonna have that obligation. Right? Like, that is, they are a family-first company. It's one of the reasons I decided to do work with them, and they're really great and understanding. But, you know, I also am aware that I don't want to take advantage of that. I want to deliver what I promise, and I wanna fulfill my role and help them in the ways that they want that they, you know, expect me to help them. And so, you know, I'm probably gonna dedicate a large chunk of at least one day. I'm probably gonna like, put all of my, I'll be responsive during the week, but all of my deep work, right, I'm probably gonna, like, block that. Like, one day is gonna be our, a week is gonna be rss.com day.
I have coaching clients and done for you clients, so, you know, that's gonna be a block somewhere. And then I have content. Right? And so the content, right, it's I'm probably going to batch a lot of content, and then the newsletter will be the thing I write or, like, a couple of long-form pieces and then the live streams. Right? And the live streams will be a really good kind of content flywheel where I do a live stream, and then I can get a long-form article out of it, and so I'm not like, constantly spinning my wheels. And so I think that'll be really good as well. And also, my live streams are, they're very podcast production-focused, so they might not all have a place here, but, they'll have a place most likely over on the Podcast Workflows podcast feed, and some of them may have a place here. So, you know, double dipping and repurposing when I can, because, you know, I'm gonna need to really streamline my processes, and make them really effective.
And then the last thing, right, I need to understand that this is all temporary. Right? It's gonna be June to August. Like I said, I'm a dad of small kids, and 2 of them will be out of the house or sleeping more than they'll be awake in the house with me next year. Right? Which is like a really upsetting way to put it. But if, you know, if they get to school at 7:30 or they leave for school at 7:30 or whatever, they leave for school early in the morning, or I drop them off early in the morning, and then they get picked up at the end of school. Right? And then it's gonna be like snack, homework, dinner, bedtime for 5 days a week. And so, that's you know, I want to remind myself that it's going to be chaotic, and there's gonna be days where I'm at my wit's end. But, also, my wife and I are giving us this extra time to spend with our kids at this young age at a time when we are just increasingly losing time with them. So, it's gonna be a good reminder for me, I think.
And I mean, this is why I do it. Right? Flexibility for my family. Enjoy the time now because I know they're getting big and, you know, soon, they might not even wanna hang out with me. Right? I took my daughter to a gal pal dance, a father-daughter dance. And, like, yeah, she came and hung out with me sometimes, but she was mostly off with her friends. And, like, I get it. Right? It's a great time for her to socialize with her friends when she's not in school. But, you know, that time always hits you. It always comes sooner than you maybe hoped or expected. And so, I wanna cherish the time I have and really maximize it when I can.
Okay. So that's it on my cheery note. I guess the cheery note is that I am able to spend time with my kids. Right? This is gonna be great, and I know it's gonna be frustrating, but it's going to be great. But so that's the happy part. I have built a job for myself, and maybe if you're listening to this, you have to, that allows you to spend your time the way that you want. And so, it's gonna take some work, but it's worth that work. Because I know that the alternative would be, not being able to go to the gal pal dance because I had to work late because we had a big project, or not being able to go take my kids to gymnastics or baseball or see their school play. Right? Because I would have to you know, if I'm, if things had kept up at the agency that I used to work for, then I would definitely like, I've had to cancel date nights. I was supposed to see comedians and I had to cancel those things. And I think it would devastate me to have to do that to my kids. So I am completely utilizing this space that I've created. And I hope you are too. That's why I'm doing this episode.
I hope you enjoyed it. If you do, let me know. If you have feedback, right, if I got like, too gushy or whatever, let me know. If you're like, I don't wanna hear that. Right? I just wanna hear like, workflow stuff, let me know. You can go to [streamlined.fm/feedback]. That's [streamlined.fm/feedback].
If you're really into this and you wanna hear more of it, you can become a member of Streamlined Solopreneur Accelerated over at [streamlined.fm/join]. But that's it for this episode.
Thank you for listening, and for allowing me to wax poetic a little bit.
Thanks to our sponsors, and until next time, I'll see you out there.