All in all, I think I'm handling things well. Not perfectly, mind you, but as well as can be expected. It's really been a heck of a ride since March. For those of you fortunate enough not to have been following along, it went like this:
1. Finances went to hell in a handbasket.
2. Business started going into its death throes.
3. Had to drop out of Law School.
4. Needed to start the divorce in earnest because of #1.
5. Grandma died on May. For those of you not familiar, she is the one who raised me.
It's really been a constant hit-parade of crappiness since the Spring. I did get a little bit of luck, though. I got a job I had applied for in the Spring. Love the job. The paycheck is sorta depressing, but I'll just have to slog it out and get promoted. In this economy, jobs are hard to come by and I'm lucky to have this one.
Every now and then, though, I just feel worn out and down. It's a heck of a lot to deal with all at once. I may have finished up the liquidation of the business this week. If things work out, I'll collect one last check, pay one last creditor, then dissolve the business entity.
So, that simplifies my life. It is a bummer to think that my business is gone, but hey, it happens. I have looked for ways to beat myself up for this for a long time, now, and in the end, after countless hours of soul searching, I really can't put my finger on anything that I did that should have led to the business collapsing.
It's not like I'm the only one. One of my friends just a little to the north got so disgusted, he basically turned his keys back in and auctioned all his stuff off for pennies on the dollar. Too many lean years. He just wanted out. My neighbor to the West is looking for a buyer to see if he can salvage at least a little money out of his business.
The downturn just lasted too long for us all. We all did what we could to wait it out, but there comes a point where courage and stupidity intersect. We probably all reached that point a while ago and just kept plugging along on the "stupidity" path.
I miss my son. The business really allowed me to set my own hours and to be with him as much as possible. For that, I'm truly thankful. Even if the business cratered, it gave me almost 8 great years with my boy that I would not have had otherwise.
Now, though, time to pay the piper. I see him 2 days mid-week and every other weekend. That's probably going to be it for the foreseeable future. I want him to stay in his hometown. This is where he has lived his entire life so far. His mom works at the local hospital. So it's left to me to make things work with my son in Toledo, and my job in Dayton.
The commute and hassles do wear me down now and then. I look forward to the weekends to recharge my batteries. Lately, they haven't been that relaxing because of all the work I've had to do to liquidate the business. But it seems like the heavy lifting is done, finally. My weekends can be my own, now.
I really need to clean up my house. It's a disgusting and depressing pigsty. That's the next project.
In the mean time, I know that part of why I'm sorta down is that I'm tired. Need to watch a little Breaking Bad on Netflix, then get some sleep before my 3 hour commute tomorrow morning.
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
It's finally over
We got nearly no new work in June. It's over. I'll have to shut down the business. Things are complicated by my pending divorce. They filed a standard injunction to keep me from selling any assets. Timing of the whole thing is inconvenient.
However, it sort of makes sense that all this would happen at once. If the business were prosperous, I would have money to pay my bills and help out the soon-to-be-ex. I wouldn't have to look for a job. Everything is sort of falling on me all at once.
I will have to declare personal bankruptcy. On the one hand, I guess I am a little bit grateful that I lasted more than a year longer than I thought I would. I thought I was going to be out of business last March.
So, all told, I have to liquidate my business, navigate a bankruptcy, finish a divorce and either get ready for school in the fall or get a job. Easy stuff.
However, it sort of makes sense that all this would happen at once. If the business were prosperous, I would have money to pay my bills and help out the soon-to-be-ex. I wouldn't have to look for a job. Everything is sort of falling on me all at once.
I will have to declare personal bankruptcy. On the one hand, I guess I am a little bit grateful that I lasted more than a year longer than I thought I would. I thought I was going to be out of business last March.
So, all told, I have to liquidate my business, navigate a bankruptcy, finish a divorce and either get ready for school in the fall or get a job. Easy stuff.
Saturday, March 17, 2012
A little rain
"When I knew that my crop was irrevocably gone I experienced a deathly feeling which, I hope, can affect a man only once in a lifetime. My dreams and ambitions had been flouted by nature, and my shattered ideals seemed gone forever. The very desire to make a success of my life was gone. The spirit and urge to strive were dead within me. Fate had dealt me a cruel blow above which I felt utterly unable to rise."
