For Richer, For Poorer

"I look over at my wife, sitting on her own, flicking through the TV channels with her phone in her other hand. We've just put the kids to bed and then I've washed the dishes whilst my wife has sat with our youngest until she has fallen asleep.

We reconvene in the living room, me at the dining table and my wife on the sofa in front of the TV.

I glance up now and then to see what she is watching. I doubt that she even knows what's on, as she glares at her mobile with the sound of the TV in the distance. I know that she is just catching up with her social life. Facebook is pretty much her contact with adult conversation, her outlet and her downtime.

A message appears on Skype and I look back to my computer. I'm in a conversation with a freelancer who I have outsourced some work to. He only works after 6pm so I have to catch up with him during the evening – along with a lot of my other clients, who like me, have families and work to look after during the daylight hours.

I've spent the day with my head down, trying to focus on what's in front of me and not get distracted by the office banter. A morning meeting with a client who needed their hand holding whilst they provided feedback on a site I had been working on, set me back a couple of hours and I have people chasing me on emails that I haven't replied to yet.

My head is full to bursting with emails and demands and people thinking that the button that isn't working on their site comes first on my schedule. I sat up until midnight last night and was up again at 6:30am to try and answer as many of them as I could. But it wasn't enough – it never is.

Cashflow is looking great this month – if only I can get these 5 jobs done on time.

There are several unopened brown envelopes sitting on the kitchen counter that look like they are from the Inland Revenue. What's the point in opening them?

Getting the Balance Right

This evening was the same as any other. We left the office at 5pm – any later and the wife gets mad. At home, I immediately start cooking the dinner whilst the wife greets the kids and they talk about their day and the childminder discusses what they have all been up to. I hear the door close and my wife busying herself about tidying up after all the fun the kids have had, and if she has time, hoovering and getting the kids ready for dinner. The pets are fed and by the time I present dinner, the living room and kids are all in order.

Dinner can take an hour with our very tired kids and we all start to get frustrated. My wife knows that she has a bundle of ironing upstairs to get on with before the kids go to bed, and I have umpteen emails and quotes on my mind. An hour sitting with empty plates whilst scolding the kids to eat is too long!

Bundled upstairs, the kids get ready for their baths whilst the ironing board comes out and there is a temporary lull. How long passes, I don't know, but my silence is broken by the sound of my wife shouting, “are you coming upstairs or what?”

Damn, how did I get so distracted? I press 'send' on the email I was writing – did I even finish writing it? I'm in trouble. I'll just run upstairs and get the kids in to the bath and let the wife get on with her ironing for a bit.

My head is filled with things I need to do. I am itching to get downstairs again to write a quote that I need to send out before the morning. But the kids are in a really good mood and as my son squirts his little sister in the face with Nemo, and she decides to laugh it off, we start a water fight and I end up as soaked as them. I love them. I enjoy their company so much. This is so much fun!

These little guys really keep me going. Everything I do is for my wife and my kids and our future together as a family. It's hard and we all have big sacrifices to make, but I wouldn't be putting myself through this if I didn't think that I could provide the kids with a brilliant future.

It breaks my heart when I can't spend time with the kids at the weekend. There are times when I have taken on so much work that my wife has no choice but to take the kids out for the day so that I can bury myself in work and try to get a good 6 hours quality time, undisturbed, working on a project. But when they get home, I run out to the car and give them great big hugs and instantly know how much I have missed them.

Days like that always end in a takeaway for me and the missus where we spend quality time on the sofa whilst the kids are dreaming in their beds, scoffing our faces, leaving the washing up until the next day, and catching up with a series we are watching on Netflix. I see her photos on Facebook of the day that they have had. I'm glad they had fun.

Bringing the Wife In

Last year, I took my wife on as an Office Manager to help take some of the strain off me. We were warned by many that we shouldn't work together but always believed that by sitting together, having totally different jobs to each other and by educating my wife about what I actually do, that we would work it out. A year later and we see each other a lot more and yes, my wife does know more about what I do. When I talk to her, she knows what I am talking about.

My wife's main role was to implement a few systems around the office whereby we were able to track our finances and the time that we were spending on each job. The boys and I suggested a few different online programmes but in the end, my wife felt much more comfortable designing her own spreadsheets and collecting the information from us all independently.

Bless her, she put her all into it and really believed that it would transform our cashflow every month. But did any of us stick to it?

