Pay off mortgage and start having fun!

Moneyfordreams

Having been on the tough side of a struggling business, I wish you well. At least you and your OH are meeting things head on. Having knowledge at your fingers tips can only support your decisions.

gallygirl

newgirly wrote: »

Dh has seen the accountant yesterday, it's not going well. Turnover is much lower we need to reduce costs much further which means staff

We also probably won't get a mortgage on the factory so will have to keep the expensive loan instead. Not sure what the plan is yet, but starting with a thorough look through each type of work we do and what makes / loses money is the first thing.

I think the business is still very viable but on a smaller scale, possibly renting it some more of the space we don't use, dh has been trying to keep everyone's jobs for as long as possible which has added to the problem , however I can see why he has.

I thought things we going a bit too well financially for us lately :rotfl:

Still being good money wise, and glad I resisted spending the gift from my parents on cars and stuff, we may need it!

Isn't it only a month or so the accountant said things were going well? There seems to be a real inconsistency of messages here (and we can say 'I told you so' about not buying a bigger house!).

newgirly

Yes GG you can definitely say "I told you so" about the house :rotfl:

The accountant didn't have he full information at the time, and we have basically gone a hairs breath from loss to profit, but the wages have been cut and turnover was a lot lower. He thought that might mean the possibility of a commercial mortgage but now says no, I am not sure excatly why and I will still do some research about it anyway.

I am feeling pretty ok about the situation at the moment, don't get me wrong it's awful but I don't want to be making myself stressed out over it like we have both done in the past, we will do everything possible to keep it running and hang on to everything, but it may be time to toughen up. At the end of e day it's a cliche but it's only money and work and there are a lot worse things that can (and sometimes have) happened.

So it's business as usual at least with our personal finances and cutting back, I must admit though when had a worldwide cruise advert come through the letterbox today it was more tempting that usual to book it and run away

Star Trek trilogy marathon tonight, £1land sweets and cans of drinks, I have threatened to take an actual cool bag to the cinema much to the disgust of the kids. We had a really late night yesterday so not sure about staying awake until 2.30am :eek: night have a snooze a some point

getmore4less

Redundancies are expensive did you not put flexibility into the contracts so you can do temp layoff/short time to manage workloads?

You can also use up peoples holidays to reduce liabilities.

newgirly

Everyone is already on short time /lay off which means they can request redundancy at a time anyway.

How can using holidays reduce liability? Redundancy payouts are based on full pay even if they are on lay off, or am I missing something?

ps. I am not the one advising in all this as I have extremely limited knowledge

Also, nothing in contracts re cutting hours.

AlexLK

Sounds like you need to get some advice in accountancy, business finance, employment law and possibly tax. As Gally says, your accountant seems very inconsistent, perhaps time to find someone else? Are you sure you are doing everything to maximise both turnover and profits?

newgirly

Hi Alex, we do pay a company to advise on the legal side of things and also it checks everything we do (and say!) re the staff. Dh was very suddenly thrown in at the deep end when he took over , as his then boss and best friend had an aggressive brain tumour. Although he had been assistant manager he basically ran the shop floor and got the staff to push work out quickly. So it was important we were advised correctly as believe me the staff always know their rights!

As for he rest, it's a dying trade which he has already branched out in to other things to get new work in, but the real money is in government contracts, we are currently waiting on whether we have won a huge contract for he next few years, so if we get that it will be amazing.

He's just agreed a last minute job online and will go in all weekend to get it done for Monday, he is always willing to work hard. I think it's more a matter of reshaping the company than overworking and losing some of the lesser paying jobs in favour of others. This week he will be going through everything in detail before starting to make decisions.

This is very much the reason we overpay I guess! It's not just about booking crises when we have no mortgage

Anyway, today he has taken all kids in to help with the menial jobs there so I have an empty house :T since they have broken up for school that never happens.


Plan is :

Wrap boys birthday presents.....done

Collect cake from Costco.......parents nearby so collecting it

Write list and shop for bbq food .....list done

It was payday yesterday and I was too busy to shuffle :eek:.......done

Strip all beds and wash.......done


I ordered a Nintendo game cube for ds2 from fleabay £20 plus £5 postage and had a message yesterday fro the seller saying he didnt charge enough for the postage and it will be £15 intend of £5 did I want to cancel! So I asked ds2 which spoilt the surprise and he said cancel its way too dear, so now no GameCube, I will gove him the cash to get another but it's very annoying.

newgirly

All jobs done, £87 shop :eek: now have £30 for the rest of the week which should be fine.

Also dyed my roots today cost £1 will pop round mums later to take ds2s cake. I ordered icing cake toppers from fleabay for them, fantastic value - ds2 has an orange classic beetle and ds1 has his football teams shirt , both personalised with names and ages on too, should look great

I have also splashed out today on a buy a gift voucher for dinner tonight, £24 before 12.5% tcb for 3 courses plus a house wine for two at zizzi. I know it should be a frugal time but dh has been very stressed this week and is not sleeping, so I thought a night out might do him good, we will get the bus to town and have a beer first :beer:

Moneyfordreams

I agree... down time a must.

Are you a limited company, or does everything fall on your head? unfortunately My OH and his partner (his family member) were not limited... this made us liable for debt as his partner had zero equity. I had to double our mortgage to give OH his share of the home to cover debts... his family member has never paid a penny.... that's the galling part.

newgirly

Oh wow mfd's that awful :eek::eek: Do you have any chance of being paid anything in the future?

We are a limited company thanks goodness, but we did have to put our house up as a guarantee to get a loan to pay part of the purchase price, however with the value of the factory being a lot higher than the loan(even if we had to pay out everyone a redundancy payment too) we would still be able to clear the loan without putting the house at risk. Had it been a high ltv we would not have done it.