A Horrible Month

I've been playing Minecraft

This was one of the most horrible months I've ever had. I know that sounds dramatic. But it was rough, and it was mostly for personal reasons, not business ones.

I don't want to make these blog posts too much about my personal life. But honestly, why not just get it out? It's not like anyone sees this anyway 🤭

Parting Ways

Henry and I parted ways this month after eight years together. It's probably the hardest thing I've ever dealt with in my life. I'm lucky enough not to have experienced any loss of life, and I'm praying everyone I know lives long and healthy lives, but what feels like losing my best friend and partner who I've spent 30% of my life with sucks really, really bad.

I won't get into the specifics but we're ending things on a positive note. We still treasure each other as people, and we're going to remain in touch and stay friends.

If you've read any of my other posts, you've seen Henry show up a lot. Helping me set up my filming corner. Packing a hundred orders in our living room. Shipping buddy beans while I was on vacation. Taking care of Yogurt. He's been part of this journey in ways that go way deeper than what's made it into these recaps.

Henry is the one who pushed and inspired me to start buddy beans in the first place. He's always been an entrepreneur at heart, and I guess that really rubbed off on me. Without his help, buddy beans wouldn't have gotten anywhere close to where it is today. I will be eternally thankful for that.

Business stuff!

I knew far ahead of time that August was going to be a slow month. I was projected to run out of most of my inventory by the end of the month, and my new batch isn't arriving until the second week of September. So I finally opened preorders for Churro and Nimbus! I hate having my customers wait more than a month to get their orders.

Due to all the travel and life stuff this month, I really haven't been able to muster the energy to film and post content. I've been feeling better these past couple of days so I'll be getting back on the horse soon.

Going fully recyclable

One thing I am excited about: I made a couple of small but meaningful upgrades to my packaging. All of buddy beans packaging is now fully recyclable!

For my first batch of inventory, I didn't even know recyclable packaging was an option so I just went with the basic clear plastic bags my manufacturer had. Now, everything is paper based. It does get damaged a bit more easily in transport, but at least I can feel guilt-free about tossing and replacing it since I know it'll decompose much sooner than 100 years. I also added little sticker labels with buddy beans art to each product package to help me identify which character is inside, since I can't exactly peek through the paper to check anymore.

Going fully recyclable honestly hurts the wallet. The default for manufacturers is to provide plastic which is insanely cheaper, to the point where it's free. Even the eco-friendly mailers I buy cost 5 - 10x what a plastic mailer would. And I guess the manufacturer packaging costs infinity times more, since you're multiplying against zero. Maybe it's ironic coming from someone who makes stuff, but at least it's functional stuff! I just don't want to contribute to plastic waste any more than I have to. At the end of the day, I'm happy to spend more on the little things so I can operate in alignment with my values.

Here's a little sneak peek LOL

Big news

My next collab is slated to drop in mid-October! This one has been in the works for over a year and I'm soooo excited about it. Get ready to have your socks blown off 🧦

That's all I've got this month. See you again at the end of September 🧡