$600

I spent $600 today on an advertisement for my business. Six hundred freakin dollars. I would love to have spent that money on a bunch of stuff from Fossil that I'm freaking out over... but instead I spent it on a featured ad on a wedding website.

Sigh.

This is what it's like to run a business.

I can add up my contracts for next year and say, ok, I'm going to make $50,000 next year. (That's just a number I made up.) But "me" making $50,000 and "my business" making $50,000 are totally different things. There is a surprising amount of overhead to running any business. For me, I pay a monthly lease, a monthly vendor listing on a wedding site, shipping costs, album and printing costs, office supplies, camera/new lighting equipment, second shooter payments... It's insane. Of all the money I've made off this business this year, I've spent $14,000 on getting it up and running to the point where I will be able to make money off of it in 2012.

It's just so strange to have woken up this morning and spent $600 like it was nothing. With any luck, the advertisement will make my money back in bookings, but it's still such a lot of money.