First Steps to Solvency

ladyholly

Why would anyone criticise your business. You know what you want and need to do. A certain usa president had an empire, Philip Green had an empire and several other the same. They all went so well didn't they. Small is beautiful and much easier to keep control of. You are doing fine and have enough to deal with at present. 

Humdinger1

@alt80 one more smallish point I wanted to make, which really is a reflection of how you seem to view your wife when under the influence.  There are 3 of us here too.  I spend £600 per month (more if there are more than 4 Mondays or Tuesdays in a month as I have weekly deliveries) on food.  I wouldn't blame you for clutching your pearls in horror at this- I certainly did when I first totted up- but this is because the food is 95% organic, is varied and we cook it all from scratch apart from things like pasta.  I know I'm lucky to be in a position to do this, but honestly think that properly viewed  there is no such thing as cheap food.  Sorry if this is too much of a sermon, but I'm sure I'm boosting our immune systems and helping prevent further environmental damage which only enables future pandemics, as well as giving antibiotics a fighting chance to work if we ever need them, by limiting the amount of antibiotic/pesticide residues in our systems; these will always be far higher in cheap, intensively farmed food of all kinds.  Given your overall income and what you are prepared to spend on, I wouldn't be too rigid on what good quality food costs.  Be interesting to see what your wife thinks; after all, she is the main cook and guardian of your wellbeing, at least for the moment, no? By this, I don't mean that you're going to split ; I agree with others that she is firmly by your side, but that you're finding it hard to prioritise this though that will improve.  Onward and upward Humdinger 

Willowtree222

I don't think anyone thinks your business is not good enough or bad apart from you.
To achieve what you have at 40 is amazing. You built that up, you have kept it going. 
It might not be where you want it or where you think it should be, but it's your business and it's doing well. 

getmore4less

Business looks good, between them its doing fine releasing the best part of £100k net.

Sensible growth possibilities with each sub business and all complementary spreading risk.

Option to pull in development projects

It's all what you know so can oversee that but let the team do some of the leg work. 
If you build up where you need to work more days a week to get everything covered then you you can look at people. 

If you focus on what you have and making it better should restore confidence. 

One thing you have to accept is it gets harder the bigger you get. 

Not my area but based on limited understanding. 
Think about developing when you live in the properties while doing them up you get out tax free. 

You might get away with CGT on a couple more but now you are clearly doing these as a business and that's income tax,  done in your name much harder to make any money. 
Probably more tax efficient under the Ltd umbrella.and that's where you want the money anyway to grow the units. 

Keep you head straight you can make this work and grow. 

RelievedSheff

alt80 said:

@FootyFanDan I wouldn’t put up with me mate lol know that much but yeah she has so far. 

I was getting in a better mindset with it and using the stuff less tbh. Less I bother with that more I bother with the family time but it’s the first thing to go. Not something I’m proud of tbh.

Been trying to tell myself there are positives in my life. Often feel like there are none but I think there are just need to find right mindset.

There are lots of positives in your life. You just need to open your eyes and really see them.

warby68

Morning @alt80

I obviously failed to get my message across well yesterday. I'm taking some new meds which have rendered me almost comatose though this week. Slept for 9h last night which is very weird for me. 

I don't mean think 100% about the addiction - I meant you can avoid new, extra stressful, possibly not quite right decisions for a while and just run with what you have on the go which is plenty with the block and hall, internal growth and efficiency plans. Your debt plan is set up as @getmore4less keeps trying to tell you and only needs tweaking in the short term but you keep revisiting looking for the miracle and getting so wrung out when you can't find it. Family life - wife and inlaws are still supportive. You might think you're on last chance, maybe you are, but its a good long one and there for the taking.

Why would anyone criticize your business? I have been a  little curious about your core business(as in why you say so little about this but so much about the rest)   and its great to hear you have self-funding commercial premises at decent LTV.  Presume that one's amortising, so there's another future income stream already on the way. I think there's only you that thinks you aren't 'enough'. Everything you do is related enough to benefit from synergies and cross fertilisation but not so close that its all eggs in one basket. Yes all property related, but quite well across the risk spectrums. Even your BTLS have good combined yields which is probably why you got the sporty LTV at last remortgage. No handouts along the way, built from scratch. Plus its throwing off £100k net. You possibly have a bit too much liquidity and reserves tied up in the block and other projects waiting to turn - that debt also might not be serviceable in a longer term hold pattern but you're tackling that. End of April IIRC and you can start to exit the big block.

