MommyMillionaire

The Mommy Millionaire Virus

I heard a comment this month that entrepreneurialism is a viral condition. The idea is that all you need to do is come in contact with someone who’s mind has opened up to entrepreneurial opportunity, to catch that virus—which I’ll define here as the condition of seeing opportunity all around you. I know this is true in my life. Just knowing that my Millionaire Mentors took an idea from start-up to a successful exit strategy in nine years seemed to give me insight, or maybe the permission, into believing that I could do it too. It was as if a door had opened in a room that I had become accustomed to living in my whole life—get a job, a career, buy the big house and SUV—to reveal a whole other part of a house that I had never seen before, with bigger rooms and lots more light. Suddenly I saw the possibility of so much more freedom and satisfaction in my life by becoming an entrepreneur.

I saw an example of this at my speaking engagement this week at a conference on entrepreneurship at E2Detroit www.e2Detroit.com. A male student was there as an employee of Barnes & Noble for the purpose of selling my book during my book signing. He was a physics major, with a heady interest in theoretical physics as it related to time, yet after hearing my speech, he came up to me to tell me two ideas he had for products, one which could possibly revolutionize the way we look at and use energy in our own homes. After hearing his second great idea, I had to stop him and ask him if had seriously evaluated the opportunity. Example, what was the cost for creating his revolutionary home energy-generating system, what was the Return on Investment (ROI) for the homeowner, meaning how long would it take to recover the cost of installing the system in through energy savings. Essentially, I was asking him, have you evaluated the opportunity completely by writing a business plan?

If entrepreneurialism is a virus, then the cure has got to be in a Business Plan.

Getting the virus comes from seeing opportunity in an idea. Curing the virus requires writing a Business Plan and forcing yourself to answer all the questions that go along with turning that great idea into a reality.

Which brings me to a question posted on the www.MommyMillionaire.com Message Board this week about Business Plans and prototypes. Christine wrote to me to ask about the best way to write a business plan. There are lots of different business plan templates out there, but you can visit www.mommymillionaire.com where you can download my preferred version for starting out on the Templates page. When you’re writing your Business Plan, the message is “don’t get overwhelmed.” This is not going to happen overnight. It can take you weeks to complete the research necessary just to adequately evaluate your COGS or Cost of Goods Sold. Building a Cash Flow Spreadsheet, and providing the rest of the required financial documents for obtaining funding, can take you additional weeks. I go into this in detail in my book MOMMY MILLIONAIRE, so if you need additional guidance on writing your business plan and obtaining funding, pick up a copy today and read it.

Christine was primarily concerned about writing a business plan that would satisfy a potential angel investor. Angel investors are sophisticated investors licensed by the SEC or Securities and Exchange Commission to make investments in small to mid-size companies for the purpose of capturing returns of typically 30% on their investment, as well as to stimulate economic growth in their communities. Writing a business plan that will satisfy sophisticated private equity investors is going to require help from additional sources, particularly your local Small Business Development Center. I tell you how to locate your local office of the SBDC in my book, and online at www.mommymillionaire.com on the Templates Page. The question, as brought to my attention today by a friend who emailed me an article in the NY Times on raising capital for women-owned businesses is this: Would you really be willing to trade control of your company for money to fund its growth from angel investors?

Besides Christine struggling with her Business Plan, she admitted being stuck on creating a prototype, which is a dilemma a lot of entrepreneurs encounter. I address the prototype question in a separate topic on the www.mommymillionaire.com Forum, so log on today if you want to read it. However what needs to be emphasized here again is the necessity for at least a Nondisclosure Agreement, or a Provisional Patent Application while you talk to various individuals in your beginning stages of creating your prototype or taking it to market. Christine talks about her dealing with an individual who refuses to sign one, and asks for advice. My advice would be this: don’t ever give anyone proprietary information about your great idea or product without them first signing an NDA, unless you’ve got a Provisional Patent Application in place. A PPA costs under $100, is only 3 pages long, and gives you patent-pending protection in the marketplace for a year while you investigate these prototype issues. I know it’s hard to hold your line—even I’ve trusted people with confidential or proprietary information, when I thought there was serious opportunity with a good-faith intent to move forward. Not one of these opportunities has delivered any results—all the good-faith intent disappeared the minute I gave them my information--and I’ve learned to regret each instance.

