Employees can be a huge liability for any small business owner. But the right employee can also be a wise investment and boon to a business.  So in the interest of helping our readers be successfully self-employed, and in order to better financially prepared, I’m going to pass on a few key snippets of wisdom that many small business owners have to learn that hard way.I hope it saves you a whole lot of headaches in the future so that your business can thrive in response to all of your hard work.

First of all, many small business owners actually hire an employee way too soon.  Let me explain what I mean by that.

I frequently hear people say something like “Well, when everything goes South, it won’t matter if we have paid our mortgage.  “When the earthquakes and the tempests take place, it won’t make any different whether I have water or not. Or “When the EMP hits, it won’t matter if I have a concealed carry permit.” To be quite frank, this kind of thinking is flawed. Our need for preparedness is not due to a single, massive, chaotic event.  While I don’t dismiss a belief that there will be such an event, I firmly believe that we will be wise to properly anticipate the series of events which may seem quite devastating at first blush, but unfortunately, as foreign or perhaps unfathomable as they may seem, they qualify for key aspects of preparedness to be deployed right now. Whether it’s the Second Coming, the end of the world as we know it, or World War III,

Nearly three months ago my husband and I went to our credit union to conduct some business.  As he waited in the car, I went inside.  Standing at the teller’s window I couldn’t help but notice the stifled but evident excitement around me. No. Sorry to say it wasn’t because of something great I was wearing or my new hairstyle. It was because another one of the employees was bringing in a bin of tiny kittens to bid one last goodbye before she took them to a “no-kill shelter.”   Uh-Oh. I knew I was in trouble. I knew that I would end up taking one of these babies home.  Having had two wonderful cats for over 14 years and lost them, I wasn’t inclined to try and replace them and their space in my heart. But this was certainly different.  These were the tiniest kittens I had ever seen.

Apparently the mother cat had delivered her litter of kittens somewhere in the bushes next to the credit union. The employees kept watch over them and when the mother went away for more than a day, they even attempted to feed them.  But one little black and white rascal wasn’t eating. I knew that if someone didn’t take her, who would be willing to hand-feed her every couple of hours, she wouldn’t make it

Perhaps it was a conspiracy, but that Saturday morning when I woke up and went through my routine, three light bulbs had burned out.  Three? Really? Was it something I said?  No problem. I can handle that. Downstairs I went to the bin in which I invested heavily in the “old” kinds of light bulbs before they are taken off the market (My personal favorite).

I have to admit that when I read today’s comments about the state of the economy by Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, I was shocked that the article would be so truthful.  Yes, finally a news article that was based on facts rather than political agenda.

The article today actually admits that the Federal Reserve will have to “print money” in order to purchase Treasury Bonds from the U.S. as well as conceding that such an act would cause an even greater strain on the tanking value of the dollar.