The Real Cost of Doing What You Love

“Do what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.”

People love to romanticize doing what you love. But what they don’t tell you is how much it might cost you—physically, financially, mentally, and socially. I thought loving my work would protect me from exhaustion, burnout, and stress versus a 9-5 that I didn’t have any passion for, but that is not the case.

The Hidden Costs

Following your dream, being an entrepreneur, or just starting a business comes with unexpected price tags. Dream jobs are not cheap.

🧁Financial Cost

When you turn something you love into your job, it’s easy to underestimate the cost—literally. Every bag of flour, every booth fee, every pan, cooler, label, tent weight, and business insurance payment add up faster than you'd expect. And for a long time, you're working for what feels like free. Multiply these costs by the thousands if you plan on opening a brick and mortar for your bakery and then good luck digging out of that hole with slim margins and high employee payroll costs.

You're not just baking or showing up to sell—you're pouring money back into a dream that hasn’t quite started paying you yet. There's this weird middle space between “doing well” and “being profitable,” where the sales are there, but the margins aren’t. And even though it feels like you’re succeeding, your bank account doesn’t always agree.

🧠 Mental/Emotional Cost

Doing what you love sounds dreamy, but it doesn’t mean easy. There’s pressure—internal and external—to keep going, keep growing, keep smiling. You’re expected to love every minute, even when you’re exhausted or discouraged. Even when you’re trying to push frosted cake slices in 105 degree heat. Even when every customer asks you if you’re ok because you look like you need an ambulance in this heat (that’s just the sweat, you guys).

The truth is, turning a passion into a business adds layers of responsibility that can steal some of the joy. You start making decisions based on what sells instead of what lights you up. And when things don’t go well? It’s personal. Because this isn’t just work—it’s you.

⏰ Time Cost

When your job is something you love, the lines between work and life get blurry fast. Days off become recipe-testing days. Nights out become packaging nights. And even when you're not working, you're thinking about working. There’s always something you could be doing: posting on social media, prepping ingredients, tweaking a label, answering emails. Time becomes elastic—and somehow, there’s never quite enough of it. Can I get a vacation? Sure, but only if you make it work related too so people don’t think you’re slacking off. The amount of judgement you receive as a business owner who took a day or a week off is insane compared to when I had a 9-5 and took some vacation days. It’s always “Oh wow, you must be doing well to be able to take some time off.” Oh, hey Debbie, maybe I have just been working 456 days in a row and need to go cry at the beach instead of in the shower.

🤝 Relationship Cost

Your schedule becomes different than everyone else’s. Markets on weekends. Early mornings. Late nights. Your brain is in business mode when your friends are relaxing. You start missing events, rescheduling plans, or bringing your laptop to family gatherings. People don’t always understand why you're so tired—or why you’re working so hard for something that doesn’t always pay like a “real job.” Guess what, if you’re making a living doing it, it’s a real job.

And even though you chose this life, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t get lonely sometimes.

The Emotional Tug-of-War

Even on the hardest days, I don’t want to do anything else.

But that doesn’t mean it’s not hard. Passion doesn’t equal ease—it just gives you a reason to keep going when everything feels heavy. It’s the thing that gets you out of bed before sunrise for a market (hi 4am zombie Annie), or keeps you up late labeling boxes, or pushes you to keep showing up when your back aches and the sales are slow (think late August/early September when everyone just spent their whole paycheck on school supplies and it’s crickets out there).

Back when I was running a retail bakery, I started to lose that spark. The long hours, the overhead, the constant stress of keeping the lights on—it drained me. I still loved baking, but I didn’t love what it was doing to me. I had built something beautiful, but I felt stuck inside of it. Trapped, honestly. And when you love what you do, that kind of burnout hits deeper. It starts to feel like failure, even when it’s just fatigue. And trust me, when that burnout finally starts to wear off (a year later), you fully realize it was never failure, it was a near death experience.

Shifting to farmers markets gave me room to breathe again. I rediscovered what I loved about this work—connecting with customers face-to-face, being part of a community, watching something grow from scratch. It felt new again, even though I wasn’t starting from zero. But here’s the truth: even the thing you love will cost you something. Time, money, energy, emotional bandwidth. The difference is that now, I know it’s worth it.

What’s Worth It (And What Isn’t)

Doing what I love still comes with a bill. I’ve just gotten smarter about how I pay it.

I no longer pay with my peace to meet someone’s unrealistic expectations (Hey I need a cake tomorrow!)
I don’t pay with my personal time just to prove I’m always available. (Yes, I got your DM at 11:42 PM when I was asleep. No, I’m not responding until I’ve had coffee and stretched my back.)
And I definitely don’t pay with guilt when I set a boundary. (My cake handwriting is crap and my joints hurt so I don’t feel bad for not writing on your cake. There are tons of cake toppers both custom and generic, so go for it)

I’ve learned that I can’t give everything to everyone—especially if I want to keep giving my best to the work I love. So now, I pay where it counts: in early mornings and long hours, in creativity and care, in showing up fully when I’m truly able.

A customer recently told me, at the market, that he enjoys how creative I’m getting now that I’m not doing retail. The truth is, I enjoy it too. When you have a brick and mortar, people expect a (mostly) set and consistent menu. So tedious and boring for my creative side, but great for the financial side that has to take precedent when you have a building.

That’s the cost I’m willing to pay. And finally, it’s on my terms. THAT’S the best part about doing what you love.