The Anna Maria Island Sun Newspaper


Vol. 16 No. 12 - January 20, 2016

BUSINESS

Hometown Desserts will feed your sweet tooth

LaPensee Plumbing Pools Air

LOUISE BOLGER | SUN

Cindy Tutterow's cakes, pies, cookies and other confections are
available on Pine Avenue in Anna Maria.

I don’t know about you, but I haven’t met a person who doesn’t have a sweet tooth, even a tiny one. Well if your sweet tooth is screaming to be fed, you need to take a nice little walk along Pine Avenue to a sweet little shop called Hometown Desserts.

Cindy Tutterow doesn’t remember when she didn’t love being in the kitchen. Growing up on a farm in North Carolina, she learned to cook with what the farm produced and bake from scratch with family recipes.

She became a Manatee County school teacher, then a stay at home mom, and kept baking for friends and family. One day a restaurant owner had some of the cake she baked for a friend and asked her to make some for her restaurant. That simple request grew into a seven-year, home-based business and then three years ago, into one of Anna Maria’s Historic Green Village’s favorite businesses.

It’s hard to describe how many cakes, pies, cupcakes, scones, cookies and brownies are available in this adorable mini space. It’s even harder to believe that it all comes from the kitchen right behind the retail shop where everything is baked in house.

And as Tutterow will modestly tell you, she supplies at least a dozen restaurants and shops both on and off the Island with her bakery goods every day. Not to mention her growing wedding cake business that was just recognized by the Wedding Wire Website, which chooses the top 5 percent of wedding venders in the country based on their brides’ feedback.

Hometown’s layer cakes are available in 6-, 8- and 9-inch sizes with lots of choices like, carrot, chocolate Oreo, chocolate fudge, chocolate Kahlua, chocolate mousse, raspberry truffle and red velvet. Tutterow’s coconut cakes are some of Hometown’s favorites and fly out the door. The original comes from her grandmother’s recipe, but you can also get chocolate, lemon, red velvet, strawberry and the not to be missed key lime.

There is also a large selection of cheesecake in all kinds of flavors and pies including pecan, apple, key lime and more as well, as an assortment of quiche. Breakfast is a great time to stop by Hometown Desserts for coffee a scone or a cookie. She also sells the dough to make your own scones and ships the coconut macaroons. Anything can be special ordered, and there are individual slices of many of the cakes and pies available in the shop every day.

Hometown Desserts has been mentioned in Southern Living Magazine, on visitflorida.com and Trip Advisor in addition to the Wedding Wire. Tutterow is considering a second location, and based on the number of people who came into the shop during the short period of time I was there, she definitely needs one.

She thanks her husband Kelly, who has helped her realize her dream and continues to help out in the kitchen, as well as her three staff members and considers herself very fortunate to do something she really enjoys.

After a couple of minutes inside of Hometown Desserts, your sweet tooth will have turned into sweet teeth. So go ahead and feel free to satisfy the craving one tooth at a time. What could possibly be sweeter?

HOMETOWN DESSERTS

507b Pine Avenue, Anna Maria

941-896-3167

www.facebook.com/hometowndesserts

Monday – Saturday: 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Sunday: 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.

Visa & MasterCard

Anna Maria Island Sun News Story

Wealth vs. income

Investment Corner

Recently I read an article on CNN’s Money site regarding what level of income it took to be in the top 1 percent of wealthiest families in the U.S. It was an interesting read, but I think the article missed the mark for many readers. Wealth and income are different, although not totally unrelated things.

Wealth is most appropriately defined as “the value of what you have in cash, investments, real estate, and perhaps the value of a business you own.” Income is the rate at which money flows into your household.

For those employed at a job or running a business it is possible to have a very high level of income – it took $429,000 to be a top one percenter in 2015 – but to have very little wealth. Wealth is the result of making more money than you spend and pay in taxes and then accumulating the difference in the form of savings or investment capital to be used to eventually generate income when you no longer wish to work.

If high income earners spend most of what they make and don’t take the savings and investment part of the process seriously, a lifetime of high income could yield little wealth and a retirement lifestyle that is below expectations. Starting early and consistently allocating income to investment is the best way to build wealth over time.

For those retired from employment, there is a closer tie between wealth and income. Obviously those who do a better job of accumulating and investing will have a larger pool of funds available to invest to produce income, hopefully providing the lifestyle they desire in retirement.

The CNN Money article did provide some more fun facts I’ll share with you here. It took $1.9 million to make it into the top 0.1 percent (the top 10 percent of the top 1 percent), and $9.5 million of income in 2015 to make the top 0.01 percent (the top 1 percent of the top 1 percent).

Of course, since these individuals are in higher tax brackets, they pay a disproportionate share of income tax as well. The top one percent on income earners will pay about 20 percent of the total tax collected by the IRS from individuals for 2015.

In summary, income doesn’t generally turn into wealth without a disciplined approach to savings and investment. Pay attention to your savings rate during your working years, and the reward of a great retirement lifestyle may be yours.

Tom Breiter is president of Breiter Capital Management, Inc., an Anna Maria based investment advisor. He can be reached at 778-1900. Some of the investment concepts highlighted in this column may carry the risk of loss of principal, and investors should determine appropriateness for their personal situation before investing. Visit www.breitercapital.com.

 


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