The boys were given a sheet every week breaking up all the hours of every day and assigning them to different projects they were working on. But it didn't account for the clients taking days to get back to us with feedback or with providing us with content, and it didn't take into account all of the changes that the clients made. I felt my wife's frustration and I watched as every month our bank statements just didn't turn out the way that the 'Cashflow' spreadsheet had predicted.

The 5 jobs that I was working on had 2 hours a day assigned to them. However, if so and so shouted louder than someone else, ultimately I ended up doing more hours on one project than another. And then, if an old client reared their heads and demanded I look into their site and why their shipping wasn't working, that took priority. And sure enough, each month, all of those coloured figures that sat neatly on my wife's spreadsheet, were all taken out and placed onto the following month's sheet.

But quite often, the magic all happens in the last few days of the month. I have my wife and Business Consultant pestering me about whether some of the income we are expecting can be moved off the spreadsheet with no hope of them coming in. 'No' I say, 'That may still come in'.

And I sit up all night, busy in my work. I'm up again at 6am. I have to get this work done. I have to squeeze every bit of myself into this project, and then I have to squeeze some money out of the client. All too often, the people that have been crowding my inbox all month and clouding my head, will suddenly go to ground as soon as the word 'Invoice' is mentioned, but as I work my butt off, sure enough, D-day comes round and we just about manage to get some payments in just in time for payday.

Home Time

I get home sometimes and my head is just swamped. I need a bit of 'me' time, if only for a few minutes or half an hour or so. Sometimes that comes in the form of getting out Hungry Hippos with my babies, sometimes I get out my phone and play a game, sometimes I sit upstairs and read. Sometimes I just need silence.

I can read my wife's mind of course, and sometimes I also wonder if I could take a 9-5 job instead. But I don't believe that that is an investment in our future – and I think that my wife believes that too. I'm proud of my business and I want it to succeed and I don't want all of this to have been for nothing.

I feel I am spinning plates. I want to be the very best dad that I can be and I want to be the best husband. And my wife is strong. We have adapted well into this life and this routine. We have our own duties and our routine and for the most part, it works. I know when it gets to her and it doesn't work quite so well for her. I have those days too. But we do have flexibility and if I can do a few extra things at home to ease things for my wife, she knows that she only has to ask.

Sometimes, I think my wife has had enough. She goes silent and I feel her hostility about the business and about the amount of time I am spending on it and the lack of money showing in our account. I feel that something is going to blow. But usually, the next day, she wakes up having had a big think about it and there's a smile on her face and we are ok again.

Motivated

I am running along with my boy, I've just let go of the saddle of his bike, and he is riding clumsily alongside me. We can hear my wife whooping at the kerb whilst she films this momentous occasion. It's 9:30am and we should have been in work already. I realise I haven't looked at my watch though and I'm not stressing about getting to work. I've already answered a few emails this morning over breakfast and so far, all my clients are satisfied. And, anyway, here lies my inspiration. This is what I am working for.

If I can't take an hour out every now and then, when I know that the rest of the world is hard at work, and we have the road to ourselves, when we can enjoy the kids whilst they are still too young to go to school – if I can't do that, what's the point?

Enjoying these tiny guys and seeing them grow and develop is my motivation. And I go to work with a smile on my face and it's a new day and I'm ready to do some work!"

Married to the Job

Bumping into friends I haven't seen in a while, I am always asked the same two questions: “How are the kids?” and “How is business?”

My response very seldom varies: “The kids are brilliant!” and “Business is good but hard work.”

Bumping into a friend with a little more time on their hands, they might get the more embellished answers: “The kids are brilliant! They have their days of acting like monkeys but on the whole, they are great, just growing up too fast!” and “Business is good but hard work. My husband never stops and we are so busy, but still there is no money.”

A little background

My husband and I met at university – a college of Arts. He was doing Graphic Design and I was studying Fashion Promotion. When he graduated, he was offered a job in the BBC as an Interactive Designer but continued to work on freelance web design projects at home as well. When I graduated, I started working for a handmade greetings card company.

For me, work was always a 9-5 thing – a means to making a living, buying a house and doing nice things as well as having a social life. For me, enjoying my job was paramount. I've never had a job that I didn't enjoy.

