As a business owner and entrepreneur I struggle with one major thing. Historically I have been what some would classify as “cheap”, not cheap in the sense I settle for poor quality but cheap in the sense I hate to spend money or to go into debt.

I’ve never had a “huge” problem with debt in that I was constantly using a credit card to buy stuff I didn’t need like large screen plasma TV sets, fancy clothes, etc. However circumstances are rarely a respector of my financial wishes and despite budgeting I still find myself needing to use credit to get my car or home repaired. Occasionally I will treat my wife to a movie and use the credit card but I’m committed to paying those items off as soon as I can.

My main struggle is that of a business owner and the need to provide products and services that to tell the truth I sometimes am not equipped for resource wise even though I have the knowledge to pull the job off.

I recently did some a project for fun after attending an event using iMovie and a basic consumer camcorder and several people were impressed despite how flawed it was. They still seemed to like what I edited with what I had and I’m starting to get requests to do video projects. Do a little 30 second or even 2-3 minute clip for a web video is one thing. Producing something more professional and polished is practically a quantum leaps in time and money. Not only do I need a nicer camera. I need good editing software, a more powerful computer to process the projects, a bigger monitor see what I am doing and of course storage of the very large project files.

I’m already looking at at least $5000 or more to have to proper stuff to get the job done right. However I know I can pay that off in at least two small projects and for a larger project it will more than pay for itself. I should be thankful that the tools available today were way out of my league no more than 5 years ago. The software I can use today would have been in the 5 digits not long ago and we are also coming into an age where high definition is becoming more and more accepted. On top of that producing video and using that medium to tell a story is big passion of mine and something I have always wanted to do. In fact if I ever had a dream job it would be to direct or produce a film of the highest caliber. Considering all of those positives, why do I still struggle when it comes to spending money? I’m worried that if I follow the Dave Ramsey mindset so many people are gettting behind (basically he is big on being debt free and not using credit cards) I’ll never make the jumps in my business and take advantage of opportunities.

I’ve heard many a story like when Microsoft told IBM they had an operating system (which they didn’t at the time) and then went out and bought what was essentially DOS from someone else and rebranded it to some local stories of people telling potential clients they could do it even when they didn’t have the tools at the time but they made it happen. Does anyone have any stories of times they took the risk, said they would do something before having the tools on hand and were thankful you did? Any suggestions on taking leaps in business or personal development without going into huge debt?