In the end, there are no easy answers to difficult problems. Just take your time and do the work that is necessary to evaluate the opportunity before you give it away. There is just no short-cut around writing the business plan.

What do you think about the question of the day? Would you really be willing to trade control of your company for money to fund its growth from angel investors? Join the www.mommymillionaire.com forum on the Message Board and let me know.

Copyright 2007: Kim Lavine

Kim is the President and Founder of Green Daisy, Inc—a lifestyle brand focused on balancing life with love ™--and the best selling author of Mommy Millionaire. Kim has appeared on The Today Show, Rachel Ray, NBC & ABC news, CNN, CNBC's "The Big Idea" with Donny Deutsch, NPR, Oprah & Friends Radio Network, LifetimeTV.com, and has been featured in USA Today, Country Living, Guideposts, Women's World, and American Baby to name a few. Kim is on a mission to encourage women to follow their dreams, inspiring them with hope, honesty and faith.

Kim’s book has been called by Publisher’s Weekly in a Starred Review: “A top-notch, how-to guide on launching a business. Lavine’s human and authoritative story make this one of the most engaging and useful resources available for readers hoping to convert their passion into a healthy company…a rare gem.” USA Today says ““Mommy Millionaire is loaded with resources for a fledgling business person…armed with a good idea and boundless energy.” Barbara De Angelis, PH.D.—#1 New York Times Bestselling Author says, “Mommy Millionaire is an inspiring gift and road map to success for anyone who’s ever had a dream.” 

"Everything begins with a search for something better--a dream, an idea, the
courage to face a challenge, and the passion to get it done.
You can do it.
Believe in yourself.
Change the rules.
Join the revolution."
From MOMMY MILLIONAIRE, by Kim Lavine

WWMMD? How Do I Register to Attend A Tradeshow?

Today I'm answering a question from the www.mommymillionaire.com Message Board, from a reader who wants to know the best way to prepare for and attend her first tradeshow. To learn more, pick up my book MOMMY MILLIONAIRE http://www.amazon.com/Mommy-Millionaire-Kitchen-Million-Dollars/dp/0312354576, where I discuss the tradeshow process in detail, including how to create the perfect booth display, how to get the most publicity, and how to create order forms.

Hey Kim,

    I would like to go to a trade show and get the "lay of the land" so to speak. You must be a "business" to register as a guest. What is the easiest route to take for this? Should I get a business name and Tax ID #? Talked to a girl at AmericasMart and she said I could get a guest pass, just to email my business info and the names of myself and partner. Didn't want to look stupid and ask exactly what info she needed. If there is some way I'll need to register as an official business...I guess now may be a good time. Have a prototype, filing a provisional patent, in process of looking for a manufacturer. Also,  Isn't there a website that lists all the trade shows, places held, venues etc... I'd like to go to one by the end of the year. Thanks for all you do sister!!!
Sharon

Hi Sharon,

If you're thinking of starting a business and you're at a prototype process, I would recommend you go ahead and make the leap and get your State Tax ID number. This is very easy to get. Go to your state's website and click around until you find the Dept of Revenue, where you will no doubt find a link to filing this form online. (All states are slightly different.) Your State Tax Id--sometimes called a Reseller's Certificate--is like a Social Security number for your business, and the state will track your revenues and the amount of sales tax you will owe on those revenues with your State Tax ID, under which you will also file an annual or quarterly tax return. You will also be required to get a Federal Tax ID number as well, or EIN. (I would recommend you pick up my book MOMMY MILLIONAIRE to read in detail the requirements of taxes, local, state and federal registrations, and business entities.)

To attend AmericasMart—the nation’s largest tradeshow venue www.americasmart.com --as a Buyer, you typically need to provide a copy of your State Tax ID, a business card, and a copy of a check from your business's checking account. AmericasMart is the absolute best market to attend, so if you can make it there, do it. Otherwise visit http://www.tradeshowweek.com to find a listing of all tradeshows.

Good Luck & God Bless

Kim Lavine

Kim is the President and Founder of Green Daisy, Inc—a lifestyle brand focused on balancing life with love ™--and the best selling author of Mommy Millionaire. Kim has appeared on The Today Show, Rachel Ray, NBC & ABC news, CNN, CNBC's "The Big Idea" with Donny Deutsch, NPR, Oprah & Friends Radio Network, LifetimeTV.com, and has been featured in USA Today, Country Living, Guideposts, Women's World, and American Baby to name a few. Kim is on a mission to encourage women to follow their dreams, inspiring them with hope, honesty and faith.

