thank you beach house!
my fiancee and i are in the early stages of trying to get into the B&B business. i work in a factory and she works in banking. we both hate the industries in which we work because our talents are wasted in these jobs and we dont enjoy the rat race lifestyle. our personalities are not meant to live and work in the corporate world. we are looking to eventually open up a b&B in the lower peninsula of michigan where we can live as our own bosses and run our own company. in no way do we think running a b &B will be easy but we know that we hate working in fast paced factory and banking. we are looking to live comfortably and understand that we will in no way become rich doing this. we just want out of corporate america as much as we can be. we were wondering about the living quarters since we have pets that i highly doubt guests will love as much as we do, so we want to keep them away from the actual b&B. living offsite would not be ideal but we were wondering if it was even an option..
This reminds me one time of a minister who told another interested in the trade, "do everything you can to avoid becoming a minister. If it still is the thing to do, then consider it." I think the point was, there are a lot of things the minister does besides just giving the sermon and shaking hands. From handling deaths to broken marriages and a ton of unexpected hours...
I do not think hating your jobs is a good reason to open a B&B. From being on this forum, you cannot imagine the myriad of things that owners deal with. And you may find yourself making a lot less money.
I owned a small construction company for a few years. Frankly, workers often make more money, more reliably than the owner. Fulltime workers usually do their 50-60 hours a week. Business owners often do 80-100 hours a week. And they get to pay self-employment tax to boot. And most businesses fail.
For most people, I would say a reasonably paying job beats starting a business 6 ways to Sunday. If not, watch some episodes of "Tabitha takes over" (salons), "Restaurant Impossible", "Hotel Impossible" or other shows where someone comes in trying to fix a near failed business. The depth of emotions, financial problems and many other things is what you may find yourself in.
In other words, you have a good chance to go from the frying pan into the fire.
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