-Lawrence Svobida, Farming the Dust Bowl
We got a little bit of a thunderstorm two nights ago. Picked up a little work. May be too little too late, but better than nothing.
If I were not in the middle of my semester, I'd be liquidating the business right now. I've already done some back of the envelope calculations. It doesn't appear that I could pay off all my debt, but I could pay off a chunk of it.
I am starting out, though, selling off anything that I think can be sold. For instance, the John Deere commercial tractor I bought a few years back has got to go. I still owe maybe $3,000 on the note, but it looks like it will sell for much more than that.
It's going to set a chain of events into motion. After that, I'll use the money to fix up some broken equipment and then sell it off. The business is being crushed by its debt burden right now. The equipment I'm selling off hasn't been used in years. That equipment will fix up other equipment, and so on. We have so much broken equipment sitting around the warehouse. It has broken over the past few years and there was just never any money to fix it.
Back when we were a much bigger company, before the downturn, we bought a lot of stuff to add capacity. However, we haven't needed any of this capacity since mid-2009. That's not a momentary lull. That's a permanent change of business conditions.
I'm also applying for jobs, as I've done for two years, now. My experiences are reminding me why I enrolled in law school. It's a tough job market if you're a former middle manager in your mid-40s. I'm too qualified for employers to want to hire me into lower and semi-skilled jobs, but my skills aren't specific enough to match jobs at a more appropriate level. The fact that I used to work in IT, and my skills are out of date is another problem.
That's why I enrolled in Law School. However, getting through Law School required that I made at least a little money in the business.
Right now, the business is really threatening to derail my entire life. The prospects are too horrific to even contemplate. Losing the house, declaring bankruptcy... to top it all off, the informal agreement that my soon-to-be ex and I had worked out is unravelling. I'm initiating divorce proceedings.
I hope I can get through this. It's just hard to think about. Right now, I need to pray that the business sustains itself at least to the middle of May. At that point, the semester will be over, and I can give myself the full-time job of liquidating everything.
In the mean time, I'll still try to sell off some stuff here and there. I need to focus on the semester, though. I need to at least get sufficiently good grades to finish out my 1L year. Doing that opens the possibility of transferring to a different school later, or picking up again after a layoff, should I need to drop out for a little while.
It is strange that it was this time last year that I was last confronted with the possibility of bankruptcy. Somehow, we managed to string together enough jobs to barely stay in business. We got enough business that we bumped along the bottom until December, when things really took a dive.
Winter never came around to save us. Now, our only hope is Spring rains. I'm getting to the point now where I'm becoming superstitious about this, though. Like we're just fated to fail.
I guess superstition is the way the mind deals with situations where the bulk of what's going to happen is totally outside your control. I didn't create the worst economy in 80 years. I didn't create the local economy. I didn't create the changes in the industry that have slowly raised costs and reduced our pricing. I sure didn't create this incredibly mild weather that's been a bane to my business for the past three years.
All I can do is continue to captain my battered ship as best I can. If we survive, we survive. If we don't, we don't. All I can do is the best I can do.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Sometimes it just isn't any fun...
Seems like a little less than a year ago, I started blogging to chronicle my impending bankruptcy. Had a good turn of fortune for a few months and was able to pull out. Now, I'm back and on the brink again.
I'm just so worn out and tired right now. No money in the bank. Had to take out another cash advance on a credit card to make payroll. All tapped out, now. Nothing left. We do have some A/R, but lord only knows when it will come in.
I am racing to try and finish my J.D. before the business goes under. At the current time, I would rate my chances of winning this race at less than 50%. Still, I have no choice but to soldier on.
The weather continues to be a cruel joke. The unseasonably nice weather has lasted for almost 3 straight years, now.
To top it all off, the soon-to-be ex is somehow convinced that I'm holding out on her somehow. She thinks I have money that I'm not divulging. Probably being egged on by an incompetent shyster divorce attorney. All they'd have to do is pull a credit bureau and they'd know everything they need to know.
