When you are burned-out about your Business.

I have been trying to write this for more then 2 months now. Beginning of October, Ray decided it was really time to retire from the Printing part of the business. This decision was made after he realized that the stress was too much for him. He also thinks he had a mild stroke.

Saturday August 13th was the 43rd Anniversary of Thrifty Prints, Inc. Because of burn-out neither Ray or I felt like celebrating the fact. Now we are actually shutting down the Printing Division. The last straw was when the press broke down.

We started TPI in a 13' x 60' Mobile Home. It didn't take long to add a 10' x 10' addition to it. One of the wedding gifts from my Grandparents was a press. Both Ray and I worked several jobs each. 

In less then 3 years we moved TPI to Brooklyn, WI where we had the shop in front and had a house in the back. We lived their for 17 years, when we sold the business property and printing part of the business.

Ray took a 3 year break from Printing. While I kept typesetting and doing Mail Peddler Ads. We moved into Bluffview, which at that time was apartments that were once were Barracks for the Badger Ordinance Plant.. We lived their for the 3 years, while we looked for a permanent place to live. We found 30 acres, which we built an underground home and shop to re-start-up the Printing Department.

We moved in to the Underground home on January 1, 2020 and built the printing shop around summer time. It took no time at all for our Customer too welcome us back and we were busy again.

The 1980's were pretty good for us. It was not long when we had employees. Mail Order was still had people selling actual products, besides the 'Get Rich Quick' schemes. There were still Mail Order publications that were printed by Letterpress and had quality articles and classified ads. The start of computers for typesetting were the thing.

When we started the typesetting department, I was using a typewriter like machine called a Varityper and stencil machine to do headlines. Shortly before we decided to move to Brooklyn, WI, we got our first Phototypesetter, which had a built in CRT with green screen and round film font disk. This had no memory at all. The copy was put on Photograph paper, which you had too use a darkroom to develop. When it got very hot in the mobile home, we had to turn off the typesetter until it cooled down. After we moved to Brooklyn, it did not take long to get a different phototypesetter, this one had a white screen CRTs and was connected to a still machine that produced type on photographic paper. Then a few years after that came along CRT with memory storage on disks. 

For a few years in the 80s we opened a Local Retail Printing Shop in Monona, WI. We had one of the CRTs, at the shop which I would do type on to the disk.

In the late 80s or early 90's came in personal computers which brought in the desktop publishing and with printers that no longer need photograph paper. That was a mixed blessing. On one hand with a scanner you could put clip-art right on your copy with out hand pasting it in. However; this meant that any Dick, Harry, Jane or Sally could now come in with no training to offer typesetting.

During the 80's and 90's their were a lot of Big companies that used Multi-Level Marketing. These MLM's were our meat and potatoes, such as Amway and now defunct Vitamin/Heath Products. In the 90's the Government started to crack down on the MLMs, especially the Vitamin/Health Products companies.

That is why we sell off our building, printing equipment and customer list in 1997. I was not ready to quite give up the typesetting and MPA. Lucky for us the Idiots that brought them, decided not to use our good name. This was from their so-called lawyer. We were also lucky that our attorney, took the time to make sure no loop holes. The people who brought us out didn't even last 6 months. 

When we started back-up again their were still people offering rubber-stampers and other products. MLMs were starting to come back. I would say around 10 years ago things started to change slowly. People were getting more into Lotto Tickets Programs, Chain Letters and Programs that the product was selling the program itself.

When the Covid Pandemic along with the Supply Chain problems, the only people who were left were the ones who were selling the same things to each other. These customer are mainly new comers and a lot of them are looking for Get-Rich-Quick schemes. The ones that have been around longer can't seem to realize that mail order is no longer doing well and need to blame someone.

I am personally still going to do typesetting and have revamped Mail Peddler Ads to make a profit that covers the expenses. Since typesetting and MPA were always pretty much a part-time for years. I think of myself going into semi-retirement.

I am working more effort into Cloakroom Creations, which is my 'Egg-Basket' Hobby business, which I have been going for about ten years now. Ray is getting into Earth Worms and Rabbits as Thrifty Ray's.