A Little Side Income

Hello all,

Sitting at home watching some movies with my feet up while sipping tea at four thirty in the afternoon can be called blissful. But try doing it consistently, you'll be bored. Period. Three years ago, while I was working full time and was free of cancer, I longed to be able to do just that. Be at home and do nothing. Today, my wish was granted. I am mostly at home. I do my office work from home. Like I said earlier, it's blissful but at the same time, I started to miss having meeting people and gossiping with my office colleagues.

Missing out the fun of going out together for lunch and as an islander, we had this bonus by being idle. No rushing, traffic is most of the time easy and we can even picnic at any one of the beaches we feel like going on that day. Yeap, you read it right! We picnicked during lunch hour. Well, we may stretch that one hour to a little bit longer than usual. That's the beauty of being an islander.

So, back to me being bored. I am the kind of person who doesn't like to sit still doing nothing at most times. That what leads me to create a blog and write things that I feel I can reach out to everyone. But writing too needs ideas. Lots of interesting ideas and I sometimes are at a loss for compelling ideas. That's why I sometimes, write nothing for almost two weeks and my cooking post was left idle and unattended for almost the same length of period too.

Today, I am feeling laid back and relaxed. Oh I was busy in the morning but after lunch I am usually free. Want to know why I am busy in the morning? Remember I said I am bored doing nothing? Okay, I know, I know, I keep repeating the "bored" word every paragraph or so! Here goes, I am doing a little business from home. I cook a meal  for lunch and then placed it at a street vendor nearby my home. The street vendor  would price my lunch pack slightly higher as a commission for her services. It's a win-win situation. I don't have to waste my time selling and I don't need to rent a shop/stall to do my selling. All I need to do was cook. And the best of all is, my lunch pack were all gone by lunch time. How's that for a little entrepreneur me? Wondering what's inside the lunch pack? It's Malaysian favourite, Tomato Rice. It doesn't take much of my time. I only need to prepare some tomato-based gravy, the rice itself and a piece of chicken. Voila! It's ready. It's filling and totally affordable.
Though it sounded easy it is still relatively tiring. Now, I would call out anyone who's at home and available. My husband would help with the packing and sending. Ariff (my eldest son) would help to deep fry the chickens if he worked in the afternoon shift. And so does Soffian, if and when he's available BUT with a little wage.

 That's my packed lunch. What do you think of it? This new little business work two ways. I got to fill up my free time and I make money without too much hard labour. I have always interested in business. Years ago when my office was in Pantai Cenang ( about 20 minutes from where I live now), both my husband and I, we would quickly go home after office hours, changed into casual attire and get ready to rush for our rice noodle stall. My live-in Indonesian helper will prepare everything for us. We shoved everything inside the MPV and hurried to our stall. We will only sell one particular noodle, the rice noodle (in our language it's called Koay Teow). I will do the frying while my husband the packing. The business was good but we had to stop as the owner wanted to sell his land for a hotel building.

Another time, when my office was situated at the Aseania Resort, I have a few friends who asked me if I can teach their children some English. I said I can help to teach them speak but not writing (since I am not a qualified teacher). They agreed. So I rented a little room at one of my friend's beach motel and taught their children English. The children loved it as I taught them the fun way not the way they learn it at school. After about a year I had to stop as I can't cope with two jobs at hand.

Those were the days when both my husband and I had to work harder than hard to bring up four children. He was a hotel (front office executive) at that time and I was a reservation manager at a Japanese travel agency (that was before I started on my own). We can still live well without having the second job but we just loved the challenge and the fun of doing business. That way, the children were well cared for. They had the best childhood any children could ask for. We were not ashamed with whatever little business we did. We did the right thing and we were happy with it.

Nowadays both of us are a little worn out and tire easily, so we take things easy. The children has grown. We only need to work for a few more years for the two girls (Sophie & Sara) to finish their studies and then both of us can sit back and relax. Then, maybe I could save some money and travel to Turkey, my favourite country to visit.

So friends, I will stop for now and will write again once I find some other new and interesting topics to write.
Have a great day!

Luv,
Rose
17th.April '13