Kim’s book has been called by Publisher’s Weekly in a Starred Review: “A top-notch, how-to guide on launching a business. Lavine’s human and authoritative story make this one of the most engaging and useful resources available for readers hoping to convert their passion into a healthy company…a rare gem.” USA Today says ““Mommy Millionaire is loaded with resources for a fledgling business person…armed with a good idea and boundless energy.” Barbara De Angelis, PH.D.—#1 New York Times Bestselling Author says, “Mommy Millionaire is an inspiring gift and road map to success for anyone who’s ever had a dream.”

Entrepreneurs Aren't Born--They're Made

Visit www.mommymillionaire.com to learn more about Kim, or post in the Message Boards there.

It’s been a busy week for me. I spent a good portion of Wednesday listening to the best and brightest from the highest levels of local government, business and academia, trying to figure out how to turn people into entrepreneurs, because the Michigan economy is desperately in need of risk-taking idealists who have some irrational passion coupled with a visionary idea that could just as easily be qualified as crazy—to start new businesses.

The opinion of all these very smart people was that being an entrepreneur has more to do with growing up in affluent homes, with access to lots of information and resources coupled with great private education, than not. If that’s true, why are 70% of the people who are starting businesses in Michigan born in countries other than the US? Nobody’s living large like Americans!

The truth is, entrepreneurs aren’t born—or born into conditions that make you entrepreneurial. Entrepreneurs aren’t born—they’re made. And it’s really simple.

Entrepreneurs are optimistic—but we’re born into a pessimistic world. Being optimistic is not natural in this world, it’s a learned response. Teach yourself to be optimistic! That’s the secret of The Secret in a nutshell. It’s a lesson straight out of Mommy Millionaire: “A person will achieve success in direct proportion to his ability to let go of negativity in favor of all that is positive. Being negative is easy; being positive is what’s hard. Be a positive, big picture person, always striving to work for the highest good of all parties involved, and you can’t help but succeed.”

Entrepreneurs are risk takers—but nobody is born wanting to take risks! Risk-taking is a learned response. The only way you can evaluate risk is to evaluate reward. Teach yourself to see reward. See it in the morning when you get up, and in the evening when you go to bed. See it when you look in your kids faces at 2pm on a school day for a school party, see it in your business plan’s exit strategy, see it as the hope, dream or aspiration that reward is for you—not just money—every minute of your work day

.

Entrepreneurs are passionate—but you’re not born passionate. Being passionate is a learned response. This world is jealous of passionate people. We’re taught early to go to school, get good grades, get a good degree then a good job with a good title in a good career track. Becoming an entrepreneur means learning to value ideas and passion over degrees and job titles. It means stepping out of everything you were taught and redefining success in your own terms. It means boasting unapologetically about your ideas, about your kids, and it means not being afraid to be enthusiastic when the whole world is telling you you’re crazy

.

Don’t only be these things—Teach these things! Teach them to your kids. Show them you’re a Future Mommy Millionaire. Future Mommy Millionaires are optimistic, passionate, risk takers who are teaching their kids to be positive, big-picture people who are smart and confident enough to redefine success on their own terms. Future Mommy Millionaires are funny and loving and give praise more than they take it away to their kids and everybody else’s kids they come in contact with. Future Mommy Millionaires see opportunity all around them to make the world a better, or prettier, or kinder, or easier place and have the courage and the passion to face the challenge and get it done. Future Mommy Millionaires are human—not superhuman—and they need love and encouragement and affirmation too. So the next time you’re feeling down in your daily battle to pick yourself up, ask your kids—the nearest, dearest source of all positive affirmation and love in your life: “Who’s the best mom in the world?” If you taught them right, they’ll answer you: “You’re the best mom in the world!”

Kim is the President and Founder of Green Daisy, Inc—a lifestyle brand focused on balancing life with love ™--and the best selling author of Mommy Millionaire. Kim has appeared on The Today Show, CNN, Rachel Ray, CNBC's "The Big Idea" with Donny Deutsch, LifetimeTV.com, and has been featured in USA Today, Country Living, Guideposts, Women's World, American Baby and on NPR and Oprah & Friends Radio Network. Kim is on a mission to encourage women to follow their dreams, inspiring them with hope, honesty and faith.

