Email: Is business a man's world? [KF]

The trouble with budgets is they only work well with known income. Sales jobs mean fluctuations in income; but at least if you know where you want to go, you can track those fluctuations over the long term. (Actually, I'd like to design a system that tracks and graphs three daily variables -- billable hours worked, invoiced, and received -- against daily cumulative totals.) You might keep two parallel budgets (linked cells can let you repurpose the first budget's figures) to plan on the essentials, but migrate up to the desired, once income allows it.

Working all you can is important when you're trying to build a business or meet an income goal. When you're self-employed and all income is up to you, taking time off is not really an option. People who get a paycheck have lots of safety nets built in; many even slough off and they are paid no matter what. A self-employed person's income depends completely on being productive and putting in hours -- and it has to cover for the "downtime" (sick time, slow times, etc.) that salaried employees do not have to worry about, much less anticipate.

"Fifth appendage." That's funny. I suppose I might come up with "dongle" or "danglebot." (A dongle is a skate-key-like protrusion; a bot is programmed to do one thing, and that automatically.)