For my partner, it was most definitely more of a hobby and a part of his life. From the very beginning of our relationship, he would sit on the computer most nights until bedtime, working or learning something new whilst I talked on the telephone, enjoyed our home and garden, enjoyed our pets and watched TV.

My husband left the BBC in 2007 and set up shop in our little living room in our one-bedroomed flat in London and that is when our business was born.

Things were good. Hubby had this ability of finding enough extra work when we needed to go on holiday or pay for a big thing so that we were able to really enjoy life. If we suddenly needed an extra £1k to pay for flights to Thailand, he put in a few more hours and hey presto! We were on our way!

We left London in 2008 and moved to Cheshire, got married, and the following year, we were blessed with a baby boy. In time, hubby moved his desk from our upstairs spare room to an office building in a nearby town, and employed his first member of staff.

I enjoyed spending time at home with my little boy who instantly became my little best friend.

Our life as a little family didn't exactly follow the norm. My other half didn't take paternity leave. He stayed at home for the first two weeks but sat at the dining table working, and instead of just having to look after myself and a newborn, I also made lunch and numerous cups of coffee for the boss everyday.

When he returned to his office after a fortnight, he got home at 5:30pm everyday and as soon as we had bathed our little boy, it was back to the computer.

4 years on

4 years on, we now also have a 2 year old girl and another baby on the way. Following my maternity leave with my little girl, I decided to go and work with my husband to try and improve things and sharpen things up. By then, he had 2 employees and was really struggling with cashflow in the business.

Our own finances started to suffer and before long, we were up to our eye balls in debt.

My husband also employed a Business Consultant who thought it was a great idea to bring me in to introduce a few time management and cashflow systems. Until then, hubby used to just wing it. He would have lots of jobs on but no idea when they were due to finish and when the clients would then kindly pay for the work that he had done.

I was very out of my depth going in there, but enjoyed the feeling that I was doing something proactive with my time and something that, ultimately, was for the good of the future of our kids.

On setting up numerous spreadsheets and looking into archived projects, it occurred to me that things were in a bit of a mess and that we weren't billing for half as much as we should have been, jobs were taking twice as long to complete as projected and my husband was taking on far too much work for himself and not letting a lot of it go to his employees.

My husband is the best web designer that I know and I wholly respect his talents. However, sadly his management skills were lacking and trying to please everyone (clients) all at the same time, he very rarely met deadlines.

It was my job then to enforce a few strict rules about the work he was allowed to take on, how long it had to take to be completed and when we definitely needed payment by. Staff had to follow my rigid timetables and spend set amount of hours on each project daily, reporting to me at the end of the day how many hours they had spent on each project. Every project had to have a deadline, every project had to come in on budget. Our cashflow had to work.

Of course, it didn't. Did anyone pay a blind bit of notice to me? No. Did I have a clue about the work they were doing and how long it took to do everything? Not at all. Did my timesheets all end up in the bin? Yep! And my own husband was the worst offender.

The boss's phone and emails got in the way constantly. He couldn't spend the 4 hours I had set him daily on working on a particular project because so and so had called and needed a little tweak on something else. Such and such had emailed and needed an amend. Thingymabob had messaged to ask for a newsletter...... He couldn't let go. Despite the measures that the Business Consultant and I put into place, giving my husband an hour or two set window for answering clients, not letting him answer the phone, having down time at home, he just couldn't conform!

Cashflow continued to be a nightmare. The spreadsheets were all there, the sums had all been done. All the boss had to do was check them and update them and account for the worst case scenario. If so and so didn't look like it was going to be finished in time, move it to the next month's income and we will try and concentrate on getting another payment in instead. But ever the optimist, hubby held onto every single payment until the very last few days before realising that no, they weren't going to pay before the end of the month, and oops, we're £2k short of wages!

Yippee! Holiday!

I've lost count of the number of holidays we have been on where at least one of our days has been ruined because it was payday, and true to form, left to the last minute, we have had to run around the nearest town, looking for banks, checking opening times, getting cash out of the hole-in-the-wall to then top up the business accounts from within the branch which is usually due to close for the day, scraping every last penny we have together, for daddy to then find an internet cafe with a slow wifi connection to then pay everybody back home before the end of the working day.

But that's when we even take holiday. Save for our annual trips to Poland to see family, my husband would never use up his holiday leave by just taking the odd day off or the odd week at home, just to use up days owing. If he takes 12 days a year holiday, I would be greatly surprised! Bank holidays – no chance! Why, aren't they just bonus days when the boss can work in peace and quiet?

