Michelle Chesser: You Are Not Walmart

Michelle, I'm so excited to talk with you today. I think every time we talk, you're just so natural and down to earth and fun and humorous. I'm really excited for our conversation and getting to know you better. So thank you. Welcome to Proofed.

Thank you for having me, Raina. I am so happy to be here.

I feel like we're just two friends chatting about life.

Exactly. Two baker friends chatting about life.

Yes, I love it. Well, welcome. I am so excited. I love following you on Instagram. You are one of the most down-to-earth people. You're so real in everything that you share. You honestly tell all the parts that we're all thinking secretly inside and are too afraid to say out loud sometimes. I love that, and I think that just makes you so incredibly relatable to so many people.

Anyone who's listening to this interview, I'm going to say, go follow Michelle. It's Home Sweet Home Baker on Instagram. It's just so much fun. All of your reels are a delight to watch. Your story is so incredibly inspiring to me because you're so real about it and you share all the hard parts.

I'd love for you to share with our listeners. Take us back to 17 years ago, just starting out as a baker. What made you make that decision? What did it look like?

So 17 years ago, we lived in a little mobile home trailer. It was two bedrooms on our property, with four children. They all shared. Two girls, two boys. Two boys shared a bed, two girls shared a bed. We literally were like the Clampetts. We had planned to live there for two years while maybe we built a house on our property. But then the economy crashed, and we wound up being there for 10 years.

In that trailer, I wanted to make some income for the family, just to have some fun money, and I wanted to teach my children a good work ethic. So we had started gardening and selling vegetables. Then I decided to sign up for the local farmers market and sell cupcakes. This was during the cupcake craze of the early 2000s, from the Magnolia Bakery and all that. Cupcakes were huge. So we went to market and sold cupcakes. We made $75, and I thought I was rich. I was like, this could be something. We sold our cupcakes in those styrofoam containers that you get takeout in. There wasn't packaging back then. And it was cake mix. It was box mix.

That's amazing.

And buttercream. They were really good. We could only do that for the first couple of months of the spring because it got too hot, and then we would just not do market. Eventually we started selling more vegetables. Then I brought cinnamon rolls to the market one day, and they sold out like crazy. They just sold like crazy.

I thought, okay, maybe there's something here. After that, the vegetables kind of went by the wayside, and baked goods just started. We were selling more and more of those. The kids were getting older. It was easier. So we started making a little bit of money. I was able to buy groceries. We did not have a lot of money. And when I say we didn't have a lot of money, I don't mean we couldn't afford Netflix. It wasn't like, oh, I can't have the latest outfits. It was that we couldn't pay our bills. That kind of thing. So I was able to have some grocery money.

We did a big event one year, and I was able to buy the kids coveralls for winter. That's how we started. That is how we started going to the farmers market, out of our little trailer with three feet of counter space.

Wow. It's just so incredible, because I think so many people are too afraid to start because they don't have perfect conditions. They'll say, oh, I'd really love to do that. And look at where you are. Your story is so inspiring because you took what you had, and you changed the course of your family's life with your baking, which is just incredible.

I took orders, and if they wanted to pick up, I wouldn't let them come to my house. I'd say, I'll meet you in town, because if you saw our trailer, it was not pretty. It was clean. We were clean. But it looked like a rundown trailer. So I never let anyone come to my house and pick up from where I was. I look back at that and I'm like, Michelle, you're so silly. But that was something I didn't want people to do.

I think that's so incredibly inspiring, what you did with what you had, and you created something so incredible to get where you are today. You've been baking for 17 years. If I understand this correctly, the money from your bakery basically paid for the house you're in now, and your family built it by hand. Right?

So my husband, when he decided college wasn't for him, he left college and came up here to Southeast Missouri to build houses with his uncle. So he learned how to build houses. He knew how to build a house from the very start. He had gotten a little bit of a pay raise at his job, and the bakery money was coming in much more. With that combined, we went to the bank and got a construction loan. We already had our property. Over the course of a year, it took us a year, he and the kids and family and friends built this house.

Like he said, the Lord had his hand in this, because if we had built this house when we first moved out here, in the first two years, the kids were too young to help. But when he built the house they were 13, 14, and 15, and they were all able to do pretty much anything he could do, and he was able to teach them. The girls hung drywall when he was at work one day.

That's incredible.

