2 big decisions

to help me save money and time

If you have recently graduated, congratulations! ✨

This newsletter is the last one before the summer break.

Today I’m sharing two big decisions I’ve made since I last wrote.

Together they will help me save time and money in my practice.

If you are a new reader, welcome!

I’m Tracy Karkut-Law, a homeopath based in east London. I’ve been in practice for 15 years and I’ve been writing and sharing reflections on my practice journey for the last seven of them.

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2 big decisions ⚖️

You may remember my word for the year 2022 is ‘Simpler’.

[Here’s what I wrote about this in January here, if you are curious].

I started the year with a huge de-clutter in my bedroom and gradually worked my way through the rest of the house.

Since June, I’ve turned my attention to my workspace and everything in it.

Pre-pandemic I worked very happily from two clinic spaces. One local and one in the city.

Once the pandemic started they both closed and so I worked virtually from home (this was not at all easy without a dedicated practice room).

Six months into the pandemic I started renting a private office about a mile from my home.

This gave me a better life-work balance, and I had the space I needed for privacy, and to prepare my remedy packages for posting.

Data-driven decision making

This June I completed my accounts for 21-22! I normally leave it till the autumn, but this year I was very focused on getting them done early.

The great thing about finishing my accounts so early is that I get to see what’s happening now, in time to make some changes over the summer.

It wasn’t a surprise that my biggest overhead is my office rent.

I also spend a significant percentage of my overhead on remedies and dispensing supplies.

As well as looking at the monthly total for each area of my expenses, I look at the yearly total and calculate it as a percentage of my income overall.

With these figures in front of me, I knew I needed to make some changes.

1. Move out of the office

2. Stop dispensing remedies

Decision 1 - move out of the office

My office contract is up for renewal in August, which is good timing. ⏱

I wondered about going back to working from home. My husband and daughter both work office hours and my son is at secondary school for nearly as long.

However, working from home isn’t a simple switch for the following reasons:

1. I always have some people who can only see me outside office hours

2. I can’t work from home in the evenings as my family are around

3. I prefer seeing people face-to-face if possible, and I don’t want to do that at home

An obvious solution was to go back to working from my local clinic one evening a week.

I decided to reach out and see if I could go back, and was very happy to hear the answer was yes!

Monthly clinic rent on one block per week is about 40% of the rent on my office, so my overheads will reduce considerably, and save me a lot of money over the course of a year.

I can also gain tax relief by working from home, which is another helpful saving.

I spoke to my family to find out what they thought about me working from home.

They were all very supportive but expressed concerns about where I would store all my equipment - remedies, dispensing supplies, postage supplies, books, etc.

They also remembered how stressful it was when I used the kitchen table to prepare all my remedy parcels. 📦

I was concerned about that too.

I want my home to look and feel like my home, not my office.

And, I don’t want my work to spill over into my personal time.

This presented me with another decision to make – something I’ve been thinking about for a while.

Decision 2 - stop dispensing remedies

Before I go into this decision I want to mention that some time ago I came across a very useful term:

Sunk cost bias: a tendency to stick to a decision simply because you’ve already invested time, money and energy into it

This summarises how I feel about my homeopathy collection and dispensing system. I am biased towards retaining it because I’ve already invested time and money into it.

When I was at homeopathy school one of the principals told us to buy medicating potencies.

Some of my colleagues opted to buy Sulis machines, but I didn’t, for the following reasons.

1. I don’t trust myself not to make mistakes

2. I respect the tradition of pharmacy-made remedies

3. I like the convenience of having remedies in bottles

This is why I’ve been working with medicating potencies since 2006.

Why I know I should ignore the Sunk Cost Bias:

1. Dispensing remedies by hand is time-consuming

2. Storage systems take a time to maintain

3. I feel that dispensing my own remedies is a ‘grey area’ in which I don’t feel entirely comfortable

Even knowing this, it’s been hard for me to come to terms with the fact that I need to do things differently, and even harder to figure out a new system. 🤔

My word for the year is Simpler!

To make things simpler in the long term I knew I needed to face some uncomfortable decision-making in the short term.

I know from experience in many areas of my life that the only way forward with something that feels HUGE is to take baby steps.

This is what I have done.

1. Spoke to Helios to find out more
   They explained all the options for dispensing my prescriptions and answered all my questions

2. Talked about it
   I started explaining the new changes to my clients (they’ve all been fine about it)

3. Wrote about it
   After I started telling current ongoing clients, I wrote about it in my practice newsletter

So now it’s official.

From the last week of August, I will send prescriptions to Helios by email, with client contact details, and ask them to bill my clients directly.

As I pack up my office I’m selling off my medicating potency stock to colleagues. (If you are interested, please just email me at tracy@homeopathywithtracy.co.uk and I’ll send you the list when I’m back off holiday.) 🗒

Homeopath friends I’ve already spoken to have asked me loads of questions about exactly what I’m going to be doing instead of posting remedies.

I will share more about this in a future newsletter. 💌

I know that many homeopaths already dispense via pharmacies, and this has helped me enormously.

Note to any students or newly qualified homeopaths: if you are planning to dispense remedies yourself and you don’t have a system yet, here are my tips.

1. Buy a Medium size case with a grid to store 4g bottles from the Homeopathy Supply Company

2. Buy nosodes and polycrest remedies as pills in 4g bottles as and when you need them

3. Dispense split doses, or weekly split doses in paper packets (also HSCO) - I’m sure you are not a fan of plastic either

4. If you want to prescribe daily remedies (organ support for example) send a prescription via Helios and have the bill sent to your client

5. Don’t do as I did and create a ‘rod for your own back’ by dishing out big packets and bottles of remedies routinely

6. You don’t need every remedy under the sun - if you are prescribing highly individualised remedies then don’t take on the responsibility of buying it before dispensing it. You don’t need to do that. Truly.

7. Dispensing machine-made remedies is just as time-consuming and you still have to buy sac lac, envelopes, bottles, etc.

I also know this is a big topic!

There really isn’t a right way or wrong way to dispense, and this is just my experience and perspective. 💭

If you have questions, comments or experiences to share I would love to hear them.

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Brain food

1. The Spring/Summer ARH magazine was a great read, especially as one article mentioned my course (thank you Neela!)

2. Better ways to get better – I read this standing in line for coffee on Sunday morning at Glastonbury and I cried

3. Beyond Inclusive Writing – excellent tips for the next time you are writing

   a blog post for your website

4. Everything is marketing – I love the simplicity of this

5. The infinite scroll and why it’s so addictive – a helpful explainer about something we all know

6. Buttondown – a sweet and simple newsletter app to send a client newsletter, and it’s free for a small list

7. Just trust me

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That’s all from me for now.

Wishing you a happy and sunny August! 🌤

Thank you for reading, and feel free to share with a friend.

Tracy 👩🏼‍💻