Movin' on up - or down (town).

Several considerations here. 1) I'm finding it almost impossible to do what needs to be done for this business from way out here. 2) There's no work here and I need at least a little income while I'm putting this together. And 3) I'm tired of being alone all the time. Sure, I've got a couple of friends here, and I'm at least an acquaintance of most of the people who live here. But there's something missing. I need people more my age. Preferably female :). It will be nice to be able to see Pamela and my other friend Klara at least a little more than once a month.

So the decision has been made, the wheels are in motion, my bags are almost backed and my truck is converted. I'm moving to San Diego.

I've made arrangements to put my trailer into storage here at the resort. Half of my stuff, stuff I won't need for a while, will be in the trailer. I've built a bed for the back of my truck, ran 12V power to the back for an inverter to run the computer and loaded everything I need to live for the next couple of months into a couple plastic cargo boxes. I also have most of my tools. All except the welder - it's kind of big. So I can do some handyman work here and there to make a few bucks to live on. My rent & living expenses will be reduced from ~$375/mo. to $55/mo. plus driving around gas. I don't have a stove, but I tend to eat mostly raw food anyway. I'll be able to run a small crock pot on the inverter to cook rice as long as I run the truck once in a while. I also have several wooden bowls that I made a while back that I should be able to sell at a farmers' market. That will net me several hundred dollars.

Oh, more LOA manifesting stuff: I went to the resort "dump" where there's a section of scrap lumber. I needed some lumber and plywood to build a bed. There was plenty of lumber there, but I also found a light tubular steel frame. Still good paint, no rust. Almost exactly the size I need for the bed. A trellis in a former life. 8" wider and 2" higher than I was originally planning, but otherwise perfect. Just had to cut 3" off one end and attach 2 pieces together with hinges and it slipped right in. Far less work, lighter and easier access to stuff under the bed. Perfect!

Also while I was at the dump, there was an old propane BBQ in really good shape, except for the propane part. Now, it is my firm opinion that it doesn't matter how good of a cook you are, it's not possible to make a decent meal on a propane BBQ. You need charcoal. This unit only needs a little TLC on the wood trim/tables and a coat of paint on the metal and it'll be a perfect charcoal BBQ. Exactly what I need for the business.

Are things falling together or what?!?

What I'll be doing is called "stealth camping". That's camping in a van, truck or car that looks like a normal vehicle so nobody knows you're camping. You're just parked. A van is the most comfortable, but all I have is a short box pickup with a cap, similar to the one in the picture. You use what you have.

I've done similar to this before when I was younger. Twice I lived in a truck camper for a few months each. I enjoyed it. But that was in the northern Canadian wilderness. There are hidden places to park galore. Here I'll be in a city, which will be a little more difficult not to mention not as nice (never did like cities much).

The plan is to move tomorrow, September 1st. That is, if the guy that has owed me money for the last 3 months pays me that last $80 tomorrow. I really have no doubt he will.

Doing this will allow me to not only cut down my expenses until things are rolling, but it will put me in the city where I need to be to make arrangements for the business.

I'm feeling a little apprehensive about this. But still, it feels good. I have total confidence that it'll work out. The logic is sound, and the emotions are still good.

Doing it right - and Heaven

Yesterday I had a meeting with a free business counselor at SCORE. A branch of the Small Business Administration that offers volunteer business counselors to small businesses. Mr. Haas was formerly a financial adviser, primarily for restaurants (Did I mention LOA?). After advising me that 90% of restaurant start ups fail, he proceeded to ask what I needed help in. He mentioned I'm going to need a business plan, so I pulled out the business plan outline that I already had. He said I would need startup cost, running cost and income projections, so I pulled out those sheets as well. Almost everything he asked for or suggested I need I pulled out a printout for. His face said "impressed". I was happy. Apparently I was doing pretty much everything right, he just gave me a couple pointers.

90% fail? I just brushed it off when he said this. It was his duty to give this warning. Why am I not worried? Well, for one, this isn't a restaurant. At least not in the traditional sense. Multiple trend sources I have found say that the demand for "street food", (food trucks, booths, carts) is very much on the rise. As is organic, vegetarian and vegan food. Many other trends on the rise point directly to what I'm doing with this business. I'm not worried.

Secondly, I have LOA knowledge on my side. And I can see it working over and over for the last several weeks. Everything is falling into place. I'm not worried. Not in the slightest.