He had taught them how. He said it was all in the Lord's timing. So now we have the house and the commercial kitchen, which was not in the plans when we built the house.

You have this amazing commercial kitchen too, and I want to get into that later as well, because you get to see it in the reels. It's every baker's dream. The fact that it's part of your house, that you get to just move one room over and have your commercial bakery right there, is incredible. I love that you share all the nitty gritty parts of your story, because for me too, my origin story as a baker isn't the most beautiful. It formed out of chaos and 3 a.m. baking sessions and all my appliances breaking down.

The fact that you share those raw, real moments is really inspiring, because I think we can feel so alone. You're like, am I the only one experiencing this, where everything's falling apart and I'm still getting up at 3 a.m. and I really don't want to? I'm just exhausted. I just want to sleep. But I know I have to, and I'm doing it for my family. My husband lost his job when we moved over here, and so my baking was it. It was like, well, I guess I have to make this work no matter what, because otherwise we might be homeless. That real, visceral idea that you might lose everything. You don't have enough money to buy anything. I get that. I just want to thank you for being so real and open and sharing that with all of us, because it is so incredibly inspiring, and it shows that something you might take for granted, something small like baking, can be life-changing.

Yeah. And it doesn't matter. I had no plans to ever be making thousands and thousands of dollars. Making that $75 at the first market, that was life-changing. At one of my markets the goal was $200. That was the goal, $200, and I thought that was awesome. We sold out, we made $200. It was great. That $200 a week for a stay-at-home mom homeschooling her children is a lot of money. So I always feel like these bakers that feel like they're not doing anything, or they're making "just" this, I'm like, no. Do you understand how far $200 can go? You can order pizza, you can buy a pair of shoes, you can take your family to the movie. It's either fun money or you can save up for a vacation.

I love it. I think one of my favorite stories that you share is taking the money from selling at the weekend and using it to buy your family pizza that night. You're like, this is our pizza money. It sounds so simple, but it is so life-saving when you've been in those moments where it's difficult to buy groceries, or you're struggling on one income with lots of small children and homeschooling and all those things. That is life-changing, to be able to say, you know what, I don't have to cook tonight, because I did this baking and I can buy a pizza for my family. And you give people permission to not compare themselves to everyone. This can be life-changing, and it doesn't have to be thousands and thousands of dollars. You can do this and be present with your family. I love that.

It wasn't pizza every Friday. We couldn't have afforded pizza every Friday night. But here in the Midwest there's a place called Casey's. It's a gas station, and they have the best pizza. The best pizza. And it's not cheap. Little Caesars is cheap. This is not. To be able to buy that maybe once every couple months with our fun money, we were living large. It was just such a treat. I think when you grow up that way, and your kids are raised getting little treats here and there and not just overindulged, they learn to appreciate stuff. That was another thing that I was very thankful for. I did not want my children to have a soft life of entitlement. I'm so glad the Lord gave us the lifestyle that we had, because we couldn't have afforded things, and I feel like it made us all appreciate what we had. I'm glad for that. If I would have had money, who knows how my kids might have turned out.

I'm sure still wonderful. So tell me a little bit more about your commercial kitchen. I know you built out this full commercial kitchen in your home, and you also ran wholesale. Was it for eight years? And you talk about doing 150 pans of cinnamon rolls a week with one oven.

When we built our house, we went through all these house plans and I found what I liked. In between the house and the garage was a screened-in porch. I thought that was so cool. Well, my husband said a screened-in porch is kind of a waste of a really large space. It's nice, but he said, will we use it? He said, I'm going to go ahead and stud that room up. After we moved into our house, I had a businessman approach me. He wanted to open a coffee shop in our small town. They weren't on every corner back then.

I said, are you crazy? No way. And he came after me for a year. He would text me every now and then: hey, just to let you know, I still want to open this. I'm not going to open it unless you bake for us. He eventually talked me into it, and that room that we had, we were able to convert into a commercial kitchen.

Wow.

It only cost us $2,000, because we already had the room. We just had to put down laminate flooring. We already had an oven from our trailer. We had a three-basin sink, and I got a hundred dollars from a friend. The cabinets we got from a warehouse for a couple hundred dollars, and then we got paneling. We're out of the city limits, so we didn't need a hood over our oven, and we don't need a bathroom in there because we're inspected by the county, not the state. So for $2,000 we were able to make the commercial kitchen.

Incredible.

