Part One: Tattooing hasn’t always paid the bills.

That may sound hard to believe since tattoos are dang expensive.  People can pay hundres and even thousands of dollars for a sleeve or back piece or body suit. But like most businesses out there, the income is not steady. This is an industry that will thrive in the summer and virtually die in the winter. People don’t think about getting tattoos when it’s cold outside. They want to get them and show them off right away in the summer. I get it. It makes perfect sense.

When we first got together, he was always busy. He’d work late a lot of nights because the waiting room was packed with clients. I remember myself having to sit in the waiting room for over six hours to get my first tattoo. Tattoos were finding a new life in the up and coming generation. Cha-ching!

I’m not going to lie, the money was nice. It provided us with a pleasurable life. Who would’ve thought that I’d be a homeowner when I was only 21 years old, have nice cars and be able to be a stay at home mom? I wouldn’t have been able to if it wasn’t for the fact that business was booming then. Then…..that’s the operative word here. Like most things in life, the influx of clients didn’t last.

Business began to decline when Sofie was about two years old. There would be days when not a single person would walk through the studio door and then only one person for the entire week. I remember it like it was last week that he only brought home $50. We decided that I would start pounding the pavement for a job.

I was able to get a great job in a doctor’s office. The hours were perfect and it was amazing to be able talk to people that didn't use a sippy cup. Don’t get me wrong, being able to be a stay at home mom was a wonderful thing, but I did go a little stir crazy. Remember that big purple and green dinosaur that sang about how much he loved you? Well, he almost lost his life a few times.

We did have to put Sofie in daycare in order for me to work, but thankfully it was only part time. He would drop her off on his way to work around 11am and I was able to pick her up a few hours later. Having the part time rates wasn't too much of a sting to our wallets.

Working at the doctor's office helped supplement our income for a while. We were able to take vacations and splurge on things we normally wouldn't have before. It was nice. We finally felt like we were going to be okay. I did continue to work even after Gia was born. I enjoyed what I was doing and having the extra cash felt like a security blanket. It wasn't long before we were hit by slow times again and that security blanket flew off.

The parade of clients we had been getting used to was once again gone. And now with two kids in daycare, it was getting to be too much. We figured out that almost my entire years’ salary was going towards daycare fees with very little to spare at the end. It felt like we were just pissing our money away. We made the decision that it would be best if I could take time off from work and stay home with the girls until they went off to school.

We did our best to stick to the budget we set ourselves and save where we could, but unfortunately, that became too difficult. We resorted to credit cards. Oh, I know……bad idea, but we didn’t feel like we had much of a choice. Well, we did have another option....I'd get a second job.

I was able to land a job at a transitional shelter for women and children. It couldn't have been more perfect. I could walk or bike to work to save on gas and the hours I had were on Augie's days off.  It didn't take long before I was able to pick up extra shifts at the shelter. The extra shifts meant more money, but also meant less time that I would see Augie because my hours were now 11pm to 7am.

I would get home from work in time to shuffle the girls off to school (they were in public school by this point) and then I would head to bed. Augie left for work while I was sleeping and I would head back out to work 10:30pm, just as he was getting home. Somewhere in the middle of all of that I took care of the girls. That time in our lives remains much of a blur. I was on autopilot and would fall asleep if I stopped moving.

The tattoo gods shinned upon us once again and the studio started to show signs of life. Again, we thought things were looking good, but we figured we would proceed with caution. We decided that I would keep working and put that money into our savings just in case the studio slowed down yet again. We kept our fingers crossed as we focused on getting back on our feet. Thank goodness we were able to save because it wasn’t long before things got even worse.

Doc, Augie’s partner for almost 20 years, had passed away unexpectedly and his family decided to shut the studio down. In a blink of an eye, he was out of a job and I was the sole breadwinner. We were terrified. My income alone wasn’t enough to make ends meet and he couldn't obtain unemployment benefits because he was self-employed. We knew the money we had saved wasn’t going to last long. We needed to figure out what we were going to do…..and fast!