Everything begins with a search for something better--a dream, an idea, the
courage to face a challenge, and the passion to get it done.
You can do it.
Believe in yourself.
Change the rules.
Join the revolution."
From MOMMY MILLIONAIRE, by Kim Lavine

Back to Reality!

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Whew! I'm letting go of a big, deep sigh of relief, having just gotten through my kid's first week of back-to-school. My moment in the sun spent doing cartwheels down the driveway while the school bus pulled away with my 10 year old and 8 year old on it last week is nothing but a fleeting golden memory. After thinking that sending my kids back-to-school represented the end to all my summer vacation headaches, I now realize I've traded it in for a whole new list of demands and expectations. Like kids on the burnout end of a sugar rush, I recognize the same look in the eyes of the other moms at the school open house, dashing down the hall from one kid’s classroom to the other for orientation, signing up for Christmas parties, volunteering for the PTA, looking down long lists handed out by teachers: the sudden realization that life just got harder!

This revelation was wordlessly communicated to me by one of the many school moms I’m reconnecting with after the summer break. She was the same one who told me that while I was doing cartwheels down the driveway, she was doing her own version of the back-to-school dance to the delight and amusement of the bus driver. So I wasn’t the only person acting like a fool that day? (What were you doing the first day of school?) On second thought, I remember the moms and dads lining the street waiting for the bus to arrive, with my neighbor taking pictures of her kindergartner courageously making his first bus journey alone, while she cried like a baby. Then there was my other neighbor: dad escorting his first-grader and kindergartner to the bus with obvious joy but no time for pictures as he and his wife juggled running his own business and her job as a teacher, along with six-month-old twins!

How could I have forgotten the frenzied mornings, trying to get my kids up, fed, dressed, lunches packed, homework checked, all in a mad rush to make it to the bus stop before we heard the rumble of diesel pulling away? How soon the mind forgets the explosion of chaos that comes from kids running in to the house at the end of the school day, demanding cookies, the phone ringing with friends who appear in hordes to play, heaps of shoes, backpacks, smelly lunchboxes and reams of teacher notes—struggling to get kids to do their homework before we headed out to soccer practice. It’s back to the battle for me and millions of others, as I try to run my business while juggling the demands of these cute, funny, naughty boys. There’s never been a better time for my mantra, “Embrace the chaos,” than now. Somewhere in all the madness of this first crazy week there have been moments of pure delight: seeing my eight year old lay in bed for the first time every night engrossed in reading his first chapter books, watching my ten year old spending time in the mirror each morning meticulously getting ready in his new school clothes, turning into a young man before my eyes. So it’s back to not being perfect. Back to a house that is slightly out of control. Back to time spent working one-on-one with kids to learn, struggling to understand their “new math.” Back to finding new ways to laugh in the midst of bedlam, to stopping moments in my mind like a photograph to treasure for the rest of my life--like my 8 year old’s skinny legs, seeming to grow inches overnight from out of his Scooby Do underwear. Back to this crazy, demanding, wonderful life of being a parent, trying to raise good, smart, happy kids who know how to love and let you love them, knowing that every precious moment you spend with them now will teach them how to live the rest of their lives. Back to controlled chaos. Back to school.

Angel Investors

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Raising capital is the hardest thing any entrepreneur can do, and nobody is teaching anyone how to do it. One of the hottest places to raise capital—even for start-up—is with Angel Investors. There is $20 BILLION a year available to start-up and mid-stage companies from Angel Investors, and it’s a trend that is growing by 20% every year. This is money you can use to start or grow your business that you don't have to pay back. They give you money in exchange for an ownership position in your company. In addition, they frequently bring priceless executive management skills to your company for no cost other than equity. You can find a listing of angel investors online at www.angelcapitalassociation.org. These are sophisticated investors who are regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Getting money from these investors takes a little work, but it is certainly worth the effort. My book MOMMY MILLIONAIRE tells you everything you need to know, step-by-step, on how to raise angel capital for your business. Last year, out of the $20 billion available to entrepreneurs, only 4% of it went to woman-owned businesses, even though women own 40% of all the business in the US. The Kaufman Foundation has given angels a directive to invest in women-owned businesses. There's never been a better time to raise angel capital if you're a woman!