And I had to have that in order to bake for the coffee shop. In order for me to sell for resale, in the state of Missouri, I have to have a commercial kitchen. Now, is there any difference between that kitchen and my kitchen here? Nothing. I call it my magic door. It's literally a magic door. I cannot use cream cheese in here to sell, but I can use it out there. It's like magic. It's just funny. But I baked for that coffee shop, and that's the first time in my life I ever got heart palpitations, before it opened. I was like, oh my goodness, I'm going to have a heart attack, because I was so nervous. I baked for them for eight years.

It's incredible.

It was a wild ride. It consumed me. It was all I was doing with my life, and I didn't know how to get out of it. Eventually we stopped. We don't bake for them anymore. We ended on good terms, we're the best of friends. That was a fun time, but a lot of learning.

Is there anything specific you want to share about that time frame, what you learned from it?

I have such an entrepreneurial spirit. I've just always wanted to have a business, and I had one, and it was so successful. So successful. I had made it. And so I couldn't see that it was consuming me. I couldn't see it, Raina, because I thought, I've made it. Then my husband kind of had to slap me in the face, not literally, but there was something that happened, and I realized that I was putting everybody and everything second except my big baking business.

So I prayed. I was like, Lord, I don't know how to get out of this. I don't know how to stop. I can't just stop the coffee shop. I can't just stop the market. Our income depends on it. So I prayed for a year. One day I was at the coffee shop talking with the owner, and he goes, this can't be profitable for you. Do you want out? I was like, wow. Lord. And I'm trying to keep my composure, and I said, yeah. So it was about six months. Then we had something happen in our family, and it made it stop even sooner. But I only baked cinnamon rolls and pumpkin rolls for the coffee shop for the next two years. Those were something I could do, no problem. My daughter helped me. She had already gotten married, and she was wanting a part-time job. She baked the cinnamon rolls, and we did all that together. Then eventually I got out completely.

That was a wild ride. And I think almost every baker goes through it. You can't even coach people not to. It's like, I'm telling you, this is what's going to happen. This is what's going to happen. And they don't even know it's happening until it's too late, and they're like, oh, I'm in too deep. I'm in too deep.

So was it really your husband talking to you that helped you understand that it had gone too far and become all-consuming?

Yeah. My husband went away for the weekend. He went out to the woods, and later, when I found out, he said, I didn't go away because I wanted to hunt. I had to get away from this. I had to get away from this, because it was everywhere. And when he left, I was like, oh, good. Now I can work on cookies all weekend. Oh good, I can work on Christmas cookies. Isn't that horrible? It's awful. I just remember being punched in the stomach, and that made me finally realize what had happened. Then it's a healing process. But things can be better now. Things are.

I feel like I identify so much with you in the early years. I haven't been doing this nearly as long as you have, but when I first started my business, it became all-consuming. It happened. I ended up closing. I restarted under the circumstance of my husband losing his job and trying to make money for our family. When you're in those circumstances, where your kids depend on that money and your family depends on that money, it becomes so difficult, because you're not doing it out of selfishness. It's almost like survival mode takes over, where you're like, I have to do this. Then it can spiral out of control, where you start to see the effects on yourself too. I don't know if you noticed this as well, but physical effects, bodily effects, like being in an emergency room for crazy things, because you go too far. Did you feel it in your body as well?

I only had my heart. That was the only thing. My heart would start pounding out of my chest, and I had never had that in my life before. It was like, why is this doing it? It was almost like my warning sign to stop. I have a lot of energy. The Lord has given me a lot of energy. I have the exhaustion at Christmas, of course, at the holidays, but it was never a physical thing. It was only the mental stress for me, and it was a lot of mental stress. When my mom would come to visit, she lives in Jackson, Tennessee, when my mom would just come for the day, I couldn't even talk to her. I'd be like, Mom, come out in the bakery, and you can talk to me while you're here. Or she'd say, hey, we're going to have lunch here while we're here. And I'm like, Mom, I can't. People couldn't stop by. I couldn't do anything extra. I was always, always working.

Wow. Yeah. So hard. That's hard, but you're so good now. That's so wonderful.

I look back on it and I'm like, okay, Lord, thank you for letting me go through that, because now I'm out on the other end, and now I can help other ladies see, okay, is it worth it? And when I say I needed that income, I totally could have slowed down. It had gotten to where, oh, this is what I need to have. This is what I have now. In my mind, I built this business. I'm not going to slow down.

