How To Save Money With Wholesale Fabric

Saving time and money most likely rank within the top 10 items of your permanent to-do list as a Work at Home Mom or Dad. You created your own site design -- or found a low-cost designer to do it for you. You also filed your own sole proprietor paper work, and possibly even requested your own tax-ID number. And working at home has saved you tons of money in rental fees, utilities and more.

Despite the low overhead, you still have expenses each month. As a manufacturer of baby slings, cloth diapers, quilts or other crafts, one of your main expenses is fabric.

With Profit Margins Already Slim, You Need All The Savings You Can Get

Wouldn't it be great if you could save some money on fabric as well? Profit margins are already razor-thin in the WAHM world, so even the smallest increase could give you some breathing room.

If you are currently buying your fabric at retail prices, purchasing at wholesale can save you a bundle in the long run.

Sounds great!

However, there are a couple of downsides.

Don't Let Minimum Order Requirements Deter You

1. Many wholesalers require you to order a minimum amount up front. While this will make your initial costs higher, you will save in the long run. For example, let's say that you normally buy 25 yards of your favorite fabric for $252. Your wholesaler requires you to purchase 100 yards, which will cost $600. Ouch, right?

Think of it this way though: At retail value, the fabric is $12 per yard. When you sew your sling, you use 2 yards of fabric. So, you're spending $24 per sling, which you then sale for $32. Your profit, not counting the thread used or other business expenses: $8.

Now, let's say you went out and purchased the wholesale fabric for $600. You make your sling, using 2 yards of fabric. Only now, those two yards cost you just $12. When you sell your produce for $32, your profit is $20. You have more than doubled your profit for that item!

Another way to look at this is, with the retail fabric, you are making $4 of profit per yard. You purchased 25 yards, so your profit for that fabric purchase is $100. With the wholesale fabric, you are making a profit of $10 per yard.

For the 100 yards of fabric you purchased, your total profit is $1,000. Wow!

Now, that's no so much of a downside when you look at it.

Finding Fabric Wholesalers Is Tough Work

2. Where in the world do you buy fabric at wholesale? I've seen this question asked over and over again at WAHM message boards. The most common answer is the call the manufacturers of the fabrics you are interested in purchasing.

Typically, the retailers you purchase the fabric from are very protective of their wholesale sources, so you may not have any luck asking. Often though, you can look at the ends of the fabric bolt itself to see the name. Some fabrics have the information printed onto an unfinished edge of the fabric. On solid color fabric, denim and others, the manufacturer information may be hard to find.

You can also use a search engine in order to find wholesale fabric lists. However, be careful to research the company to find out about the fabric quality, turnaround time from the time you place the order until it is shipped and the level of customer service they provide. Research can include using search engines to find reviews or forum discussions about the company, asking fellow work at home moms and searching messages boards or resource websites that you are a member of for comments on the company.

Finding wholesale fabric for your business maybe a tough job -- but in terms of saving money, it will be well worth it in the long run.

Michelle Waters, owner of http://www.ShopKitPlus.com, helps moms learn how to operate and promote their online businesses. She recommends the following wholesale fabric resources: http://www.waterswebshops.com/WholesaleCraftFabric.

Adultery and Infidelity: Why People Cheat

As someone who makes a living giving relationship advice, I know that adultery is widespread in our culture. In fact, one study conducted by the University of Hawaii indicated that 60-70% of victims of infidelity are women. The stereotypical myths associated with such behavior include a middle-class husband purchasing a sports car and fooling around with the secretary, who is often a young blonde with whom he works closely. The unsuspecting wife, busy with care-taking and driving the kids to soccer games, is devastated by the discovery. At this point, the husband justifies his actions: It's the frequent business trips, working late into the night, and the fact that the new woman doesn't nag him. Therefore, it was bound to happen, right? Wrong.

The reality is that infidelity is most often a symptom of internal conflict within the cheating spouse which has little to with non-cheating partner. In fact, my experience as a couples and marriage therapist indicates that cheating husbands are most often running away from themselves.