Oh, and remember a couple of blog posts ago I mentioned the problem of finding things on government web sites? And I wasn't worried because the information would come when needed? Well, right at the end of the meeting we were discussing licensing, etc. and Mr. Haas pulled out a sheet of paper with several government addresses on it. He circled a few and said "for this permit you need to go here, and for this permit you need to go here...." (Did I mention LOA?).

Now for just a side note, sort of. If you'll remember the second line in my mantra was "I want love". I've been seeing a young lady occasionally for the last few months as friends. Pamela. Yes young - she's at lest 2 months younger than me ;). I saw her again late yesterday since I was in town. We went to the zoo to see an acrobat show. Now keep in mind it's been almost two years since I've seen anyone, date wise. I even rarely see anyone at all other than in passing where I live.

Anyway, while walking through the zoo, she held my arm. I was in heaven!!! I soooo much miss the loving touch of a woman's hand. Turns out she just wants to be friends, but that's ok. I can use a friend like that any time!

Utilizing LOA is more than just positive thinking. Much, much more. As one teacher put it, you don't get so much what you're thinking about, as what you're feeling about. How you are feeling, how strong your emotion is, is the amount of power you have in attracting what you want. This strong, glorious feeling I have when I am with a close friend, and when I see how things are continually falling into place for this business and the rest of my life, is not only attracting the love that I desire, but also everything else that I have been asking for.

Gawd life is great!!

The "sort of side note" part? Pamela also loves to cook and looks like she will be helping me with the business. (Did I mention LOA?)

It's a numbers game

You can't start a business without at least some planning. And you can't attract investors without a business plan. Business plans need several things, one of which is a profit and loss statement. In order to generate a profit and loss statement you need to do thorough startup & running cost analysis' and income projections. So that's what I've been working on for a while.

I've been doing extensive research into what is going to be needed to start, what will be needed on an ongoing basis, and predicting income, using a combination of what I've read and what I've observed. The startup cost is a little more than expected, but can bee whittled down if needed. But the running numbers - income projections minus running cost - look fantastic! I haven't dotted all the "i's" yet, but I think I've crossed all the "t's". So there's a little more tweaking to go yet. But what i have won't change much.

Startup Costs: $25-$30,000
This includes loan payments and an "executive" salary of $1,200 for 3 months. As well as all equipment, supplies (cups, plates, etc.), food, kitchen rent and a helper for 3 months.

Most businesses consider a startup cost amount to include 6-24 months running without income, depending on the type of business and other factors. Sometimes 36 months. I'm only including 3 months because in this type of business I should be making at least some profit right out of the gate.

Running Costs: $11,208.77/mo.
This is based on doing 3 markets/week and 180 customers/show or 1215 customers/mo. Based on what I've observed and what I've read, I feel this is a conservative estimate. It includes all food, plates, help, insurance, loan payments, everything.

Income: $26,946/mo.
This is based on the same assumptions as above and using normal food booth prices.

Bottom line: $6,842.09/mo.
Not bad for doing only three 4 hour shows/week. Of course there is at least that much time or more spent in the kitchen and show setup & break down as well as administrative time, but still, not bad.

Are things coming together or what!!

Dinner for 12... or 20

My next research project was to get potential customer feedback on some things that I'm planning on serving at my booth. A focus group if you will. While I was in town last Sunday attending the farmers' market, I went to my usual grocery store, the OB Peoples Organic Food Store. I needed groceries anyway, but this time I picked up enough to feed 12. I picked up 3 packages of 4 Tofurkey sausages, some whole wheat hot dog buns and what I thought should be enough vegetables to feed 12. I've never "cooked" for a group before. That type of planning was always my wife's department. Sure, I did much if not most of the cooking when we had guests, but she did all the planning. I just did what I was told :-).

The plan was to invite several people and take reservations for up to 12. I was going to charge $12/plate to cover costs and make a couple extra bucks. When I got back to the resort, with both my indoor and outdoor friges stuffed full, I told the resort owner what I was doing. I wanted to make sure there were no waves. She told me I couldn't charge because I didn't yet have a license. Oh well. So much for good planning. I had the dinner party anyway, I just didn't charge anybody.

The new plan was to invite people until we got 12 yeses. As it turned out, the 12 yeses came, as well as 12 of the people that didn't say yes. We had about 24 people. Needless to say not everybody got a whole hotdog.

I held the dinner at my friend Ardath's place, since she has a nicer yard than I do.

