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Home > i feel like beating my head against a brick wall!

i feel like beating my head against a brick wall!

June 10th, 2009 at 03:21 am

because that will have about the same impact as my constant lecture-type talking-tos I have been giving to the parents regarding their financial position. ARGH! I have not been this angry in a while.

(warning: rant)

It's a long running saga that a lot of you already know. I am not going to recount the whole story, only that my mum and her partner own a flooring business (DF also works there as the main tradesman). They are absolutely TERRIBLE with money. My mum has been terrible for ever with money, never having enough, I remember her borrowing money from ME, when I was 13, for groceries. Her partner has always believed he 'deserves' things, and thinks nothing of having massive debt. He banks everything on the fact that in a few years he will sell his house in the suburbs (yes, it is worth something, even in these times) buy a block of land in a cheap as chips area, build a house (he is a builder) and live self-sufficiently with my mum for the rest of their years. He doesn't take into account that if his debt equals what his house is worth ... there's no money left!

Anyway.
So it is a revolving door with money for their business (it is not a company), mostly the bills get paid, but they are so far behind that we are relying on jobs just completed to pay for bills one to two months old - there is no cash flow buffer, even though I have tried very hard to build one up, it just doesn't happen because, oh, they need a holiday, oh, they're buying a new car, oh, they need to buy this or that or whatever.

So, it has come to the point now, where even though I have literally been saying this for months, there is now no money to pay the bills. This week we are lucky in the fact that there are only a couple of bills due: $2072, $15.40 and $6.04 as well as the credit card $4333. But OH! There is only $32XX in the account, I find this morning. I get in a shitty foul mood and my mum runs around saying 'oh there's a cheque here for $1310, oh I guess we could call customer X and get them to pay, oh and there's that other customer Y who is three months overdue'. She then leaves for her acupuncture session ($100+ a pop, once a week), telling me 'oh, we are making a $50 donation to X charity'.

*sigh*

She doesn't seem to get that it's not going to make a difference really. Next week there are going to be more bills to pay. The week after that, more. It's all these little things that keep adding up, even though they say 'we are not spending money' they still do it. They don't seem to listen when I say 'don't spend ANY money except on-job costs'. Why is that so hard to understand?

Sorry, end of rant.

5 Responses to “i feel like beating my head against a brick wall!”

  1. gamecock43 Says:
    1244601626

    Do they pay themselves first? maybe you should start paying them last...after all the bills are paid.

  2. scfr Says:
    1244604387

    I've heard bits of the story before, but this is the first time I grasped the "big picture." What a tough situation; I'm sorry.

    You have probably posted about this before, but do you and your fiance have a contingency plan in case there is not enough money to cover his paycheck? (I'm guessing the answer is "yes" because you really seem to have your head firmly attached to your shoulders.) Would you guys ever consider starting up your own business?

    This may sound brutal, but it sounds like it's to the point where you guys need to start looking out for yourselves first.

  3. whitestripe Says:
    1244605751

    gamecock: my mum gets a 'wage' of $350 a week on Tuesdays (which magically disappears by Saturday then she has to ask her partner for money for the markets) she does not pay any bills with this $350, she is just meant to buy clothes for her and my younger brother and sister and groceries. her partner doesn't get a 'wage' because it is his personal bank account all the money goes in and out of, and he has the running line of 'i'm too expensive for the business to pay me a wage' which he doesnt take into account all the bills that get paid by 'the business', the mortgage, clothes (which my mum somehow cant find the money for), and dinners out and money withdrawn to play the pokies. BLAH!

    scfr: my 2nd job is my main income earner, I am not a qualified pastry chef but I could get my qualification in 18 months or less if I wanted, and DF is a fully qualified tradesman. if things went bust with the family business, we would draw money out of the EF to pay for a floor sanding machine and DF would become a sole trader. I would do his books, and if either of us had spare time after that we can both do resort cleaning and/or hospitality work.

  4. scfr Says:
    1244606101

    It sounds like you 2 would make a great business-owning team.

    Would you ever just leave your mom's company and start your own, rather than waiting for a major disaster at hers? It would save your forehead from being bruised and bloodied (from all the brick wall head banging, you know)

  5. whitestripe Says:
    1244610263

    scfr: (it's my mum's partners business mainly) we could do it, it is always an option, but drawing a wage means less tax and paperwork for DF, not to mention the cost of being a sole trader. while he has the potential to earn a lot more, he would have a lot more on his plate mentally too. drawing a wage means he doesnt have to worry about a license, insurance, public liability, business names, work cover etc. so we could do it but we would put it off as long as we could.

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