To read an excerpt from my book, get my 15 tips for starting a business, and sign up for a free newsletter, go to www.mommymillionaire.com .

Good Luck & God Bless,

Kim Lavine

Kim is the President and Founder of Green Daisy, Inc-a lifestyle brand focused on "balancing life with love,"(tm) and the best-selling author of Mommy Millionaire: How I Turned My Kitchen Table Idea Into a Million Dollars and How You Can Too. Kim has appeared on The Today Show, CNN, Rachel Ray, CNBC's "The Big Idea"with Donny Deutsch, and has been featured in USA Today, Country Living, Guideposts, Women's World, American Baby and on Oprah & Friends Radio Network.

It's not personal--it's business. Or is it?

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I was watching Saturday morning cartoons with my son this week, listening distractedly to the dialogue of one of the myriad ninja-inspired shows while playing his favorite board game with him—Trouble—when I heard one of the characters say the following: ‘the victorious warrior wins not by battling the mind or the body of his opponent—but by battling his heart.’ ‘Wow!’ I thought. That was an unexpected truth out of the mouth of a cartoon character. If the entrepreneur was a contemporary version of Sun Tzu’s warrior as defined in The Art of War, what’s with the quote, “it’s not personal—it’s just business?

In a heartbeat I changed my entire position on emotions and business. It wasn’t too long ago that I said the following in my book Mommy Millionaire "In my experience, the height to which you climb the ladder of success in the world is completely dependent on your ability to become divorced from and impervious to emotional knee-jerk reactions. If you can’t separate business decisions from personal emotions, you’re never going to become a millionaire.” I was reminded of this this week when talking to my friend Tom Ehrenfeld, author of The Startup Garden www.startupgarden.com, who selected it as a kernel of truth worth commenting on on one of his blogs.

The truth is, building a business is a lot like making sausage—you’re better off not seeing it being made. The reality of what the start-up entrepreneur undergoes is more often than not, stranger than fiction, mixed up with every messy human emotion and complicated with all the gut-wrenching choices that go along with building something of great value at great risk, usually founded on something as airy as a dream. I’ve concluded now that there is no more effective tool to getting what you want in the business world, in fact, than using emotions—whether it’s fear or hopes or inspiration or even greed. I’ve learned that the most sophisticated and accomplished business people I know are using emotion at all times to try and gain leverage in every business situation they encounter. It’s business as usual for those empire-builders, who have had to endure their own twenty-year hazing to arrive at the aerial view that they command. After a couple of years of my own hazing now, I’m beginning to understand that emotions are a pawn that I better start to learn to maneuver around the chessboard myself if I’m going to come out a winner.

Of course, I don’t need Sun Tzu’s Art of War to tell me this. After all, I’m a mommy! And nobody knows how to manipulate those who need to be manipulated the most--kids and the occasional husband--through emotions better than mommies. So, with the promise of chocolate chip cookie dough, I sat my intransigent eight year old down at the table in front of a stack of homework and got to work wordlessly motivating him to do just what I wanted him to do, lulling him into a blissful state of compliance with only the delicious scent of cookies baking and the promise of a bowl and spoon to lick. Take that Sun Tzu.

Mommy Millionaire: The Rules

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This is the twenty-first century. Technology has empowered us in new and liberating ways, which will radically transform the 9 to 5 workday world. I can email my production specs to China inbetween making peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches and helping kids with homework. Never before has it been so distinctly possible, for us as women, to have it all.

Before you get it all, you’re going to need some handy rules to keep you sane and focused on what’s really important—your family—which I carved out from years of first apologizing for my kids, then celebrating them. Before these rules, I’d routinely shush my kids when a business call came in, running into the bathroom with the cordless phone while they cried and pleaded on the other side of the door. Now, anyone who calls me during business hours will likely have the privilege of hearing my six year old, home from morning kindergarten, scream that he "wants a peanut butter and jelly sandwich,”, while I have a phone meeting. For a complete list of all my Mommy Millionaire Rules, designed to make your life a whole lot easier and less stressful as you chase down your million dollars, keep reading.

