Preparing to welcome a new baby is a surreal time of eager anticipation and dreaming of a beautiful future with your precious little one. It’s also a real drain on your finances.

Your awesome business idea is worthless unless you take the time to ensure your ideal customer actually wants what you’re trying to sell to them. But how can you know whether your customer is interested if you haven’t officially opened your business? The answer is simple: market research.

Market research is a process of gathering information about your ideal customer so that you can better understand their needs, their existing options, and whether your product or service is a worthwhile solution.

When’s the last time you heard the words “retirement planning” and “stay at home mom” in the same sentence? If this is the first time you’ve encountered those concepts in the same thought, you’re not alone.

When people find out that I’m a writer with two children under 5 at home, the first question they ask is, “How do you get everything done?” My response is always the same: A hearty laugh and a single word that sums it all up, “Carefully.” And that’s what it all comes down to for all WAHMs.

In order to successfully run a home business, you need the right tools. In part 6 of the Launch From Scratch series, I’m sharing my favorite business tools that I use daily to make my home business hum.

Loving your family isn’t something that will come naturally to you. This is a skill that comes as the result of following sound, Biblical principles. Here are some reflections on Loving Your Family according to Titus 2 based on what I’ve learned thus far in my own marriage.

Becoming a Work At Home Mom (WAHM) is one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. It’s a blessing to be present with my family while pursuing entrepreneurship. From the beginning, choosing to work has been about much more than money. Working at home has been a challenging endeavor that has helped me to rediscover who I am. Recently, I spent some time reflecting on exactly how my life has changed since I began this journey. Here are a few of the realizations I had.

As a mom, you are a natural educator. That’s what marketing is: educating potential clients on the value of choosing your offer over that of your competitors. You may think you need to spend thousands of dollars and a couple years in school earning a college degree in order to become a marketer.

WRONG.

You didn’t need to earn an MBA to go into business for yourself, so you certainly don’t need a degree to become an effective marketer.

Nothing beats a home cooked meal! The taste, price, and nutritional quality are unmatched by restaurants, fast food joints, and even prepackaged grocery store offerings. The problem is cooking from scratch can be time-consuming. Thankfully, there are a number of kitchen gadgets on the market designed to make meal prep easier than ever! Here are the best kitchen tools to save time and money in your household.

When you teach chores to your child, use it as a fun bonding opportunity! Start your chore lessons as early as possible with your children so that they become accustomed to doing them. Teaching simple, consistent, step-by-step lessons will help your children to develop a variety of skills while having fun making memories with you.

Occasional screen time can be beneficial and fun provided there is supervision, the sessions are short, and the child is mature enough to handle it. As a work at home mom, I’ve taken advantage of my children’s screen time to complete some of the tasks of my to-do list. However, I never want to use a screen to babysit.

I do my best to be a good steward of our family finances. This means always being on the lookout for ways to trim the fat from our budget while beefing up our savings. Sometimes, my experiments in frugality pay off. Other times, they go horribly wrong. When I set out to save money on our phone service with an MVNO, I ended up saving a penny only to lose a dollar.

Is your self-talk setting you back? That voice inside your head that is constantly daring you to doubt yourself is one of the signs of Imposter Syndrome.It’s a phenomenon that is especially common in women who strive to achieve great things, even if they’re already considered successful.