I know your faith plays such an important role in everything you do. You talk about the idea of contentment a lot. Those themes come up a lot. I would just love to hear more about that, the role that faith plays in everything that you do, and this idea of contentment. You talk about this a lot, like having the money to buy pizza for your family and being content with those things. What role does that play for you now?

When we lived in the trailer, I was not content. I couldn't see a way out, and this trailer was not going to last forever. It was literally falling down around our ears. I remember thinking, I'm going to have to have a rich uncle die in order for us to afford to get out of here. Well, I don't have a rich uncle. But I couldn't see another way of it happening, or win the lottery, which we don't play.

I remember praying about it, and I remember the Lord telling me, and it's not like I heard a voice, but I do believe the Lord told me: you're not getting out of here until you're content. So I wrote this verse on an index card and put it on my bathroom mirror. It says, I have learned to be content in all things. And I'm going to butcher it: as long as I have food and raiment, I will be content. I put that on my mirror, and I learned to be content where I was. I learned to be content with that trailer. And I learned to be joyful with that trailer. It wasn't very long after that that the bakery business had grown, and Andy had gotten a raise at work, to where we could see a light at the end of the tunnel, and we were able to get out.

My daughter Beth, she goes, why do we need a new house? One time I walked in the kids' room and the floor sunk. The whole floor was rotted, and the only thing keeping us from falling through was the carpet, stuck on the sides. It was like, all right, we're going to have to fix this, because we're going to have to live here another couple years. And she's like, why do we need another house? Then once we had that, she was like, oh, okay.

The Lord could take it. I also have learned not to trust, and this is hard. Trusting in your business, trusting in money, trusting in things, is worldly. That's earthly. The Lord can take it all away tomorrow. I can lose my health tomorrow. I can lose my income tomorrow. My husband, you never know what accident's going to happen. Everything can be taken away from me tomorrow. So where's my trust? Is my trust in my bank account? Is my trust in this gorgeous house that we have? Is my trust in the fact that my husband is going to take care of me? You never know. So I trust in the Lord, and I hope that I will always have that faith.

Absolutely. I think that's just so beautiful, because that's still something I'm learning as well. I think we're always in the process of learning something throughout our entire lives. That's why we're still here. But it's definitely a lesson God's been teaching me since the beginning of my baking business. It's how quickly everything can vanish, any idea of safety or security. I hear a lot of business owners and entrepreneurs give advice, and I get where they're coming from. Don't quit your day job before you start the business. Make sure that you're safe. That all makes sense. But for me, I've learned that you can do everything and make all these wise financial decisions before starting, and it can all crumble out from beneath your feet. Learning to trust that still small voice of God speaking into our hearts is actually the most important thing, because it could be completely counter to what wisdom would tell you, or what the world would tell you is a wise choice to make. Starting before you're ready. All those things. I just feel like it's so important.

I have a prayer journal. I know that sounds cliche, but I have a prayer journal.

It does not.

I write in there, I don't know what to do with my business. Lord, I don't know what to do with my business. And the answers that the Lord gives me are always clear. When I'm praying, I don't know what to do with my business, I may not know what to do with my business for another six months. So I just keep going with what I'm doing. Then I may get an answer in six months, an opportunity, and I'm like, okay, thank you for that opportunity. Or I may get something where I need to pull away from this. I have these things that happen to me all the time. The Lord's answers are always clear. Always. So I don't think, does the Lord want me to do this? Should I do this? What should I do? I just feel like, well, this is what I'm doing, because I see this is what he's handed me. It's just always clear. Sometimes I have to wait, like when I prayed and it took a whole year. And then there are times I've ignored the Lord. Those are not good times.

Same. I find out really fast. It's like, you're on the wrong path. I'm going to make everything fall apart and get you on the right one. Thank you for sharing that and being so real and honest about your faith, and sharing that with everyone as well.

You've talked a lot about struggles that you've had, but you have 17 years of experience as a baker and running a business. Something I so admire about you is your grit and your resilience, because you have faced so many obstacles. You face obstacles on your way to markets and you still make it to these markets. Things that would make most bakers go, I'm out. I'm kind of done. I'm ready to fold this. And there's something inside of you, like otherworldly grit. I would love for you to share one or two of those stories, and where you feel like that grit comes from.