Millionaire: The Rules

Here’s a list of Mommy Millionaire rules I came up with to keep me and all the other women entrepreneurs out there sane as we chased down our own million dollar empires:

1. Don't apologize for having kids!
   • Children are special angels from heaven whom God sent you. What's wrong with this world when you have to apologize for having children beside you as you work? You're Superwoman. You can manage kids, find your husband's car keys, and close million dollar deals at the same time. Be proud of yourself!
2. When Conducting Business Over the Phone, It is Proper and Allowable to Out-Yell Your Kids, While I Out-Yell Mine!
   • Just like Murphy's law, Mommy's Law says that the minute you get on the phone while at home with young children, they will immediately retaliate by demanding your full attention with capricious and unnecessary demands screamed in the most whiny, abrasive voices they can muster. Ignore this! This is a tactic on their part to make you feel guilty. You sat in a La-Z-Boy watching endless reruns of Teletubbies for ten hours of nursing for three months--you deserve the right to a lousy phone call! Don't run and hide in the garage with the cordless, or make crazy gestures to silence them. Stand your ground and scream over them! I can’t believe how this simple ground rule transformed my life.
3. Don't freak out over what your kids do while you are on the phone yelling over them.
   • As long as your house is child-proofed, they probably aren't in any peril of dying while you ignore them for fifteen minutes. The worst that can happen is your two year old will empty your fireplace of all the ashes onto your off white rug, or you'll find them sitting behind your $5,000 "do not touch" sofa in your "do not enter" living room, on your “do not walk on with shoes" ecru carpet sharing a half gallon of melted chocolate ice cream. It’s happened to me! Sternly reprimand them while trying not to burst into laughter as you take pictures, reminding yourself that someday this will be really funny.
4. If you're going to be a Mommy Millionaire, you must accept the fact that you will have to burn down your house and build another one after ten years. This is especially true if you are the parent of young boys.
   • The first thing that is going to go in your unbelievably busy schedule is housework. Just try to keep your kids from bringing live wild animals, running hoses, and five screaming friends into the house to build tents with every sheet off every bed as they write secret Indian codes they make up in permanent marker on your walls. Don’t scoff—all this has happened to me at one time while I was on the phone doing business!
5. When your childcare unexpectedly falls through at the last minute, take your toddlers to your attorney's office for that important meeting without guilt and apology.
   • You're paying him $300 an hour. He should change their diapers, too, for that! Don't feel the need to be perfect mom; throw the Hot Wheels you brought on his floor and do not be distracted as your kids make loud car crashing and wheel squealing sounds. He's on your time, and you're boss mom!
6. Accept the fact that SEX SELLS.
   • God gave you enlarged mammary glands in exchange for popping out multiple children in quick succession. Having bigger breasts is definitely an upside to being a mom. Push them up high like Erin Brockavich prepare to do battle. You will have instant mastery over any man as you stand apart from all the drab dark-suits that surround him in the sexless business environment. You will immediately get a businessman’s attention, and they will grant you any request, including a trip to the Bahamas--which you could probably take if wasn't for those pesky kids of yours--while they stand helplessly mesmerized by your all-powerful feminine assets.
7. Children are in reality evil geniuses.
   • Even the smallest toddler understands the power of guilt and can use it effectively to render you instantly under their control and gain material possessions galore. They possess a prescient ability to know when you are under the most pressure to complete the largest assignment on the tightest deadline and will assert their dominance over you by bugging you with the most maddening and redundant requests until you will do anything for an hour of uninterrupted work time, including rushing out and buying them that new Nintendo Game Cube game that very minute.
8. Don't feel guilty for rushing out to buy your kid that new Nintendo Game Cube game if it gives you one day of guiltless uninterrupted work time.
   • You only get to use this rule sparingly—once a year per child. After all, your first job is to raise good kids.
9. Know that in the business world, the conventional wisdom is that you are considered a non-entity as a mommy.
   • Use this rule right out of the classic Zen "Art Of War' to your advantage as you stalk your enemies under the detection of their radar until you surprise them with your brilliance. Understand that their underestimation of you is a critical power that drives you on to greater successes.
10. We’re all equal in the eyes of God and our kid’s teachers.

Just because you’re the President of your own company, doesn’t mean God or your child’s teacher is going cut you any slack when it comes to being a good person or a good parent. If you’re not doing these jobs well, it doesn’t matter what kind of money your bringing in the home. No amount of money can replace waking up to a bright and happy child who is excited to go to school, so stay focused on what’s important.