I asked everybody at the dinner to evaluate all of the dishes presented. I printed out a "score card" sheet for everyone to fill out, rating each dish from 1 to 9. It was a smashing success. Everyone encouraged me to Go For It!

Now, about that shopping and making dinner for 12 thing. Used up all the sausages, but it looks like I'll be eating leftovers for about two weeks!

One more thing. I'm still on pretty good terms with my Eileen. I still call her my wife. We chat on Skype at least a couple times a week. I was telling her what I was doing and asked her for a name suggestion. She asked if the menu was all raw and I said mostly raw with some cooked. So she said "Nearly Naked". Meaning mostly raw with some cooked. Of course, her knowing that I'm a nudist doing this in a textile world could have something to do with her suggestion. Anyway, now you know you can credit Eileen for the great name.

Research, research and more research

I decided I needed to do some first hand research. I was learning loads of stuff from the web, but reading and seeing first hand are two different animals. I needed to go into town to buy groceries anyway, so I decided to go on Sunday - the day of the Hillcrest Farmers' Market.

My mission was to observe, take notes and learn as much as possible.

One of the things I learned from reading on the web was the ridiculously long detailed list of government regulations that were required in order to prepare and sell food. In order to comply with this list I was looking at probably a $50-$60,000 investment. Remember the part about me being on food stamps? Believing what I had read to be correct, I wasn't really going there to take notes on this part. But it ended up being the subject of one of the most profound things I learned from the trip.

I planned on taking 2 surveys. The first was to ask people a short list of questions about eating and buying habits regarding vegetarian and vegan prepared food at farmers' markets. I made a survey sheet and printed myself a bunch of copies. When I got to the market and started asking people to participate, I didn't get much cooperation. In fact, none. It didn't 'feel' right either. So I stopped.

The second survey I planned didn't involve talking to anyone. The plan was to go around the market, make a list of several food booths and take notes as to how many customers each one had at regular intervals. I did my rounds every 15 min. Anyway, the short version of this story is, the majority of the booths had at least 1-2 people buying on every round. Usually more, about 3-5 on average. This means that most booths were busy the majority of the day and served as many people as they were capable of. Be it one customer per minute or one customer every two minutes, depending on what was served and how fast they could serve. But there was only one vegan booth serving meal type items. The good news here is they were above average in regards to customer traffic. The food I will be serving, in my opinion anyway, is more appealing than what they were serving.

And talk about the Law Of Attraction In Action... My intent was to go to the Hillcrest market, the biggest farmers' market in town, and learn. But it just so happened that the same day there was a street fare going on in down town Hillcrest. It was huge! Covered several city blocks. And the best part for me was there were probably 4-5 times the number of food venders as at the farmers' market. More data!!

Now back to the "big surprise" regarding the ridiculously long list of government regs. I did read someplace that SD was somewhat more lax on the regs than most counties, but I didn't expect this. NONE of the booths had even a fraction of the regs covered. Sure, the ones that any reasonable person would expect: clean work area, covered food, simple hand washing station, etc. But that's all. This can be done for almost a tenth of the cost of what I was expecting.

Things just keep falling into place, one after the other.

Government regs. You expected different?

I kind of expected this part. To sell craft work like wooden toys at any location, including a farmers' market, you need a reseller's permit. Basically a business license. After all, the government wants their nickle on whatever you're selling. But to sell prepared food it gets complicated. Besides the reseller's permit you need 3 other licenses/permits as well.

No big deal, right? You ever tried to navigate a government web site? They're very good at telling you what you need (sometimes), but tell you how to get what you need? I don't know but, as a web programmer accustomed to making web sites as user friendly as possible, I'm convinced there must be some kind of law that says that government web programmers have to be morons.

But hey! No worries! I have LOA on my side, right? Better yet, I have knowledge of LOA on my side. The information will come when it's needed. Stay tuned...

It keeps getting better

I'm an artist. Sculptor. I work in stone, metal wood and other materials. I have also been a handyman/contractor, web programmer and many other things. Before I started my mantra, I was looking for a job in San Diego (SD), about one and a half hours from where I live near Jacumba, CA. Given my employment experience I figured I'd have no trouble finding a job. One job that stood out for me was working with a wooden toy manufacturer. He never replied, so I didn't get the job, but when this LOA thing started kicking in it was still in the back of my mind.

