The pair say they never borrowed a cent to get Germ Busters off the ground. Instead, they simply put a portion of their pays away every week for two years.

"At one stage I was thinking about it, but we'd already basically done it on our own so I thought 'no we've done it our own, we've got no debt, no nothing and we can be proud that we've done it on our own'," Ms Reid said.

"It's an accomplishment."

All up, it's cost the couple about $13,000 to buy the van, equipment, uniforms and other essentials needed to make their small business dream a reality.

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When the pair first talked about starting the business, Ms Reid said they worried it would be financially impossible to achieve their goal.

"We dawdled ... we only talked about it; we were just an average family, living payday to payday, pay your bills, you never have money," Ms Reid said.

"Sometimes you don't pay rent one week, sometimes you don't pay power one week. You've got to catch up, but then they're [creditors] at you and harassing you.

"You just have to work out what's more important that week."

To get to where they are today, Ms Reid and Mr Robson went without.

"You don't have decent meals, you have probably four easy meals to three OK meals a week," Ms Reid explained.

"A normal one is spag bol, mince or sausages. Roasts, steak, chops and stuff are a treat.

"We've only ever been to Hobart once, we don't get away."

A trip to New South Wales to visit Mr Robson's family was the only holiday the couple had in a 10-year period.

"My power bills are $3000 a quarter roughly," Ms Reid said.

"I have two power bills, gas as well as electricity. I used to have electric heaters up the hallway for the kids. We haven't done that for the last two years now.

"I'm now starting to cut my dryer out."

Week-by-week the couple sacrificed, saved and eventually purchased all they required to start working for themselves.

For Mr Robson, who has been working for close to 40 years, cleaning is easy when compared to the previous fibreglass work he undertook.

"I've done a lot of labouring jobs so when I done cleaning before I thought this is way easier," he said.

Ms Reid agreed and said cleaning was "easy if everyone's doing it properly and you've got the right people".

"I suppose you've got to have a passion for it," she said.

"You have to take pride in it, it's so rewarding when you finish."

Since her youth, Ms Reid was obsessed with cleaning.

"To me, personally it's relaxing," she said.

"I used to suffer obsessive compulsive disorder really bad when I was younger. As I got older it's changed, but even as a kid, my poor baby brother wasn't allowed to have his Lego out."

As Ms Reid got older, she learned to master the art of multi-tasking.

"I was cleaning my house, looking after my brother and sisters, still trying to do my schooling then mum moved us again and I started Year 11 at Mareeba and then mum moved again so I didn't go back to school, I got another job and then came back here [to Launceston]," Ms Reid said.

After she started working as a professional cleaner, Ms Reid took four years off when her children were young.

"It was because my youngest one was sick and we spent a lot of time in hospital," she explained.

"I was living at the hospital with my baby and then going to work and coming back. She got whooping cough when she was two-weeks-old and that damaged her immune system.

"They didn't think she was going to pull through. She was in a crib for months, you couldn't touch her."

Ms Reid hopes her resilience and ability to overcome adversity in the past will put her and Mr Robson in good stead as they face their next challenge.

"The biggest challenge is getting contracts," she advised.

"We're now going to go door-to-door, approaching businesses and giving them a pack which will have our cover letter in it."

Juggling existing workloads and the need to invest time in finding new clients is another challenging task Ms Reid and Mr Robson are determined to tackle effectively.

"I'm doing 16 hour days some days, I have my night cleaning, that's every night I start at 5pm and I work in aged care throughout the day," Ms Reid said.

Ms Reid and Mr Robson hope their experience, dedication and determination will help them become their own bosses.

"I want us to do well and succeed and be able to expand and employ people," Ms Reid said.

"I don't want to be rich, I just want to be comfortable and save to buy house. That's our goal for five years."