Last Sunday morning was like every Sunday morning. I pulled a few more hairs out of my head wondering where I would find the money to pay all the household bills. It's an excruciating process, one that always inspires a lively discussion with the wife that ends with me mumbling: "We're dead, we're dead."

After the ritual, I emerge from my home office, wondering how week after week for the past four years, I've managed to keep everything running and paid for. Cash flow is an entrepreneur's Achilles' heel: How do you keep the business going, feed the kids and pets, and put something resembling gasoline in the car -- all at the same time?

When I got a steady paycheck working for a large company, things weren't much better: I still fretted over making my monthly payments. Come to think of it, there hasn't been one year that I haven't worried about money, since I was 6, maybe.

There's one major difference between a steady paycheck and living on what your business brings in. When you're on a salary, you know exactly what you'll make each month. You also know that the number is unlikely to change anytime soon. When you run your own business, you never know how much to count on. The magic is that you can double or triple what you expected with one phone call. I always get a kick out of credit companies -- they always ask me what my yearly income is. I never know how to answer that. It changes every hour.

No one understands the fluid nature of business unless they're in that entrepreneurial boat, bobbing up and down, keeping an eye out for those big waves -- the ones that'll bring you closer to shore or knock you overboard with no warning.

Regular readers of this column know I've been trying in vain for the past six months or so to line up some capital to expand my business. Things really haven't changed much except that I'm trying yet another bank to process an SBA loan for me. I'm taking my time with it, though. When the guy handed me about 20 sheets of paper to fill out and said: "It's a long shot, but what the hey..." I lost a little of my boyish enthusiasm. Plus he wanted $250 to start the process.

I've read over and over again how entrepreneurs shouldn't worry about money, that they should plow ahead, pulling capital put of places that no normal human being would even think of. I've been a lot bolder lately -- taking some risks, but there is one rule I will not break: You have to pay your bills.

I'm the type of guy who frets when a payment is two days late. It always amazes me to deal with people who think nothing of letting a bill ride for six months or more. I have some clients like that, and I honestly don't know what they're thinking. Aren't they afraid that their debts will become the talk of our common business circles?

I'm trying to save some money by bringing in sandwiches. Then I end up eating them by 9:30 a.m. By one o'clock in the afternoon, I'm ravenous, so I buy lunch anyway. Some days you just can't win.

George Giokas is the president and CEO of StaffWriters Plus, a specialty agency that places writers in temporary and permanent positions with corporate and other employers. It also provides editorial consulting work. His database includes 2,500 writers and editors specializing in more than 60 categories. His Web site is located at www.staffwriters.com, and you can E-mail him at george@staffwriters.com.