The Ultimate Incentive muddles along

the_end_of_the_rainbow

Dinah93 said:

So, life here. Kids well, both well into school now, the big one loves it the littler one hates it. Both are lovely kids, kind, funny, smart, generous, they are my world. NIM had a run in at the start of the year, fell 4m from a height and ended up in hospital for nearly 3 weeks having 2 surgeries on a 'destroyed' ankle. Their words. So he's been working from home since then as couldn't drive for quite a while (we joke he was a lockdown trendsetter, starting 2 months early!), he's now walking without sticks but still with a brace, they say it will be 2-3 years until he is healed as much as he will, but given at one point they said he may not walk again we're grateful for what he has so far. 

I got a bit busy with work which started me being very slow to post, then I felt like it was pointless posting if I wasn't doing surveys, ebay and matched betting, I made the decision to go all in with trying to up my income through growing my company. I'm pleased with the call we made, the business started to really take off (which is now a collection of 6 different businesses, 14 people work for us on a contractor basis and one employed 20 hours a week). NIM has moved jobs a few times, and also does some consultancy work, so his income has more than doubled, possibly tripled as a result.

I'll need to do some maths to update my signature (although I still have a debt free spreadsheet), we do still have debt, BUT we do not have a mortgage. As our debt was at 0% we made the decision to hammer the mortgage while the going was good in the business, and paid it off earlier this year. So that's a £132k mortgage paid off in under 10 years, which we've told no one about as it feels a bit braggy, but since this is a financial forum, all cards on the table.

Turned out that was a good call since my business had to completely close from 21st March until we reopened at the start of September, then we had to close again for lockdown 2.0 and we've made the decision not to reopen until the first week of January as it takes us time to gear up and I feel there is no guarantee that that will happen on the 4th, and it costs us significantly to shut on short notice or cancel opening. However back to the point , I only draw minimum wage from the business, the rest of my income is dividends from profits the various companies make, but as we've been shut I haven't been able to draw this so right now I'm a lot quieter as we are completely and utterly mothballed, my to do list that is usually at least 30 items is down to 6, but I need/want to earn some other way. 

So in the last few months over lockdown and lockdown 2.0 I've tried to diversify, I've started a new business in a completely new area (although not launched as I don't have time to do the marketing required, but all supplies, website etc are done, it's just waiting), I've restarted doing some print on demand which is my new side earner like ebay etc used to be, I just enjoy it a lot more so I can consider it a hobby that pays rather than anything else, I've got a facebook page to find deals and bargains I earn a bit from through affiliate marketing, I have a little online channel on patreon to do yoga, mindfulness and a daily mindset boost podcast, I still twist Quidco to get every cashback penny I can, my book I wrote a few years back trickles in a few £ a month. I watch quite a lot of financial youtubers, and I've considered setting up a youtube channel on the hundreds of ways to up your income I've found in the last few years that aren't pay per click pennies, and the thing that hit me was someone saying a year or so ago that on average a millionaire has 7 sources of income. I want to be secure financially, and diversification seems to be the best way to do that, if the pandemic has taught me anything it's that no matter how well my business does, it's vulnerable, and I don't want to have my eggs all in one basket in the future. 

I have a big plan for where I want to take the company, but it feels a bit like that kind of scale is for other people, not just me who has stumbled into being an entrepreneur. I also have several ways I want to diversify it, but I'm playing very safe in the current climate, I don't feel comfortable risking big cash if we might get shut down again at any point and I've therefore got all this money out with no way of making it back - I was bitten BADLY a few weeks ago in that I ordered £7.8k of new equipment on the Thursday, which was the latest I could order it to arrive in time for when I needed it the following week, late on the Friday lockdown strikes back was announced, and I now have 16 cardboard boxes full of kit in my lounge that we have to squeeze past, and that money being out is a problem because the activity it was to facilitate had to be cancelled, people reimbursed, and it's stopped me being able to pay a fee to get a course I'm writing further along down the accreditation process, and I'm also exploring franchising, but with shutting down again I don't have the cash flow to pursue it right now. It's fair to say running my own business has taught me about cash flow in a way my own personal finances just didn't, I've always spent money like it is limitless, I'm still terrible at budgeting, I've just kind of maneuvered myself to earn enough that I don't really have to. 

Which is a terrible way to live (the grammar of reacting to the last sentence but in a new paragraph hurts me, but also that one above is too long). I do still need to learn to budget, I need to learn to forward plan, I hope to have our debt paid off in the next 6 months if my business can restart, and then what? Do I save? Invest? Stocks? Shares? Property? I should probably have a pension. And an emergency fund. Probably other grown up things too. In some ways I think the debt has almost been this 'safe' zone for me, bloody scary when it got over £80,000 and we were struggling to make minimum payments (my credit record is SHOT) but at the same time I understand debt, I'm familiar with what to do and how to 'win' the system, I've never had savings except for when we saved the deposit for the house, and even then I knew it was going to be spent. 

I'm probably going to be making my money very differently to how I was in the old days, but I have a lot more enthusiasm and drive than I did 2011-2018 as well, when I felt like numbers were only going the wrong way and I couldn't do much to stop it, but I have always loved having you here to bounce ideas off, and cheer one another on. Most of all I've just missed you. So will you have me back? 