Sadly, while the cheating husband may appear to be enjoying himself, by not facing his problems he is condemning himself to repeating them. In short, he's emotionally stuck. How do I know this? They tell me!

Take this following example: The husband didn't wake up one morning and suddenly choose to commit adultery. Rather the husband, doubting his self-worth and possibly tired of routine married life, becomes flattered by the attention of another, often younger, woman. Not only is the appeal of something new very exciting, but this new woman tends to have a sympathetic ear that he thinks his wife lacks. As a result, he often takes the path of least resistance and finds it easier to be with this more fun or understanding woman. Eventually, he may get divorced and even marry the new woman. Then, after a year or two, he begins to feel similarly negative about his new relationship. At which point, he begins to realize that his current relationship is not much different than his previous relationship.

Emily Kensington is a psychotherapist specializing in couples and marital therapy. Her website is http://www.hearts-and-kisses.com.

Start Your Own Online Home Business With A Money Making Site

In the past I have fallen for the hype and wasted a lot of money because I really did not know what I was doing or did not have the experience and knowledge to put everything together to make an online home business work, so here are some tips to start your own online home business off on the right foot and how to make money online.

When you think about it, having a successful online business means that you will need to own your own domain, which will enable you to alter, add to and change your web site when necessary. You ideally need the opportunity of offering a free newsletter that visitors to your site can subscribe to, so you will require an autoresponder to be installed and a series of follow-up emails will need to be written. You will require products to sell and ideally you need to use companies who ship the goods on your behalf, otherwise you will need to get involved in accepting payments and shipping the goods, which you will have had to purchase first yourself. These are only a few of the basics and one can see that it can be very involved and complicated.

But let us look at what else may be required, just so that you are fully aware of what starting an online home business is all about. Owning your own domain and having access to your source code gives you the freedom to do what you like to your site, which means you have control of your business, but this will require knowledge of html. Internet Marketing is another animal altogether! You need visitors, lots of them, to your site to generate signups and sales, so ideally the online home business opportunity should offer a full training program and a forum where you can go to discuss your business, get assistance and ultimately you can offer help to others.

The ultimate of course is to find a business-in-a-box. This means that your website will come fully set up with the affiliate programs loaded and you will be able to select your own domain name and then be in a position to add any other programs to the site. The all important autoresponder should also be installed and ready to fire off emails to your subscribers, plus you will be able to add more follow-ups to your autoresponder.

You will be able to install a link exchange program to create linking partnerships, a stat counter, add banners or text links, change the colour and design of your site, choose your keywords and optimize your site for the search engines, link your blog to your site, add an article directory, stream fresh content onto your site, upload ebooks, software and more. Literally, you can do whatever you want as you have full control of your own online home business.

You may well be thinking that this is all too complicated and you do not have the knowledge, but that is the great advantage of joining an online program that sets your money making site up for you and with a comprehensive training program in place and an active forum which you can join and actively participate in, you will have all the help you need.

Starting an online home business does not mean that you are going to be generating an income immediately. You need to give yourself time to work through the training, learn and implement all that you can. It is a step-by-step process that takes time but each step you take builds your business. The marketing and advertising of a web site needs consistent, ongoing work, as you need to build momentum to ensure that your money making site is visible to as many people as possible.

If you have decided to start your own online home business you are in for an exciting time. You will experience frustrations and setbacks, but these can be overcome with the support and backup. The secret is just to press on and never quit. Remember, Rome was not built in a day. The learning curve may be steep, but work hard and have fun and once the momentum kicks in with your marketing and advertising you will start to make money online and reap the rewards of all the hard work you have put in.

Cynthia Minnaar works from home online and invites you to visit http://www.cyns-home-biz.com for ways to generate income online. Visit http://www.cyns-home-biz.com/pips.html to start your own online home business with a money making site complete with 400 day pre-written email autoresponder campaign.