Plan F – The Execution
I’ve been absent the past few weeks. It was part of the plan to keep logging the steps as I went but exhaustion crept in and time was not my friend. But I have executed the plan and now we have to see if it works.
I have been in my new food business for 3 weeks and have a plan on how to grow it quickly so that it is covering rent and wages within the next month. I have another month up my sleeve if this doesn’t quite make it, but I am determined to make this happen.
In my first 2 weeks everything I feared happening, happened. Three staff were off sick on the same day, no customers came and then I got sick and couldn’t get out of bed.
The world did not cave in and we managed to get through all of it.
So if that can happen, everything is going to be OK.
My daughter is going to join me soon which will help me grow the business more quickly and it also suits her other commitments.
In terms of personal finance, living way below my means is working well. The business is covering my house rent which is at $365.00 per week. My transport to work is $4.00 a day or $20.00 a week. Food is covered by the business. My personal phone bill is halved from $500 a month to $200 a month give or take. I haven’t received my electricity or gas yet, but seeing that I’m not home during the day anymore and my son is at university, I’m expecting these to also be significantly lower than previously.
When I have some more data on the business I will be sharing it here to show it’s growth (or not) in the coming months so you can all see what can happen when you’re running a food business. I haven’t seen this anywhere before so I’m hoping it helps others with a similar dream, but it will also keep me accountable. By making it public I can look at it with a much less invested and personal eye and look at it as a business and give my advice as if I were a client. That’s the plan anyway.
Buying a business is not for the faint hearted. There are hundreds of hoops you have to jump through and many unexpected expenses even though you plan for just about everything I was still hit by a few unforeseen. I had a generous cushion just in case and I was glad I did that. I’ll blog about the process in a separate post because it’s long and it needs attention to detail if I’m going to give you any real knowledge and help about how to go about it. It is less risky, in my opinion, than starting from scratch, but it is still not without danger.
I’m putting it all on black. That’s a risky move but the only one I have and I believe I can pull it off. All my research suggests this is the way forward. So right or wrong, here we go.
