Dispatches on C4+1 now, Families Hit by Credit Crunch

tomstickland

"It's enough to even make an estate agent philosophical"! LOL.
The camp EA: "this is ridiculous. It's like the 80s"

Tilers. Very sad. I'm surprised that they didn't consider the chance of a slowdown at some point though. Maybe it all happened too quickly for them to cut back their operations. Oh, a customer went bust.

That's not a lot of fun - going to their premises each day to chase up money that's owed to them.

amcluesent

>going to their premises each day to chase up money that's owed to them<

Smart move would be to sell on the debt to a factor.

hoggums

Despite her financial situation I think that woman keeping her kid at home because she didn't have the bus fare was totally irresponsible.

Can he not walk - it may be a long way - but surely education is important?

Does he not have a bike?

Personally I think it was more about her throwing a strop rather than actually thinking about her son and what's best for him.

chewmylegoff

amcluesent wrote: »

>going to their premises each day to chase up money that's owed to them<

Smart move would be to sell on the debt to a factor.

they had already done invoice discounting. not sure they would legally be able to then factor the debts as well, would depend on the agreement.

if the debtors are already not paying the factor is going to offer a pretty crappy deal too, especially if you want a non-recourse agreement. they would be lucky to get 50% of the value of the debts. they probably had 80-90% invoice discounting funding from the bank, that would be fairly typical.

PasturesNew

hoggums wrote: »

Despite her financial situation I think that woman keeping her kid at home because she didn't have the bus fare was totally irresponsible.

Can he not walk - it may be a long way - but surely education is important?

Does he not have a bike?

Personally I think it was more about her throwing a strop rather than actually thinking about her son and what's best for him.

You never get the details in these programmes which can be annoying, but maybe she had him in a school near her job and maybe that was 10-12 miles away. Since her job suddenly ended she's not had a penny in from anywhere as she goes through the process of signing on, filing in the forms and waiting.

Also, XL went to the wall about the middle of the month. If you're suddenly laid off mid month (or even the day before the last day), you've just worked for nothing, your salary won't be coming in. This means you have to immediately stop spending as you've already spent time spending money you shouldn't while you weren't earning money but didn't know it yet. People forget this, if you're laid off you don't get paid (certainly not until the administrators have been through to see if there's any money left at the bottom of the pot for you).

Alan_M_2

The Tiling firm are a good example of having all your eggs in one basket. They had large contracts with a hand full of very large operators.

These operators are notorious for paying and in many cases actively avoid paying in the hope the business goes bust and eventually they don't have to pay at all....

I call it the Tesco syndrome.

I had the opportunity to take a huge contract with one of the well know DIY chains, it was for enormous amounts of product, but the terms we such that I was required to finance it and ultimately all the risk was mine. If it went right I'd have personally made over six figures a year on top of my salary......I couldn't quite swing the financing and the deal went to a competitor...at the time I was gutted....now looking back, it would have been devastating. My competitor (who were a bigger company than mine" were wiped out overnight when the big chain simply changed their mind despite the contract.....

I'd prefer a 100 customers that spend £5,000 a year with me than one customer that spends £1 million.

dubsey

I was made redundant last November (told on the 25th by phone), due to get paid on the 30th. But, luckily for me, I did the accounts and knew it was coming (even though he constantly denied it) so I had already paid myself up until the end of the month. On the phone he'd said how sorry he was and that he wouldn't be able to afford to pay me for that month or my month in hand or my holiday pay I was owed. So I can see how she could be stuck for money, but bus fares? She was shown driving a car, so why not use that seeing as she's out of work?

A lot of the problems with the company were caused by larger companies not paying on time (sometimes stalling for 3-4 months) when obviously we had already paid for the stock we had used. So again, I can see how that can happen and quite quickly.

I initially felt for the couple (I thought they would be similar to us, normal family) until he started saying about having decking done and having the entire kitchen redone (because the worktops needed replacing) which they designed themselves and paid for with credit cards! My DH also has a hobby car in the garage which is rarely used, but I know that if we were stretched it would be the first thing to go, so no, they weren't like us. We are doing that old fashioned thing of saving to get the work done on our house and are well aware it's going to take years - oh and we don't own a bird of prey either!

GracieP

dubsey wrote: »

I initially felt for the couple (I thought they would be similar to us, normal family) until he started saying about having decking done and having the entire kitchen redone (because the worktops needed replacing) which they designed themselves and paid for with credit cards! My DH also has a hobby car in the garage which is rarely used, but I know that if we were stretched it would be the first thing to go, so no, they weren't like us. We are doing that old fashioned thing of saving to get the work done on our house and are well aware it's going to take years - oh and we don't own a bird of prey either!

They also replaced their boiler shortly after moving. I remember the first winter in our house the boiler went, due to a bad repair job done by the previous owner. We didn't have the cash to get it fixed as we had just bought the house, gotten married and had an expensive vet bill, so our savings were wiped out. And my husband was owed about £6k from a job he had done which his payment was delayed on. But instead of borrowing to get it fixed we just lit fires for heat and washed at the local swimming pool. It wasn't ideal, but we were still warm and clean. And once we had the cash we got it sorted. Most of our friends thought we were mad, but I really can't stomach the thought of spending money I don't have.

Lotus-eater

GracieP wrote: »

They also replaced their boiler shortly after moving. I remember the first winter in our house the boiler went, due to a bad repair job done by the previous owner. We didn't have the cash to get it fixed as we had just bought the house, gotten married and had an expensive vet bill, so our savings were wiped out. And my husband was owed about £6k from a job he had done which his payment was delayed on. But instead of borrowing to get it fixed we just lit fires for heat and washed at the local swimming pool. It wasn't ideal, but we were still warm and clean. And once we had the cash we got it sorted. Most of our friends thought we were mad, but I really can't stomach the thought of spending money I don't have.

I had said anything about that family, but I thought the same. Indeed we did the same as Gracie, sure our house needed doing up, but we couldn't afford it, so we waited till we could. Sorry, they don't get alot of sympathy.
On the one hand she was complaining that they had to buy cheap food and it was difficult to get a nutritious meal. On the other, he complained that they had to pay to get a greenhouse removed in the garden, well if you put the two together...

Living above their means, no more than that.

neverdespairgirl

PasturesNew wrote: »

If you're suddenly laid off mid month (or even the day before the last day), you've just worked for nothing, your salary won't be coming in.

The DTI pays it, don't they?