We'll see how it goes, but right now, things are pretty bleak. Could be chronicling the bankruptcy any time, now.
All I can do is take it one week at a time. If it happens, it happens. I'm still a year + away from things getting better, and they won't start to get noticeably better until Summer 2013.
Although the analogy is grossly politically incorrect, it's as though it's Little Bighorn and I'm surrounded. Every moment, I'm fighting, but my only hope is for the cavalry to come charging. I can't win the way the battle is rolling out right now.
Trouble is, the cavalry is a long ways off. In a couple of months, I'll be 1/3 through with my law degree. (Provided I pass all my classes... not exactly a foregone conclusion.) However, that cavalry regiment is more than 2 years away. Throw in passing the bar and starting a practice and that's truly a long-term fix.
The debt starts being retired in a year and a half. Then, things get progressively better for a year after that. However, that's more than a year off and it won't fully come to the rescue for nearly three years.
The only other thing that could save me would be the condition of the business, now. If sales pick up, I'll be fine. However, the trend has been going in clearly the opposite direction.
So, what do I do? Keep circling the troops. Keep firing as best I can. Try to hang on for those long-term fixes, and meanwhile pray for an unexpected reprieve.
Things haven't exactly gone my way, but I don't have much other choice.
Will keep ya posted. So far, this sucks.
I'm just so worn out and tired right now. No money in the bank. Had to take out another cash advance on a credit card to make payroll. All tapped out, now. Nothing left. We do have some A/R, but lord only knows when it will come in.
I am racing to try and finish my J.D. before the business goes under. At the current time, I would rate my chances of winning this race at less than 50%. Still, I have no choice but to soldier on.
The weather continues to be a cruel joke. The unseasonably nice weather has lasted for almost 3 straight years, now.
To top it all off, the soon-to-be ex is somehow convinced that I'm holding out on her somehow. She thinks I have money that I'm not divulging. Probably being egged on by an incompetent shyster divorce attorney. All they'd have to do is pull a credit bureau and they'd know everything they need to know.
We'll see how it goes, but right now, things are pretty bleak. Could be chronicling the bankruptcy any time, now.
All I can do is take it one week at a time. If it happens, it happens. I'm still a year + away from things getting better, and they won't start to get noticeably better until Summer 2013.
Although the analogy is grossly politically incorrect, it's as though it's Little Bighorn and I'm surrounded. Every moment, I'm fighting, but my only hope is for the cavalry to come charging. I can't win the way the battle is rolling out right now.
Trouble is, the cavalry is a long ways off. In a couple of months, I'll be 1/3 through with my law degree. (Provided I pass all my classes... not exactly a foregone conclusion.) However, that cavalry regiment is more than 2 years away. Throw in passing the bar and starting a practice and that's truly a long-term fix.
The debt starts being retired in a year and a half. Then, things get progressively better for a year after that. However, that's more than a year off and it won't fully come to the rescue for nearly three years.
The only other thing that could save me would be the condition of the business, now. If sales pick up, I'll be fine. However, the trend has been going in clearly the opposite direction.
So, what do I do? Keep circling the troops. Keep firing as best I can. Try to hang on for those long-term fixes, and meanwhile pray for an unexpected reprieve.
Things haven't exactly gone my way, but I don't have much other choice.
Will keep ya posted. So far, this sucks.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
This Economy is Such a Joy
Had to let go of another employee, lowering our headcount to 4. It continues to be a situation where no matter how much I slash, I'm always behind. We continue to lose volume. On the bright side, I've slashed costs. Our nut is pretty small right now. We should be profitable at any volume over $300,000 or so.
I find myself drifting in time to when I start paying off the notes. That's too far off, and I'm afraid I'm going to wear myself out on that, but in a little more than a year, it starts. The idea that this will free up over $40,000 a year in cash flow is pretty much what I have to look forward to in this business.
The other way to attack this is through sales. We absolutely must increase sales if this business is going to be worthwhile at all. One thing is for sure. We haven't had good sales since mid-2009. This will be three straight bad years. Hard to believe I'm still standing after all this.