So many positives - you need to concentrate on getting rid of the coke so you can see that and move away from the distorted world view.

Hope today is a good one

alt80

Not been on the stuff/ booze still couldn’t sleep last night. 100 need to work on getting that sorted lol. Happier January thing is an easy win today need all of those I can get.

Lost this once so hopefully makes some sense but anyway...

Hobbies - FML little bit clearer mind today remember the massive rant about wife’s interests that went on for days ha and my interests get summed up as debts/ drugs/ cars/ units. Looks quite sad thinking about it like that haha. I’d love to build a Caterham - obviously not going to do that with the debt situ but will have a think. My son loves his train set at one point my wife wanted a garden railway, some little train running round the perimeter of the garden weird imo but yeah need something else going on in my life probably.

Food - not sure why everyone seems under the impression I/ my family eat like animals haha. Don’t spend a massive amount on food not because everything we buy is cheap !!!!!! but we don’t have snacks in the house, have 2/3 days a week of chicken salad and don’t eat massive quantities compared to what I know others eat. Yeah I have the odd bit of junk food, wife doesn’t and tbh I only do because I don’t mind it once in a while and do frequent cafes on my work travels.

Business - thanks. Possibly phrased it in the wrong way, something constructive hit me up I just don’t want the snide ‘not exactly an empire’ type comments - can’t deal with that at the moment. 

@getmore4less thanks mate. Projects are all done under ltd spvs as advised by accountant, so structurally business but not from an operational/ resource POV iyswim sorry if I didn’t make that clear, just staff not involved and could be - good call on that thank you. All my live in projects have done is get me from to current res home at current res home LTV through ret profits/ cap appreciation and cap repayment. Had I not remortgaged it for works done I’d have 35LTV on current res home. Tbf I’d have probably released some equity from that and so long as it’s under 65ish I’m OK with it.

@warby68 hope you’re feeling better soon. 9h sleep is what I need in my life though lol.

Makes sense now. Yeah I need to lay off the debt plan a bit you’ve summed up what I’ve been doing 100%. Family - not exactly good at getting that right on any level something I want to sort and be ok in long run but yeah I haven’t always treated her right, know that. Not nice to live with and not nice to live with myself sometimes.

Ha knew you’d mention the LTVs lol. One of my longer term priorities to sort that tbh and seen that I can. I have tried to scale broadly to mitigate risk as you say. The block has been an ongoing issue for the reasons you mention - all being well it’ll be sorted this year which will be a massive weight lifted tbh.

RelievedSheff

You have a lot going on at the minute so it is little wonder that you are struggling with sleep!

getmore4less

The food is lumped in with other stuff with a £600pm budget, that's fine for what you post here but really needs breaking up into subcategory to do the analysis to squeeze it. 

The alcohol is an obvious one as that has up/downs.
If you pull that out and give it an annual amount you can work out what you want in the cupboard/fridge. 
I can't see you going a year without some bubbles, handy to have if date night is looking like you could be on promise

How is tackling any waste going? 

alt80

Because you all know I like a lunchtime rant and it’s Friday and I’m sure all us living the debt payment life could do with a laugh. One of those points where you really question your life choices today can tell you that haha. 

Went to café for lunch in NG5 fml know why I stopped going to some of these independent places. Sun addict will know which one I’m talking about - one that has advert for cannabis tea in the window and no I wasn’t there for that before anyone asks haha. Ordered a panini and a flat white, all their stuff comes with a side salad which is fine by me but takeaway only so it was in a little polystyrene box. Get back to car, no fork don’t know how the !!!!!! they think you’re meant to eat a side salad without a fork to be honest and I’ve never seen so much cheese oozing out of a piece of bread in my life but I’m hungry and I’ve paid so there I am in a carpark stood beside the !!!!!! car just far enough away to not accidentally projectile cheese onto my car and picking out little bits of lettuce from a box after having a mooch around a cellar straight from some comedy horror ghost train ride covered in cobwebs looking like some homeless dude. All of you who questioning your career choices on here be !!!!!! thankful this isn’t your life lol. Really do question if I get paid enough to deal with this !!!!!! on a day-to-day basis.