Well, Raina, one time on the way to market, I said, I quit. I'm quitting. I'm not doing this anymore. It was a market day. It was a Thursday. The power went out. I had cinnamon rolls in the oven. A thunderstorm, a tree fell over the driveway. It was like a hundred degrees. I was just like, I quit. I'm not doing this again. I went to the manager afterwards and I said, I'm not coming back to market. I just can't. I did make it to the market. We got the tree off. I didn't get a shower. I was so gross.

In spite of all this, all of this that happened in one day, you still made it to the market.

I still made it to the market. And then I came back, because it was a rash decision. But that was old Michelle. Old Michelle panics. Old Michelle has mental breakdowns. Old Michelle freaks out. Now, when I was going to market this spring, my van wouldn't start where I got ice, on my way to market. We couldn't figure it out. I was like, okay, all right. Here we are. What are we going to do? Am I going to panic? Am I going to freak out? No. Let's just call the cavalry. So I texted my husband. He said, on my way. All these people started showing up. It was like, what is going on? What fit in my van took three vehicles to the market.

But we got it there. Everyone at the market jumped in to help. It was the best. It was so great. Okay, if I don't show up, I don't show up. It was $2,000 worth of stuff. But I would have just been like, okay, all right, we're going to figure it out. So that was fun.

That's just an incredible story. I love how your community supported you, your family, your community, and helped you in that moment.

It was wonderful. It was great.

It ended up being this nightmarish thing that any one of us would think, how would I even handle that situation? And it turned into something that was actually beautiful and inspiring.

It's one of my favorite memories because of the way, when I pulled up to market, I wasn't even in my van, I was in my husband's truck, and bungee cords were flying everywhere, people were grabbing tables and putting up canopies. It was the best. It was like, these are my people, because I've been doing markets with them for over a decade, and we all know it's my turn to get help. It's my turn. It was so fun. It was just great. But it was stressful, I'm not going to lie. I wasn't like, oh, the van won't start, how can we figure this out, let me text my people and we'll have no problem. It was stressful. But we made it there in mostly one piece.

You did incredible. Thank you for sharing those stories. I also want to talk a little bit more, because not only do you still have your bakery in your commercial kitchen, you've spent all these years learning an immense amount of wisdom from your experience, and now you're giving back to the baking community with the Baker's Library. I would love for you to tell the audience a little bit more about the Baker's Library, what it is, and how this is part of how you're giving back and sharing your wisdom with everyone.

A few years ago, I was like, I really want to help other home bakers navigate their way through this crazy business. There were a whole bunch of different things that happened, and then once my Instagram page had gotten pretty big, I was like, if I did this, I could do a membership, and every month coach home bakers that join. I do a lot of advice on my Instagram page and Facebook and all those things and share tons of stuff, but the Baker's Library, we meet once a month now, and we're going to start meeting twice a month in September. We just talk. We say, hey, I'm struggling with this, or here's my win, or can someone help me with this, is anyone in Minnesota that knows how to navigate this? I always say, newsflash, I don't know everything. So we work through these things. My friend Kylie, one of the members, calls it bakers helping bakers. I love it, because I don't know what to do about something in California that maybe Kristen can help with, or what someone has done when they're making their sourdough bread, because I don't know sourdough.

But it's a great tool, and we feel not alone, because you wouldn't believe the amount of people in there that are like, I'm struggling with the same thing. I didn't know other people had this. Then we have guest speakers that come in. I've done this for 17 years and I am on the edge of my seat every time one of these ladies or men speak, because everybody runs their business so differently, and everybody has a different family dynamic, a different life dynamic, where they've come from, where they're going. They have small bakeries, they have huge bakeries, and it's so fascinating to hear all the different ways they run their bakery. You get so many inspiring stories, or, oh, I want to try that. It's just so great. So that's what the Baker's Library is.

That's amazing. How can people join, and how much is it, and all that information too?

It's super inexpensive. It's $25 a quarter.

Wow.

You can just go to homesweethomebaker.com. But by the time this airs, the price is going up. After this weekend it'll be $27 a month. It's two live sessions every month. We're even doing a hot seat audit: let's look at your social media, let's look and see how we can make it better. Seasonal planning sessions. And then inside the library is guides and videos and all of our live sessions recorded, that you can go back and watch. Dozens and dozens.

That's incredible. That's awesome. What a wonderful resource. What's the website where they can follow you and find it?

