Putting My Life Into Order

catandy

ok the good news is we got the 2 contracts for our business confirmed and are going ahead in the next 2 weeks. :T

the bad news is that leaves me no time or paydays to find the extra money we need to up the resources to make it happen:mad:

plus my money is really short this month and none of my payments have gone down yet on my DD despite me cutting them so I'm getting charged more than I expected and by current calculations am short to the tune of 200£ which means i go that much further into my OD,,, which means that im only making minimum payments on all debts plus so they are not going down,,,

I'm going round in circles on this one, to start this business moving forward is going to get me in deeper, which feels like its the wrong thing to do. without doing that we have wasted everything we have worked for over the last 2 years. ive got no doubt that if we get past 1 month with these 2 new contracts this will work but it just goes against everything that im trying to do by spending out more money....

sometimes i wish i had never started this business and i wasnt self employed and just had a salaried job like most people do. at least that way there wouldnt be so many variables to play with

Rainbow_Bridge

Hi Catandy,

Have you ever tried that brainstorming technique?

You and your business partner come up with as many possible solutions as you can think of, whacky ones are OK too, in 30 minutes and then narrow it down.

There may be an approach that works for you that you haven't considered yet.

All the best xx.

catandy

ive sat down and done yet more calculations this time working out what we've saved so far per month by making cuts, what that means to minimum payments and the realistic demands that we are going to have put on us by taking on these new contracts for the business to see if it all balances out - bit of an eye opener and a real push to carry on making the changes cos they are working.

• last months minimum payments just to service my unsecured debts stood at £568. Ive taken that down to £427 per month by cancelling non-valid payment protection and making some small overpayments to the highest interest rates. Saving of £140 odd per month which can either go towards bring the debts down more or money which can be freed up to pay for the extras to get the business moving forward.
• savings each month on spend that i have cancelled/ reduced will be £270 by next month - thats how long its going to take for some of the reductions to take effect but at least its happening.
• part time job from home is adding an extra £100 minimum, maybe £150 but I'm setting a target of £100 so I've got a figure to work with.
• i also sat down last night and thought out about cars - i dont see why ex and i have one each - we've both been using our cars once in the last 6 months and are named drivers on each others insurance anyway so valid to drive. so decision made - im going to sell my car (wont get much for it but will save on petrol (£60 pm), insurance (£44 p/m) and car tax (? cant remember) thus bringing down spend even more). and the car expenses on the one we keep are split 50/50 - im not going to be the only one that ever fills it up with petrol. enough of those days - this I plan to make happen over the next couple of weeks so this is not yet 'real money'.

total saving per month when its all in place? grand total of £592.:T

ok so needs of this business - well to be honest nothing at the moment, we have enough capacity for what the companies plan to do up to xmas without spending a penny more than we aleady are doing. if they want to go faster than that well we control this, its our resources, so will plan with them and adjust accordingly. basically - not going to panic and stick to plan A which is keep paying thigs off.:)

catandy

busy and productive morning so far - put an advert on Gumtree at 8.30am for my car and had sold it by 10am - so money coming straight off a CC - not sure which one yet. Also cancelled car insurance policy for it which saves the 48.88 DD from next month onwards

back at work and have a project to last me all next week which looks nice and easy (would make a nice change). also means that earnings for next month are on track to be a nice big fat one:D - part time job is going ok and ticking along, more to the point they pay so im sticking with it.

nothing drastic planned over the weekend, maybe a bit more posting of stuff on gumtree cos im inspired from this morning lol - didnt think things sell that quickly but im not complaining:T

catandy

done nothing to day to save money/ make money or anything inbetween - went to visit my mom who has had a fall and did a quick tea on the way home from supplies and add ons from the shop so a LSD and nothing exciting

catandy

quiet weekend all told - got to pull out the stops with part time job this month as im falling behind schedule to make my target. im doing a food shop this week from tokens ive been given for asda - got £55 on them for groceries excluding booze and fags (I dont buy either so not a hardship) so that should save some extra ££ that way as well.

payment is late from the company that i said always pay early (teach me to keep my mouth shut uh?) so got to chase them today so that hits my account in time for the bills to go thru.

also going to go thru CC and see if i can make some extra payments to bring the balances down a bit. got to send off letters ref cancelling car insurance on my car today so thats another thing crossed off my list.

busy day all in all - sounds about usual.

catandy

catastrophe - the company im waiting on payment for is paying late as they havent yet received monies from the client themselves - this is a new client they were working for and ive never had this problem with them before. its just total disaster cos i cant cover the rent or council tax and ive got a suspended eviction notice going to go live if i miss a payment or pay late or whatever....

juggling at the moment to see if theres anything at all that i may have missed that i can move across into the right account so i get the important bills thru....so totally sick of all of this.

*Robin*

catandy wrote: »

catastrophe - the company im waiting on payment for is paying late as they havent yet received monies from the client themselves - this is a new client they were working for and ive never had this problem with them before. its just total disaster cos i cant cover the rent or council tax and ive got a suspended eviction notice going to go live if i miss a payment or pay late or whatever....

juggling at the moment to see if theres anything at all that i may have missed that i can move across into the right account so i get the important bills thru....so totally sick of all of this.

(((Hugs))) and Don't Panic! 'Phone the council, explain that the CT payment is going to be a bit late - they should be understanding if you've never had to do it before, and would rather know in advance if folk are having difficulty.
The rent is the crucial payment of course - worth going backwards and increasing debt for a short time to cover this - unless you've still got the funds from selling your car to throw at it?

catandy

no the car money came straight off CC's so the only option ive got open to me now is taking cash of CC to put into bank account to pay the bills and the huge interest charges this will entail. im going to fone the council tax ppl now - thanks for the headsup on that one.

catandy

I sat down last night and did some serious thinking - my outgoings from next month are going down considerably cos its taken that long for all the cancellations and cuts in service I have made to take effect. So from next month Ive got 360 extra each month to play with to pay some debts off and start making some headway into some balances and in turn reducing some of the interest im paying on some of the billls and CC

from the following month (dec) ive got another £30 minimum to add to that monthly plus one off payments of £26 and £198 as refunds on stuff. and of course ive got feb and march with no council tax or water payments so thats another £136 for those 2 months respectively - grand total of £2280.

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all that is in addition to me earning normally plus paying the bills as normal, plus paying out for the forthcoming expenses for the business. so in simple terms its hang in there and i will start seeing balances start to reduce.:cool:

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of course i could add to my income further and ive been brainstorming ideas to see whats viable given my commitments already and not wanting to kill myself in the process of paying off these debts. so far ive come up with:-

• do some ebaying of stuff from around the flat, still got to work out how to transfer pics from my phone to the pc
• clear out old mobile fones and sell them via one of the websites
• take on staff to sell the software our company has developed, I may have some time to do this myself but I can also show others how to do it so we're earning a residual income off their sales. this is a serious consideration, ive taken on staff before and it was more effort than it was worth however this time i'll be doing it commission only which means I wont need to be checking on their results, they will speak for themselves.. got to think about organising this.
• menu plan even better than i am already doing - ive taken monthly grocery spend down by half and could probably take it even lower with some better planning
• me take on some more freelance work, evening or weekend or even peice work.
• stick with the home based part time job - its very boring but so's my normal job so no change there then:)
• try to sell the software on ebay - i cant work out amazon but i can do ebay.
• keep doing surveys and swagbucks and MS when i can fit them in, ok never going to make my fortune doing any of them but it all helps.
• use quidco for cashback on stuff/ coupons etc.

i cant think of anything else at the moment and this list is very fluid - open to all ideas so if theres anything big that i seem to have missed please shout up!