£67,031.92 is a frightening number indeed....

RoslinGirl

Dear TOPM,
Like others I am coming out of lurkdom because of your inspiring diary! So much so that I have set up a profile to enable me to contribute just to send this message. What a meteoric day it has been for me! ��
Firstly, I would like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to share your journey. My overall impression was that you have become a true manager of money which is a job that will change constantly and never be perfect all the time. I am inspired by your change of mind set, so thank you.
I found your diary and lurk about these forums not specifically because I personally want to set a target of reducing debt more that I am interested in the emotional relationships we all have with money. I have been in the situation or having very little income and also very high income and yet I feel I have never quite felt at peace with it. I have been reading books along the lines of Financial Recovery etc. I very much support your decision not to focus on the debt repayment puritanically. In my opinion a black and white view of finances over simplifies the impact it has on all aspects of our life.
Also, I think you are an entertaining and insightful Writer, so I am sure you will be a roaring success if you are choosing to focus more on that. It has always crossed my mind that perhaps your greatest asset is your following on here. However, I do very much appreciate that anonymity is a huge thing to sacrifice.
I have meant to take time to work out how to post on here for a while but your question about Franchises has finally made me take action. Some years ago, I set up and ran a business which had a franchise model for growth (I was the Franchisor). I have since sold the business and I am in no way a Lawyer; however, I do have a good understanding of the legal framework. If it is helpful to you, I am happy to help you in any way I can, perhaps even signpost you in the right direction. I have no idea how to message privately but no doubt you will know and can get in touch with me directly if that is useful. However, I do very much hope you have the matter resolved.
Thank you again for your diary and I think you are doing fantastically! All the best for 2019.

RG

Treadingonplaymobil

Morning! Had my first day of 'proper' work yesterday as the DC were back to school, which was lovely. I made a real effort to ensure that the house was clear and tidy so I could crack on with work for the entire day, and then actually STOP after the school run because I had everything done, and be able to get onto house stuff again. Hopefully this routine will continue, as it's much less stressful to have clear boundaries around work and home time.

Something that has been really interesting is that every time a domestic job has cropped up (ordering a new coat for DC1, emailing the builder something, calling Sainsbury's energy re our RIDICULOUS DD increase etc etc) I have added it to a big list in the kitchen that DH and I are sharing, and it's really showing me how many domestic things I was doing during my working day. There's hours and hours of work held within that list, and if I'd been getting on with it all I wouldn't be doing any work for my business at all. I think DH is quaking slightly about us now both sharing the responsibility for all of those things!

Good and bad news on the franchise front. The company haven't said they will make it difficult for me to leave, but haven't yet confirmed terms (I expect it's going to involve paying them a big chunk of money). They have asked me to make an attempt at selling the business first which I have done and have actually had two expressions of interest (although I'm not certain if either is serious). A lawyer friend has looked through the contract and said basically I don't have a leg to stand on regarding leaving my contract, so am entirely dependent on the goodwill of the franchise company. This is really stressful as I thought I was in a slightly better position than that. I am trying to let it roll for now and see what unfolds over the coming days and weeks. Worst case scenario is three years worth of fees to them, which equates to around £3.6k, which would be absolutely crippling. My alternative is to deliberately breach contract, but that gets me into all sorts of nasty possibilities around paying damages etc. Yuck. Fingers crossed they are semi-reasonable or one of the expressions of interest in the business goes somewhere. I have another friend who is a contract solicitor checking it through too, so maybe they will spot something else.

I was chatting to my mother yesterday and although she doesn't know about the debt, she pointed out that all of our major financial problems have been down to what I was led to believe I would earn by this company - we took on wildly expensive childcare for two and then three children (cost around £24k for the two years we had it) and rented a house at around £400pm more than we otherwise would have (almost £15k over the three years, we stayed in a big house longer than we had childcare), which accounts for a huge proportion of the debt. Never mind the additional costs of conferences, networking events etc that never really paid their way. The rest of the debt was really accrued once that big chunk was taken on as we couldn't then meet our living expenses. I don't want to blame the company entirely as I obviously made the decision to sign up and didn't do the due diligence I should have - I went in with way too much blind trust that it would happen as they said it would - but I really really want to close this chapter of our life which has affected me so much. Ugh. Stress.

Anyway, I need to try not to be too anxious about it and just let it unfold this week - I should have more information in the next day or two about the costs I will incur if I leave, as well as hopefully a clearer idea of whether selling the business is a realistic prospect.

Roslingirl - thank you so much for your support and offer to help. I think I will message you in a day or two when I have more information if that's ok? There is a private messaging facility on here (on my computer it is accessed through the little round bubble that appear in the top left of my screen, not sure if there are different view options, but it might be there for you too), and I will be seriously grateful for any advice!