Our days out usually consist of daddy checking his phone regularly, receiving phone calls, pulling over on the road to send an important email, sitting on his own to try and work out a problem that a client has encountered (on a lovely summer's day at the weekend), phoning round hosting companies, sushing the kids because he's on an important call, and sitting with his 'email clients' whilst we all have lunch.

Hometime!

At home, we are used to hearing the click of daddy's phone coming to life every ten minutes. Putting the washing out, I can hear the kids, “daddy..... daddy..... daddy.... daddy....” until I shout, “Will you answer them please!” even though they are in the bath whilst he is supposedly bathing them!

I walk downstairs to a silent house to find my husband in a corner of the kitchen, in the dark, cups of tea half-made, checking his emails on his phone.

Kids screaming, attaching themselves to my legs, snot on my cardi and a dirty nappy in my hand, I finally give up and shout to him to come and help. “Coming!” he says, as he turns off his laptop.

I come down from the shower in the morning, there's ten minutes until we have to leave for pre-school. I am greeted by half-finished bowls of cereal, kids in their pygamas watching TV, a sink of washing, and daddy hunched over his computer.

And then there's the evenings. Kids go to bed and the next batch of work starts. I usually sit on my own watching TV, doing housework, reading, catching up with friends on the phone. We're in the same room but often I get little sense from my life partner who is sitting on another planet. The twilight hours are his favourite hours for working as there are no disruptions. So I can't very well go and disturb him. Sometimes, I can entice him over with a piece of cake I've bought or an episode of a series we've been watching, but as soon as that's over, it's back to work. He will usually stay up then until 12am or later.

Would I Change Things?

Thankfully, I now work with my husband and I see him more and I get what he does. But when he isn't working, he does like to talk about work and try as I might, I still don't have a clue what he is talking about.

My darling husband works harder than anyone I have ever met. He puts his whole into it, he really does. I don't know how he does it. But is it sustainable, and selfish as it sounds, how long will it take before we actually start reaping the benefits of this hard work? We know other entrepreneurs who work all the hours that God sends, but they really bring in the money and their wives and off-spring enjoy very cushy lives. They can't really complain.

But when you are losing your husband and feeling most of the time that you are a single parent family, and you still don't see the reward, how does that work? How long can that last? The promise of a good future does a lot to keep you sane most of the time, but sometimes not enough. I've gone to bed so many nights crying (usually towards payday looming) and questioning why my entrepreneur can't get a normal job and have someone pay him.

Selfishly sometimes, I catch myself resenting the fact that I am forced to give so much support to our business when I often feel I get very little support in return. No one thanks me for the work that I do at home, or for the work I do at the business that I wasn't trained to do and never wanted to do, or for looking after the kids on my own when daddy is distracted. When I ask him to just help me out and clean the fish tank (because on this occasion I simply don't have time) whilst I hoover, mop and clean the bathrooms quickly before we go out, I wonder why no one ever asks me to clean the fish tank?

And then, I feel awful and hate myself for feeling like that and for being so ungrateful.

When people ask what we do and we tell them (quietly) that we run our own business, you see the pound signs flash up in their eyes and hear them thinking 'Oh wow, good for you – not!' You see them looking at us like we are loaded and live in a massive house and buy nice things and go on expensive holidays all the time. So not the truth at all!

Would I change things? It depends on what day you are asking me. Ask me on payday and yes, I would change things in an instant and have my husband working for someone else. Ask me when the tax man phones and yes, I would change things. Ask me when I am handing over my card in the shop and wondering whether the payment will go through, or when I am walking past the office landlord hiding behind my phone cos we haven't paid our rent, or when I am tired and have to take the kids out for a day at the weekend because the boss needs to get his head down and work – yes I would change everything!

Then ask me on my son's first day of school when we can both stand at the gates at 3:15 and wait to pick him up; ask me when my little girl has a bad cold and needs looking after and I get to stay at home with her; ask me at 9:30am when we should have been in work half an hour ago, yet here we are watching one of the kids riding their bike for the first time; ask me when we have a midwife appointment and my children's dad is the only man in the waiting room; ask me when it's my birthday and my loving husband comes home early; ask me in ten years time.... no, I wouldn't change a thing!

But if any of my kids come home in 20 years time telling me they are marrying an entrepreneur..........