First Steps to Solvency

ryanm8655

alt80 said:

I don’t see any room with budget tbh. We’ve done what we can also struggling with the idea of letting the BMW go and having one car between us tbh know that makes things worse financially and would have to make our minds up with what to do with it at the end of the term as I don’t think we’d pay the balloon. Also puts us behind to pay the balloon on the RR so a bit difficult. 

Have a bit of hope I’ll be able to give myself a bit of a boost if I do manage to sell the block in its entirety - get rid of the cards then just be working on sorting the cars out. Get those sorted and then onto the PGs doesn’t !!!!!! end lol but not holding out much hope right now. Know it would be better to throw into capital and majority I would but not having £1k/m going on cards would be a massive help.

Still very slowly building a bit of a sinking fund and throwing holiday budget at it as we’ve no chance of going away with current covid restrictions. Both wife and I have resigned ourselves to 1 holiday to go see my parents next summer. It’ll cost £1k so from what we’re keeping to that’ll be £3k by end of next year as a sinking fund. Not amazing but some steps in the right direction I think. 

My wife has actually done L2/3 PT quals. She’s trained a few mums for free from school but finds their commitment is poor, they want to put 0 work in, smash three Maccies a week and still think they’ll get abs. When it doesn’t work and they’re still fat, they’ve every excuse in the world about various BS ‘women’s issues’ haha. She 100 tells them how it is, savage lol and they don’t like it. So yeah probably not going to work unless she worked with people that were properly committed to improving their fitness/ gym based maybe.

Keeping myself out of trouble right now at least ha. 

All steps massively in the right direction.

You sound a lot more positive, which is good. 

From experience I’d allow a bit of optimism bias on the holiday spends haha. But puttting anything away is a massive achievement and change.

Re: wife, I reckon they’d be a lot more committed if paying for it. It’s like counselling, if you miss a session you still have to pay so that the commitment and motivation is there. Sounds like she’s be an excellent PT if she could get some paying clients.

stymied

How much is the insurance for doing nails / being a PT?

getmore4less

When it comes to holidays and money if you are going, or even able, to do the Greece thing in the summer(an extended trip?), don't forget you have the normal spending at home that you can add to the pot to stretch it a bit further, a month of your food budget might go a bit further over there.

Personally on the 2nd car front I would still explore the options through the company.
I think you will be able to run something decent for less than it is costing now and have more log run to get the RR paid for and start the road to the next toy.

alt80

Well budget resets tomorrow. Spent some time this evening going through stuff with wife, didn’t finish it but will tomorrow. Not easy and don’t feel great but not going to go down the roads I have been. Work life busy this week so not feeling awful - no time too and lots positive in the business so that’s definitely propping me up.

Think you’re right re PT thing - paying clients more likely to have motivation. She’s found with the nails (well that didn’t really go to plan this month ha) that people were more willing to pay than she thought. She’s got a lack of confidence / dread with working all stems from a rubbish job she had when she met me because her parents made her get a job (rightly ha) when she dropped out of uni. I’ve told her on many occasions she ought to try to do something she’s interested in as I think it would really improve her confidence generally. She’s not had the easiest of times with some of the mums at school, does have some mates from there tbf but some of them haven’t been the easiest for her to get on with. Would be nice if she could cover the holidays and school fees say £20k/a net not gonna lie. Don’t realistically think she’s going to go down the route of anything more than a hobby business tbh and I’ve got my own business life without running salons and gyms. Maybe one day but now I’ve got enough on my plate right now tbf and quite risky to be entering into the market with covid etc now.

@Sarahwithlove I’ll suggest that, she follows some of them on IG. 

@stymied no idea re PT but the nails cost £8/m in insurance and £20/m in materials. I don’t want her doing many more sets of nails - a lot of the chemicals are pretty nasty tbh and not convinced good for her to be spending hours a day.  

@ryanm8655 not touched the booze or anything else for a few days, limited coffee and been quite strict about going to bed. Sleep still not amazing but definitely better. All that does me the world of good tbh just can’t see it when I’m caught in the spiral of using. Not somewhere I want to be again truthfully. I’ve been in a really dark place past few weeks.

