I never wanted to be a working mum.

My mum raised her three girls alone, often working 12 hour days to put food on the table and give us opportunities she didn't have.

Being home without mum so often as a child lit a fire in my belly to stay home with my babies and homeschool them.

I still remember my high school careers counsellor getting frustrated with me when I said, “but I just want to get married and have babies.”

My mum and twin sister told me I was crazy.

“You don’t cook or clean, and you have no interest in it. How do you think you’ll be a homemaker?”

But that’s exactly what I did.

My high school sweetheart Steve and I married when I was 19.

I quit my job and dove into life as a full-time homemaker.

The first stir-fry I ever cooked for Steve was a disaster. I drowned it in soy sauce because I didn’t realise you should thin it with water. Steve took his first bite and hesitantly said, “it’s… edible?”
“That’s generous,” I replied.

Fast-forward to four-days before our first wedding anniversary, I homebirthed our first baby Emelia.

I was 20-years old.
A new mum.
Living on $45,000 a year in family income.

But Steve carried me through it.

He got up early to cook me breakfast before leaving to work 9-5 in a factory.
On his feet all day. It was so busy he rarely stopped for lunch.

He’d regularly get home to find me in exactly the same spot on the couch, breastfeeding or quietly reading while our baby slept on me. Steve would make us dinner, clean the house and tell me I had the best job in the world and that I was doing the most important work.

When Emelia was 6-months old things started to change.

I wasn’t overwhelmed anymore.
Breastfeeding didn’t hurt.
We were in a groove.
I was cooking and cleaning again.

And I started to wonder what I’d do if we ever lost Steve.

Steve had miraculously survived viral myocarditis as an infant. An inflamed and enlarged heart.

I was smart. I’d ranked in the top 7% of students in my home state, with my final high school ATAR score of 93.45.

But I never went to University.
I had no skills outside the home.
I had no career.

No idea how I’d bring value in the world.
Let alone how I could possibly stay home with my baby if I ever needed to earn an income.

I’d grown up in poverty, and I didn’t want that for my family.

From ages 8 to 14, we lived rent free in a run down farmhouse that didn’t even have a flushing toilet. The drop toilet was so disgusting that my twin sister Sarah and I refused to use it. Mum had to get a camping toilet that she emptied and bleached every other night.

I remember seeing her wait until it was dark so the neighbours wouldn’t see. Mum would sneak out with a flashlight and a shovel like she was going to bury a body. To this day, if there are things I don’t want to do, I remember mum and that portable toilet and I pep talk myself, “mum would do it”.

I admire my mum’s grit.
I admire her determination to do whatever it took to build a better life for her three daughters.

But I didn’t want to find myself in a situation like that.

I didn’t want to be gone 8-12 hours a day just to put food on the table.

So I started searching “how to make money from home.”
As I nursed my baby and cooked and cleaned, I listened to the Smart Passive Income and Entrepreneur On Fire podcasts. Episode after episode, I filled my mind with stories of people doing interesting things with online businesses.

After listening to hundreds of stories, I finally heard an interview with Kevin Rogers talking about copywriting. How to sell with your words. The way he talked about understanding people and psychology, I knew I’d be good at it.

We were living below the poverty line, but I knew we’d need to invest in ourselves and our education if we wanted to break out of it. So I signed up for a $45/month membership to Copy Chief, and began my journey as a direct response copywriter.

We invested $30,000 in different digital marketing and business training programs before going all-in and betting on ourselves. My husband quit his full time factory job and we’ve made our family income from home since 2017.

And so began my journey as a working mum, wrestling with my theology around motherhood, work and money.

I continue to believe that my most important role is as wife and mother. It is my highest calling.

Homeschooling our kids and caring for their hearts and minds is the only eternal work that I do.

But it is not all the work that I do.

I am also an entrepreneur. A brilliant marketing strategist. An excellent communicator.

And so was the Proverbs 31 woman.

We see in this beautiful passage of the Bible a wife and mother who is a brilliant entrepreneur.

She perceives that her merchandise is profitable. She is buying and selling, working with her hands and planting vineyards.

“Her children rise up and call her blessed. Her husband also, and he praises her. “Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.” Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands and let her works praise her in the gates.”

19 year old me never would have thought it was possible to show up as the mum I want to be, living a quiet, cosy and connected life… and be building an empire too!

I always had a very specific vision of the type of mum I wanted to be.

Breastfeeding on demand. Bed sharing. Meeting my baby’s every need.

And that’s what I’ve done. I’ve been breastfeeding for 12.5 years straight, without a break between babies. I feed my babies on demand, while also tandem nursing my toddlers. I’ve had a baby or two in my bed every night since Emelia was born.

But in those first 6 months of parenting where it felt like I could barely juggle showering and eating with a baby, I couldn’t even imagine that I could keep showing up for my kids at that level… and also be crushing it as an entrepreneur.

Yet that’s exactly what I’ve been doing since 2017.

I stopped using my kids as an excuse for why we couldn’t build a business.

I stopped worrying if the kids were noisy while I was on a call.

A mentor told me there are enough people in the world to find the handful of people I need to do business with. That my people would get me, and everyone else didn’t matter.

In 2019 I really put this to the test.

We had two critical sales meetings booked on October 4th.
We needed these clients.
But I gave birth to our third baby on October 3rd.

Steve took one of the sales meetings by video call while I napped with our newborn.

But he rescheduled an in-person meeting for 3 weeks later.

The problem was, sales is my skill, not Steve’s. I knew I needed to be at that meeting.

So we bundled up baby Eleanor and brought her with us.

I breastfed our 3-week old baby as I pitched a $6,000/month marketing retainer (plus ad spend).

Other agencies were charging $1,000-3,000.

I was selling a premium service, with a baby on my boob.

Both clients signed up, and baby Eleanor came back with us when she was 6-weeks old to run two team training days.

One of the admin ladies we were training told me how inspiring I was and that I was “the picture of female empowerment.”

But I never want people to think I’m doing this alone.

Steve and I are an incredible team.

And I think that’s the secret to how I’m able to “do it all”. To keep showing up as the mum I want to be and be running a profitable business.

Because we’re running a family business.

We’ve found the perfect blend of our skill sets. I handle the sales and marketing, contracts and accounting reviews.

And Steve takes care of everything else. He does all the implementation to make sure the business runs smoothly day-to-day.

Now, in 2026, we’re homeschooling 5 kids ages 0-12. Running a profitable business that generates over $600,000 a year in revenue.

I like to say I’m building a Cosy Empire™.

I think Cosy Empire™ perfectly captures the life we’ve designed.

A quiet, cosy and connected family life… living simply, debt-free* and homeschooling.

While also being ambitious, running a profitable business and, God willing, building an empire that changes our family’s future for generations to come.

*When I say debt-free, we do have a mortgage, but adding that detail was making that sentence tricky to read!

So now I’d like to say thank you for being here.

And I’d love to invite you to join The Cosy Empire™ Club which is my free email newsletter where I share my journey to encourage and inspire you.