Homesweethomebaker.com.

Awesome. That's so cool. Such an amazing resource, because home bakers are trying to figure it all out themselves, and you feel like you're reinventing the wheel. To have a resource like that for other home bakers, I just think is so incredible. It honestly speaks to your generosity as well, the way that you're giving back from your wealth of knowledge and 17 years of baking. I love the way that you've built that community.

Pricing is not my strength. It's not my strength. So let me pull in someone whose strength is pricing, and let her talk to you about the best way to price, how to do the math, and all those fun things. I'm good at things, but I'm not good at everything. I'm not the best at anything. So let me just pull people in that can teach you. I've really enjoyed doing that. I can't think of a guest speaker I've had that I have not just loved and learned something from. It's been really great.

That's amazing. Thank you for sharing that. One of my favorite things that you also talk about is the permission that you give other bakers to not compare themselves. One of my favorite lines of yours is, you are not Walmart. I love that. Can you tell us a little bit more about what you mean when you're telling bakers that they're not Walmart?

Going to markets over the years, you learn that there's a lot of older people there. Older people, it's just who they are, they expect prices to be like Walmart. You can get a dozen cookies for $2. So I've heard the comments. I've heard, why are your cookies $2 each? I can get a dozen of those for $2 at Walmart.

So I try to reiterate: you are not Walmart. You are not a factory. You're making things by hand in one oven, and you're not just using machinery to make your stuff. You actually have to sleep. You actually have family. The robots at Walmart don't. And you actually put stickers on your stuff, not a machine. So don't price your stuff like Walmart. Don't look at your stuff like it's from Walmart. And we're picking on Walmart, but it's any box store. Don't price your stuff like Walmart. Don't look at your stuff like Walmart. Don't sell it or market it like it's Walmart. It is not. It is way above. And I buy stuff from Walmart. There are things that I buy from Walmart.

Whenever I go to Jackson, Tennessee, do you know where I stop? Starbucks. It's the only time I go to Starbucks. I get an $8 latte and I love it. $8 for a cup of coffee, I will gladly pay it. You know what I won't pay for? A manicure. I don't care. I've never manicured my fingers. But there are people who pay a lot of money for that. I don't know how much, but it's a lot. People will pay for what they're willing to spend money on. And a lot of people are willing to spend money on homemade baked goods.

Absolutely. And it's an art form, really. You're taking that time, making it by hand. It's an art form. That's awesome.

Okay. If you were to visit yourself 17 years ago in that trailer, just starting out, baking on three feet of counter space, what would you tell your past self, Michelle at that stage?

That is deep. Okay. I would say, set some boundaries. Say no. I honestly did not say no. I think the first five years of business I literally did not say no. Say no. Not everyone's going to love you. Put your family before the business, one hundred percent. Take days off. I didn't have to bake every week. I could go every other week. I think that's the basic part for me.

I honestly feel like that's so incredibly wise, Michelle, because everything that you just said are things that I would tell my first self baking as well, and it's still something I'm learning. I hope everyone's taking notes, because while you're saying it, maybe they'll think of it as this hugely wise thing, but those things are so incredibly wise that they're hidden in camouflage as something simple. No, take notes, because those bits of advice are such gold.

I always was so afraid I would ruin someone's life if I didn't bake for them. Why in the world did I think it was so important for this two-year-old to have these strawberry shortcake cookies? Then I had to spend four days making them, but yet my family, I couldn't do something for. Why in the world would I have thought that? It's ridiculous. I'm so over it now. The times I have said no: no, no, I don't care about your one-year-old's birthday. I'm like, no. That was harsh. But it doesn't bother me.

What you're saying isn't necessarily, I don't care about your one-year-old. It's that if it doesn't fit with what you have the capacity for, then it's a no. You can do that in a gracious way, and there's another baker out there for them. That's the great thing. There's someone else who needs that sale, wants that sale, has the capacity for that sale. You don't have to say yes to everything to make money and do well. Actually, you'll find out you make more, and can have more peace of mind and freedom, when you can fully embrace the no's. It pains me to think about doing a character cookie, or honestly any decorated sugar cookie. I used to do those, but that pains me so much. You cannot pay me enough to do those, because they're so time-consuming.

And I love them. Okay, so I'm going to make two points. You triggered me on two things.

Oh no!

