How to Stretch Your Budget

As an entrepreneur, many of us are not blessed with generous family members or deep pockets. As an independent pharmacist, “bootstrapping” may involve foregoing hobbies and working weekends. In truth, that is actually not a really bad thing. When it however becomes necessary to watch how you spend every penny, there is a need to come up with a plan to stave off the inflation of lifestyle as well as ensure your money goes to where it is required the most; your business.

Explained below are some strategies you can employ as a frugal entrepreneur to help you stretch your budget.

• Persuade your friends to buy in: As an independent pharmacist, you don’t need to fret if your parents or relatives in general are not rich. There is another great way to source capital for your startup; your friends. It is likely you have friends who have chosen good career paths and they probably have extra money they are willing to invest with or put to work.

With enough self-confidence, you’ll be able to sell them your vision and if the vision has a good chance of success, it may be lead to revenue.

• Use contract labor extensively: If you are in a tight spot financially as an entrepreneur, you should consider these words, “quick to fire and slow to hire”. To be clear, that is not knocking on the people you might choose to hire; it is actually a pragmatic way of reflecting on reality.

Each new person you hire adds to the liabilities of your business: salary, equipment, benefits, and workspace.

It is true that you’ll get back some of them through higher sales and increased productivity. However, you don’t need to take on the burden in the first instance until you’re completely ready.  If there is a reasonable increase in your workload, delegate tasks to freelancers and contract workers who usually work per-project bases or on part-time and forgo benefits.

• Use a reward credit card: It is likely you’ll use a credit card to finance purchases related to your startup, you can maximize this by using a card that actually pays you back. Research on the various credit cards for young adults and determine which one best suit your business needs and lifestyle. There are a lot of them so take your time before picking the one you think is best for you.

• Farm out non-core services: There are various ways to address this particular issue. There are efficient virtual assistants so there is no reason to employ an office manager who works full time. There are applications like TurboTax and QuickBooks so why hire an accountant? Choose what you’re actually good with and then supplement with contract service providers or cloud software.

• Keep a small footprint: Another benefit you’ll reap when maintaining the hire-slow approach is lower overhead. You’ll enjoy the remote-work dividend longer if you really try to prevent from expanding your business footprint. Since a physical store is vital as an independent pharmacist, you should consider getting a co-working space. This hybrid approach will be less expensive compared to a standalone office.