@getmore4less A month???! Are you actually trying to kill me? 10 days / two weeks max. I don’t want to be away for a month not for a 5 star in Dubai never mind crashing at my parents’ tiny flat lol. Last time we went there for two weeks, I spent the entire last week reliving my teenage life waiting on tables and pulling pints. My mum had told someone who helps them out when busy they could have an extra week off because I was there to help FML. Money wise it’ll be super cheap, obviously won’t eat with my parents all meals but at least get a free dinner every night. No accommodation costs, just flights, ferry and some spending money on lunches/ boat trips to other islands.

Still considering something through the company as an option. Idk what really would prefer not to have anything electric or diesel. Don’t want anything FWD / 4WD and ideally would like a 2 door coupe with decent performance sub5 to 60. Honestly dreaming to get anything like that list with reasonable payments and low BIK. Not thought seriously about it for a while though. Know it’s avoidance but thinking I’ll probably review in January. We can live with one car tbh will mean piling all mileage on the RR, no option for wife to drive anywhere during business hours unless I’m in etc. Just doesn’t feel right. I am also still considering getting a loan for an XJS, handing the BMW back. Possibly go down the route of a directors loan but doubt I could pay it back in time. I know it’s further finance but the BMW will just keep losing money and I wouldn’t lose anything on an XJS, might even claw the interest back when sold.

RelievedSheff

Good to see that you are more positive about things this week

Willowtree222

The car comments make me smile. When I realised I needed to tackle my debt, I traded an A4 in for a Dacia. Had to be done in the short term. The sales guy thought it was a wind up. 
I quickly got used to it and the only person on the road bothered by it was me. 

getmore4less

Going back to things you have said earlier it has become apparent that part of the thinking driving you is the easy option of not having to make choices and have everything, the house the portfolio the garage full of cars the fancy holidays .......

Like it or not even those at the very top are making choices and prioritising the allocation of resources to get where they want to be and you have to do the same.

You can have a  "want"  second car or a "need" second car or no second car  with more property in the portfolio that will then fund the "want" cars a little later.

You need to be sucking less out of your business to make the retained funds work better for you.
That means doing the analysis what the sensible options and the want option  costs over the next 5 years and how many BTL units is the difference
(or any measure you want CAR V BTL is just one option)

 

alt80

Starting to get back into the gym life again ha. Upper body 2 this morning. Think this needs to become a routine sets me up for the day, not self destructive, hopefully will halt the dad bod FML not there yet ha and makes wife happy. Win win. 

Mentioned the training to her and putting that MacBook to some use with the online option ha. She’s not sure, she follows quite a few of the big name trainers on IG. Told her the rubbish experience with mums doesn’t have to be how it is and possibly been looking for wrong type of clients for her - she’s not going to cope with 30/40 odd year old women moaning about the sort of BS they moan about. Very lucky wife is not like that, she gets on with stuff - exercise is her thing and not ashamed she’s fit lol. I think she’d be amazing with clients who actually wanted to work towards results.

@RelievedSheff in a lot better place tbh not doing self destructive stuff makes a difference for me.

@Nicnak FML I’d rather be in debt forever than drive a Dacia. Not that committed to the debt free life sorry.

@getmore4less completely agree with you mate I’ve spent my life doing whatever I can to get the wants and I want it all. Now paying for it I know. 

Not gonna lie the cars are a struggle for me to cut. Holidays made the commitment to massively cut that.

Tbh £400/m not going to make a massive difference either way imo but I could be saying that because I’m trying to justify the cars to myself again.  

alt80

NG in tier 3 again FML. Rates been falling over this lockdown so don’t understand this at all. So !!!!!! fed up of these lockdowns now. Not gonna lie has been partially fuelling the self destructive stuff just want life to be back to normal, get out again, back to office firing on all 8, stuff to do on weekends.

Not even sure lockdown helping with spending did the first time but now all I want to do is go on a massive spending binge after this !!!!!! news. 

Rate rising in London - placed in tier 2. Falling in Nottingham - tier 3. 100 London / SE bias going on yet again. 

RelievedSheff

Look on the bright side it should be another cheap month!

We have been lumped in with Nottinghamshire again despite having very few cases in the area.

Can anyone remember what a pub is?