My husband, and he is not a business person, he is the opposite of me. One Thanksgiving, I was just so stressed. He said, you are not charging enough. And I'm like, what do you know? You don't know. He's like, Michelle, you need to charge more, because you are selling out so fast. You have people pre-ordering like crazy. Charge more. He said, you're not going to get as many orders, but you're going to work less for more money. That's business 101, right? I didn't know it. Andy, my husband, told me that, and I was like, whoa. So I did that, and it was for pies. I priced them at $25 each, which was unheard of 10 years ago. And I sold all the ones I decided to sell. So I made more money and made fewer pies.

Yes.

Another thing I thought of: I'm in a season right now where I'm pretty much an empty nester. We have Drew, but he's pretty easy. But I am starting to take on a little bit more baking, because I haven't done decorated cookies in so long, and I have some more time now. I'm going to take one order a week of decorated cookies, because I love them. I love making them. I don't love making 25 dozen a week, but I could do two to three dozen a week. I'm excited for that. But next year, it might be completely different. So your bakery doesn't have to look the same every year.

I love that. I love that. You're giving so many people permission, because I think there's this unspoken thing of, you have to accept every order that you get, or I have to price my bakes lower than Susie down the street, or I have to price them at the same amount. No, you don't. You actually don't. Figure out what you want to make. That's time away from your family, right? When you realize, I'm a stay-at-home mom, I need to make money for my family, it needs to be worth it. I don't need to be making $2 an hour to miss out on so much. That took me a while. It took me almost two years to figure that out, because when I first started, I was just like you said. I said yes to everything. I made everything. Get a last-minute order, I need a cake tonight, I'm baking it and icing it and delivering it to them. That was time I was sacrificing from being with my twins when they were one year old, to try to make income for my family. And at the end of the day, I personally wasn't making any money. By the time I bought my supplies and all the cookie cutters for the various sets I would take on, I wasn't making anything. So you might think you have to say yes, but you don't. You can actually make more doing less, and value your time a little bit more, and give yourself that peace of mind. I love that you're giving people the permission to say, this week can look different from next week, this month can look different from next month, because everyone's lives change.

Your children don't stay young forever. When all our kids were teenagers, we had delivery drivers. We had helpers. We had four extra hands. Then my life changed. Everyone's gone. Then your life changes again, and we have grandkids. When you have little kids, it's completely changed. So your life changes, and it's cliche to say you're in a different season, but you truly are. You're in a different season of life, so things have to change. And you have aging parents you have to take care of. That's a whole other season. Which is the beauty of having a home bakery. Change things as you need to.

Yes. I love that. So wonderful. All right. Well, this was incredible. I love talking to you, and we're going to end with some fun rapid fire questions.

Thank you so much.

Honestly, this conversation is so fun. I love all of your wisdom. I love how generous you are with other bakers. I feel like I always learn something new from talking to you, trying to soak up all these gold nuggets that you so freely give to everyone. Everyone should follow you on Instagram, because not only are your reels inspiring and educational, they're also very entertaining, because you have an incredible sense of humor. It's fun and uplifting to watch them. So now we're going to do some rapid fire fun questions. What's playing in your kitchen right now?

I just put in 90s country the other day. I didn't even know country music was a thing until I moved to the South, and that was in the 90s. That's the only country music I know. I was like, I haven't listened to this in a while. So 90s country.

I love it. The last thing you ate that wasn't something you baked yourself.

My lunch. I had a hot dog. But I made the hot dog buns myself, so that does not count.

That's also incredible.

Oh, sourdough bread from my friend who makes sourdough. I do not bake sourdough. I would gladly pay $10 for sourdough.

Yes. I love it. Wonderful. Chocolate chip or oatmeal raisin? I'm waiting for the person that says oatmeal raisin, and then I don't know if we're going to air this episode. Crunchy or chewy cookie?

Chewy.

Yes. Cake or pie?

Cake.

I love it. And last but not least, cinnamon rolls: classic vanilla icing, or something wild?

Like caramel.

I love it. That sounds incredible. Awesome. Well, thank you. And I definitely still want you to say every way the listeners can follow you, social media and website, and how they can find out more about the Baker's Library, just to remind them where they can find you.

Okay. I'm on Instagram as Home Sweet Home Baker, and Facebook is Home Sweet Home Baker. My membership is called the Baker's Library, on my website at homesweethomebaker.com.