Oh, and as if that wasn't enough fun, our builder is now vat registered, so an instant huge price hike to our build. Hurrah.

I am trying to treat the challenges above as incentives to really get cracking on my own business and make the money there, but because I know there is going to be a bit of lag before I start to make significant money there it's tricky to remain super positive. Nothing like an incentive to give one a kick up the behind though!

Sea_Shell

Sorry to hear that leaving the contract might not be a straightforward as you'd hoped. Was if for Younique Cosmetics? One of my friends used to be heavily into that, not sure if it was a franchise or not, but I bet they spent a lot on attending seminars and sample stock etc. I could bend her ear for some advise if it is.

Starmummy

Ouch on the VAT. that is a nasty suprise indeed.

Fingers crossed the contract can be broken.

You seem to have an entire new energy at the moment. Determined and strong.

It's really lovely to see.

Take care lovely.
SM
x

mfmaybe

I'd have a chat with your builder. He will now have to recharge vat on his time, but essentially he will now benefit from the vat on any "profit margin" on materials and some of his costs. (You'd have had to pay the vat on trade price at least in any case). Perhaps he can take that in to account and try to honour the price he gave you, by dropping his rate a little to account for the hike? I understand he may not have had a choice to register if he reached the threshold, but that shouldn't have been a surprise to him and he should have given you some warning when he quoted.

Doodles152

With regards to the franchise, couldn't you just let it run without actually doing any work and therefore not incurring the costs of leaving? or does it cost you money ongoing?

missymoo81

Hi Hun, I’m back after a long break, just trying to catch up. well done on taking such a massive decision and such a positive one for your life. Your new ideas sound amazing! Can’t wait to see where your adventure goes x

babychick

Hi TOPM, I’ve not posted in a while but just wanted to let you know that I think you’re doing the right thing (not that you need validation from strangers on the internet!)... the importance of happiness of you and your family cannot be underestimated, life is short!
I love your writing style and have had your diary open in a browser window on my phone for months, I was, I must admit, a bit sad and missed your posts the last couple of months so I’m pleased to see you back here. I’d love to pointed in the direction of your blog when the time comes too x

Mum_of_2_monkeys

Having not posted for a year! (But have been keeping up with your updates) I’ve finally found my username & password again ��

Just wanted to say - it sounds like you’re finally confident & comfortable with your newpersonal style of debt reduction & it’s so good to see. It was wonderful to see the numbers going down, but it all seemed like such a struggle and at such a cost to your family (I know that getting rid of debt is always going to come at a cost). All the best with the new direction & I really hope that you get a smooth start rather than another big chunk of money to pay.

Treadingonplaymobil

Almost the end of my first full working week (well, Tuesday to Friday!) under the New Regime. And what a stress it's been. Not the work itself, which is wonderful, and I'm loving having time to focus on it properly, just everything else!

I spoke to the franchise company and it looks like the negotiations will be painful and awful and stressful, but financially not as bad as the worst case £3.6k. I think my worst case scenario is now looking more like £1.8k, but hopefully it will be significantly less than that. There is still a chance that one of the interested people will buy the business too. DH has been incredibly supportive, really really amazing, and just stood by me when I've been having raging guilt about the whole thing and reminded me we decided together to do these things and we'll work through it together. He's really been great.

Doodles152 - I could do that, but there is a slim chance the company could sue me for damages for not operating as a proper franchisee.

On the subject of stressful financial hurdles, the builder is coming round to discuss next week, so hopefully we'll get a clearer idea of how bad the VAT situation is going to be. I'm also really hoping we'll get a more definite start date and figure out anything we can do ourselves to bring the cost down. One of the upsides of sorting out my 'working during the week and not on the weekends' thing this year is that we have three weekends in four free, so could do work on the garden and prepping the house for the build ourselves.

Life coaching was great yesterday, and I feel nicely confident in the route I'm going down. I also have a hard metric to track to make sure the growth I need is coming - social media followers in the first instance, then newsletter sign ups once that launches next month. I've worked out a minimum growth level of both of these to ensure I'm on track to have a sustainable business by the end of the year. It means I'll be able to judge a lot sooner than December if things aren't moving in the right direction, and shift as necessary in order to get the growth I need. I also have a really clear checklist of things to get done by the time we meet again.

What else? Not a lot else going on. The big list of jobs on the piece of paper in the kitchen is stretching to epic proportions, which is really interesting - so much I did that I didn't really think about, but it's probably a full day's worth of 'stuff' for two people. I really am surprised by how much extra I was doing. I need to work one day this weekend (January cannot adhere to the 'one weekend a month working' rule due to prior commitments made), but Sunday is going to be 90% spent on house jobs, emails, bill paying, sorting children's clothes etc etc etc. I guess that's somewhat the way it goes when you have two people actually working all week rather than one of them just pretending to while being a housewife!