Also in my mind was my history of doing many other art/crafts and selling at craft shows. Then I started thinking, "Why should I work for somebody else? I've been self employed for almost 20 years. I've done this kind of woodwork. I've done craft shows. There are farmers' markets galore in SD that accept artisans and crafters.  I have many of the tools needed and those that I don't have, I know people here who do." I thought, "I likely wouldn't get rich doing this, but at least it would allow me to get an apartment in town, give me a little pocket money and then be able to do some dating (second line of my mantra). It should be noted here that in the "resort" where I live, other than a couple of couples in their 30's, I'm probably one of the youngest people here. And I'm 52!

I started researching wooden toy designs. Looking for things that I'd like to make, with my own artistic twist, of course. I also have a simple game that I invented about 25 years ago that can be made out of wood. Things were going quite well. Finding a lot of information. Getting excited. It all felt pretty good, but just not quite "right".

In the mean time, after about a week or more of my mantra, I started believing that these things could come true. Yes, I believed it before, but there's believing something and really believing it. A knowing I guess. So I changed my mantra from "I want..." to "I have...". And it felt GOOD. Then things really started rolling. Things just started falling into place.

The wooden toy business didn't feel quite "right", but then I remembered something a couple friends said.

I live quite a ways out of town. An hour and a half if you're saving gas. I rarely see anybody, but sometimes I have some friends come visit from SD. I always serve lunch. And dinner and breakfast if they stay over. I always get similar comments, but the last time, a few weeks ago, two of my lady friends both said "you should sell this stuff". I thanked them for the compliment but didn't think much of it. I've had friends in the restaurant business and I wanted nothing to do with it.

Also, I cooked for my wife for about 12 years. Everything was an experiment and sometimes we'd end up ordering pizza. Most of the time it was pretty good. But once in a while she'd come out with a comment like, "If I ever die, and you're on a date, serve this - you'll get laid!" Now if I could only remember what those dishes were ;).

But now the craft show/farmers' market thing was in my head. I've seen prepared food booths at these shows all the time.

So I started, just for the hell of it, to research the idea. The more I researched, the more I liked it. The more I looked, the more information just fell into my lap. Things just started falling into place. And it all felt sooooo gooood!

The food that I make is primarily vegan, except for mayo, yogurt & sour cream in some dressings. So I guess more vegetarian. And primarily raw. Even dedicated omnivores love it!

I decided to go for it. The Rustic Elements Food Cart was born (Rustic Elements is the name I use for my art/craft work).

In the beginning...

As much as I do my best to be open minded and teachable, I'm a little thick headed at times. I've known about the Law Of Attraction for probably 5 or 6 years now. I've been intensely studying it for the last year and a half or more. I've listened to multiple CD's (Your Wish is Your Command, Teachings of Abraham), I've read several books (Teachings of Abraham, The Magic of Thinking Big, PsycoCybernetics 2000), but things just kept getting worse. I just couldn't get my head focused in the right direction.

For the last year and a half I've lived in a 20+ year old, 23 foot travel trailer in a "resort" (read: trailer park) in the middle of the high desert in southern CA. Work has been sparse. Food stamps keep me fed but I've been having to rake weeds for the resort in exchange for rent - no pay. I tried a couple of business deals that ended up being with unreliable, nightmare partners. The list goes on, but I'll stop there. As much as I believed in LOA, I guess I just didn't believe in my ability to use it.

Then one day a couple of weeks ago I was reading one of my Abraham books. For about the 6th time or so. Something clicked. Not sure what I read, don't think it was directly related to what I started doing, but something changed. I think it was around the time I was reading in their book 'Law Of Attraction', near the end, under the heading "How Is It Possible to 'Have It All in 60 Days'". But something clicked and it's been a glorious ride ever since.

I put together a short list of wants, wrote them out as "I want..." affirmations and said them to myself as a mantra while I was working. Easy to do when raking weeds - it's a pretty mindless job. The first day I said it to myself over and over for about 4 hours. The whole amount of time I work each day. I started feeling reasonably good almost right away. I continued this for almost a week. By the end of the week I let my mind wonder a bit, but only in the direction of things that I wanted. After a while I got to the point that any time my mind would wonder onto anything negative - I mean ANYTHING even slightly negative - I would go back into my mantra until the negative thought went away.

At this point, I feel REALLY good. Not much happening yet, but I feel great. Here's my mantra:

I want steady substantial income.
I want love.
I want strong, clear positive emotion.
I want clarity and focus.
I want peace, joy and happiness.

Then some ideas started popping into my head. Not strong at first, but flowing forward non the less.