You’ll find many things to consider when choosing health insurance when you’re self-employed…or when you desire to change health insurance if your premium skyrockets.  Sometimes, too, you’ll be priced out of your health insurance, as we were, because you’ve entered an age bracket that generally has more health problems.  Even though my husband and I hardly ever needed medical treatment at that time, this didn’t come under consideration.
When I asked, at the insurance office if we were deliberately being priced out of health insurance with that particular company (premiums had become higher and coverage lowered), the woman I was talking with  …read more

Home business owners are self-employed.  If they or their spouse don’t have another job with a retirement plan, they may find themselves lacking when they want to slow down.  It’s also often very puzzling to know what to select.
Miranda at Yielding Wealth, discusses this in her post, Retirement Plans for the Self-Employed, and gives specifics on the various ones you can consider.  Miranda discusses the one she has chosen as well as several others.

Are you making the most of your advertising budget? Let’s look at using basic test marketing to get the most out of advertising flyers.
What Is Test Marketing?
John Wanamaker, one of America’s first department store owners, famously said “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted. The trouble is, I don’t know which half.” The good news is with test marketing, you don’t need to waste half your advertising budget.
Test marketing tracks and measures which advertising channels are most effective for you. Are you reaching your customers? Is this converting to sales? We’ll use a home based quilting business as …read more

Yvonne Russell, of Grow Your Writing Business, and I were discussing the length of blog posts and how they varied with different topics and blogs.  She discussed this with other bloggers and mentions our ideas on her post, How Long Should Your Blog Posts Be?  You may find some helpful ideas here for length and style of your blog.
I also mentioned that the length of blog posts is something like the length of a speaker or preacher’s talk or sermon.  “When you’ve covered your topic, stop talking [writing] or you’ll lose your audience [ readers] and they’ll simply remember sitting …read more

In a previous post,Yvonne Russell,  of Grow Your Writing Business, wrote a post, at Home Biz Notes , about developing your home based bookstore.  She also contributed information at Alzheimer’s Notes that resulted in questions from readers.  
So I asked Yvonne to answer questions that an Alzheimer’s Notes’  reader, Kathy of KnowItAlz.com, asked about obtaining books for an online bookstore.  Even though Yvonne specifically addresses Kathy’s question about Alzheimer’s books, the information she gives is universal for any bookstore.  
If you’re considering this type of business, you’ll certainly want to check out Yvonne’s post, Your Specialty Home Based Alzheimer’s Bookstore – Publisher Discount Basics.  You’re …read more

“Back-to-School” is the selected topic for the b5media Business Channel Theme Day hosted by Miranda Marquit at Yielding Wealth.   Home Biz Notes participated with a post, 5 Ways Back-to-School Affects Your Home Business. 
Now that youngsters are back in school, parents who operate home businesses, as well as those who shop, will find some changes in their lives and businesses.  I share five ways you might be affected.