So pleased things have turned a corner for you.  Well done for paying off the mortgage and congratulations on a successful business

the_end_of_the_rainbow

kavics177 said:

Oh so nice to see everyone back! I'm still here, not posting at all but still reading some diaries. 
Dinah, I'm amazed that you payed off your mortgage, well done. As well as having all these ideas for businesses ( I wish I would have even one!), but to be honest I wasn't expecting anything else from you. 
We are doing well, mini Kavics is going to be 8 next week and baby Kavics is nearly 2. Mini Kavics plays the cello, does basketball and swimming and loves school and her friends. She really struggled with the lockdown emotionally and I'm dreading what will happen if they decide to close schools again. Baby Kavics is cheeky and kind and funny, she loves music and already speaks in sentences.She supposed to start nursery in September but with covid we decided that I stay at home till January. I'm planning to go back to work part-time and actually need to call my boss next week about the start date. 
My OH has a very secure job thankfully, but can't work from home unfortunately. He loves mini Kavics and is a really good dad. We are starting actually the process of him adopting mini Kavics tomorrow morning purely because if anything happens to me we don't want the girls to be separated. 
Financially we are doing just fine. No mortgage, no debts for nearly a year now. I still do spreadsheets and sell everything what we don't need and buy second hand whenever we can. 

So lovely to hear from you.  I followed your old diary and am so pleased things have finally worked out for you and that you are happy. Cannot believe mini Kavics is now 8.   

Dinah93

Morning all
Quiet, lockdown compliant weekend here. Most exciting thing was NIM needed to go find some really strange shaped screws at screwfix we needed to fix a specialist piece of equipment. He also took the kids to one of our venues as it's 2000 indoor square foot to run around in that is currently completely locked down with no one there, while he did a full inventory on our kit there. 

I'm still struggling with vertigo, but I did another 9 designs over the weekend and have uploaded it to all print on demand sites I'm currently on. 

My goals for today. I'm not keen on doing anything on the list so this is going to be a battle against procrastination. 

1. Contact lenses and chiropody claim
2. 5x podcast edits and post
3. Get printful integrated with Etsy 
4. Pay any invoices
5. Plan tonight's class
6. Sort new home insurance
7. Social media and mail chimp tonight's free class (if anyone would like to join me for zoom yoga for core strength tonight at 7pm drop me a message)

 

Dinah93

How are those of you with school age kids doing with bubbles closing? A year one bubble at our school had to close Saturday, today it's the year 6 one, this brings us to 12 bubbles closed since the start of September (one class has closed 3 times!), but amazingly both our kids have avoided it so far. 

wendz86

None of the bubbles have closed at our school at all although cases seem to be on the up in this area so fingers crossed doesn't happen soon.
Good luck with the list today.

Dinah93

Our cases have been at around 200/100,000 since September, now plateued at around 500/100,000. We had to shield due to our eldest's heart/lung/immune system issues from March to July, so it's really difficult to now merrily send her off to school with hundreds of others. 

Cinny91

Hello Stranger! So nice to read a catch up, and you've been so busy! Glad your two are doing well and hope NIM's recovery isn't as long as they anticipate. Huge congratulations on being MF too! Would add some celebratory emoticons here but I honestly do not understand this new forum format. 

We're home educating full time, officially from Spring next year when Oscar turns 5 (can't believe how big all the thread babies must be now!) so I'm not suffering the school bubbles but a few of his old nursery friends are isolating from local primary schools. It's not touched the home ed kids as of yet. All is well our end, OH was made redundant through lockdown but has another job and considering when we first moved out we used to have all of £20 to feed ourselves and keep the house warm we've definitely weathered a lot worse 

wendz86

Our rate was down at 80 ish a couple of weeks back and yesterday went up to 369 . That must be hard for you knowing her health problems. 
Hi Cinny!

Dinah93

You have and you've always done an incredible job of pulling through and making much from nothing. Well done on the home ed, I know that was always your plan. I loved having the kids off during lockdown 1, and we did actually do home ed every day not just take 6 months off, however even at 8 I felt like I wasn't able to do enough for the eldest, plus she was devastated to not see her friends, she skips into school happily every day and she thrives on attainment. Youngest I can keep pace with and he has a much more laid back personality, and he would love not to go to school. he's a complete mama's boy and every day he runs home to cuddle for half an hour, but I'd need to fold the business realistically do home ed full time and he'd be in the same place in a few years where I didn't feel I could do enough for him, so while I did seriously consider staying with home ed in September I decided on balance it wasn't going to work for us unfortunately. 

Cinny91

It was one of the upsides, having kids at home and no where to really rush off to! We had a great time exploring places within walking distance (well, as long as we were home within an hour  so glad that isn't a rule this time) Home ed is always an option, if he doesn't settle into it as happily as you hope for it's never to late to come back to it. We are very lucky we can do it while I still work a couple days a week to keep the bank ticking over, Oscar's actually at home while his Dad is working today as my parents are isolating so I'm expecting to go home to complete carnage.