A few weeks ago my husband's cousin was throwing a baby shower at her office and asked me to make the cake. She would have paid whatever I asked for, but I am not running a cake business right now, so I told her she could just pay me for my supplies, $40. It was an 8" square gift box cake with a loopy fondant bow on top.

When the cousin got here, she again offered to pay me more, and I declined. She said it looked like it should cost $150. I told her that if I were actually in business, that's very close to what I would have to charge, just to stay in business. She asked - several times - for my business cards because she just "knew" that people would want to order from me when they saw/ate it. I declined, over and over. I explained the law in Texas, and I also told her that no one actually WANTS to pay $150 for the cake we were looking at.

Fast forward a week. She calls me from work. She is very excited, because she had just KNOWN that someone would want to order from me, and sure enough, one of her co-workers was throwing a birthday party for her mom and needed a 200 serving cake for it! She says she told the co-worker everything I had said. She told her about the Texas law. Co-worker SWEARS she wont tell ANYONE! She must have one of my cakes! Cousin says she told co-worker that the baby shower cake they had would be $150 and it served 35. Co-worker says that is just fine. She must have one of my cakes for her event!

I never had any intention of taking the order, but the devil got the better of me, because I knew what would happen when I actually gave her a price. So I told the cousin, Tell her it will be a minimum of $800, and we havent even discussed design yet. If thats ok, then well talk. Ohhhhh, well, the co-worker balked right away and said that was out of her price range thanks, but no thanks.

So. If 35 servings of cake = $150, how much did she think 200 servings was going to cost? $150? Talk about Indydebis math-dumb! That was a math-dumb moment! I am still shaking my head over it!

On the 'people can be sensible' side:

A woman I know peripherally rang me recently for a christening cake. Her story went like this:

"I tried to make a practice cake myself, but it was awful. Is two weeks too short notice for a really simple 8" round? I'll pay anything."

Those are the sort of people you like to hear from!

Wow, people. It's not the quadratic equation!

This reminds me of a time a ex-coworker seen me online on FB. She had just seen a picture I had posted of one of my kids with their birthday cake. Anyways she started to chat with me. She started to go on and on about how she didn't know I did cakes, and all about how she had to spend a whole $38 on her daughters bridal shower cake and how expensive it was. Had she known I decorated she would have had me make it.

I don't know, but I guess I was in a foul mood or something, as I told her: "I can't even buy ingredients for $38 at Walmart to make a cake. You got a deal, get happy!" LOL I'm pretty sure I might of said a few other things as I was also dealing with a bout of depression. Whatever I said it couldn't have been pretty as I didn't even get a goodbye from the conversation. LOL!

It was a rough time for me. I was fighting depression and I had dealt with 2 other people wanting me to make cakes for them. I considered it, thought it might be fun. I was only going to charge for cost and nothing more. One classmate promised she would pay anything for a Halo cake. I declined, just pay me for cost. I'll do you a favor by making your custom cake and I'll have some fun with it in return. Needless to say she went and bought a hunting cake from a grocery store. Than she went to my wall on FB and told me to look at her cake because it was "so cool". The other person (who contacted my husband through facebook) asked for a demolition cake I came up with some ideas and gave her an estimate on cost and never heard from her again. Perhaps I insulted her when I told her I refused to put smashed up macthbox cars that they had beaten with a hammer on her cake. Of course by that time I was really struggling with the depression and said to my husband "I don't ever want to talk to another person outside our family about cake ever again. These people are sucking the joy out of it!" I still stand by that today. But what I also leaned from it is that I wasn't meant for business even though I wasn't charging for labor. Working for a baker - yes. Being an owner - absolutely not. (I'm so not a people person.)

I just get really exhausted with cake muggles looking to me to make them cheap/free cake. They assume I can make it cheap since I'm just a stay at home mom with nothing better to do and after all it's just cake right? The truth is I'm struggling to make ends meet and far to preoccupied with the mom stuff to be a slave to my kitchen. Now I just refer them to the new Bakery that recently opened in Corning NY. Closest one to me that I'm aware of. Tomorrow I hope to go to the mall where there having a bridal show in hopes of finding more bakers I can send people too.

Sorry I went on a bit of a rant there. It's been building for a while.