I need to just get the debt paid off, finish law school, and sell the business and move on. This is not how I want to spend the rest of my life.
I find myself drifting in time to when I start paying off the notes. That's too far off, and I'm afraid I'm going to wear myself out on that, but in a little more than a year, it starts. The idea that this will free up over $40,000 a year in cash flow is pretty much what I have to look forward to in this business.
The other way to attack this is through sales. We absolutely must increase sales if this business is going to be worthwhile at all. One thing is for sure. We haven't had good sales since mid-2009. This will be three straight bad years. Hard to believe I'm still standing after all this.
I need to just get the debt paid off, finish law school, and sell the business and move on. This is not how I want to spend the rest of my life.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Cost Reduction Prequel...
Really, reducing costs for the biz started last fall when I changed insurance providers. The savings was massive. I will have to dig into the numbers, but it was easily several grand. I think $6,000 is being conservative.
So, with phone savings, trash savings and insurance savings, I lowered my annual costs by maybe $15,000, just on the business side, not personal.
That's encouraging. The biz can survive. It just takes diligence. Take whatever I made last year and add $15,000 to it for this year.
Obviously, I need to keep looking for costs to wring out, but there are only so many non-labor costs to work with. It's not that labor costs are off the table, but I think we're running lean, now, and there's a human aspect to cutting labor costs.
Throw in the goal of reaching 2014, when all our term-debt will be paid off, and when you consider the money that is now going to term loans, that'll add another $40,000 to cash flow. Really, $55,000 isn't a world-altering sum of money, but it's equivalent to the annual income of a lot of folks with good jobs. It'll also come at a good time: when I'm finishing law school. I can use it to pay off my personal loans and start my law practice.
So, things are good, but the name of the game is still survival. Move forward, one step at a time. Right now is a tense time. The weather is not cooperating and we're not getting work. Still, need to just stay in there and take our swings. Every month the biz is still standing is a minor victory.
At the moment, we're pretty strong as far as being current with everything, but next month will be a tough one. We'll just have to keep playing the cards we're dealt.
So, with phone savings, trash savings and insurance savings, I lowered my annual costs by maybe $15,000, just on the business side, not personal.
That's encouraging. The biz can survive. It just takes diligence. Take whatever I made last year and add $15,000 to it for this year.
Obviously, I need to keep looking for costs to wring out, but there are only so many non-labor costs to work with. It's not that labor costs are off the table, but I think we're running lean, now, and there's a human aspect to cutting labor costs.
Throw in the goal of reaching 2014, when all our term-debt will be paid off, and when you consider the money that is now going to term loans, that'll add another $40,000 to cash flow. Really, $55,000 isn't a world-altering sum of money, but it's equivalent to the annual income of a lot of folks with good jobs. It'll also come at a good time: when I'm finishing law school. I can use it to pay off my personal loans and start my law practice.
So, things are good, but the name of the game is still survival. Move forward, one step at a time. Right now is a tense time. The weather is not cooperating and we're not getting work. Still, need to just stay in there and take our swings. Every month the biz is still standing is a minor victory.
At the moment, we're pretty strong as far as being current with everything, but next month will be a tough one. We'll just have to keep playing the cards we're dealt.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
The $10,000 Project
I am going to set a goal of saving $10,000 this year. Not technically "saving", but avoiding $10,000 in costs. That is real money.
I have a few ground rules for this. One is that nothing I do can have any impact on my son at all. I want to save money, but not at his expense. The other is that I am not trying to be Amish. I'm going to keep cable TV. There's programming on cable that you can't get through Netflix or over the air, like Disney channel, which my son watches quite a bit. Also, I like to keep up with sports now and then.
A third rule is that the savings have to be actual savings that I would have paid if not for taking action. It's too easy to play games with this, like, "I would have paid full price for a pizza, but used a coupon, so I saved $10.00." None of that. It has to be real savings.
Fourth, this will combine personal and business spending. I doubt I could squeeze this much cost-avoidance out of my personal budget, alone.
The first item on this list is my cell phone bill. I'm paying over $200 a month. It's also probable, I was overpaying for a service I requested to be cancelled. At the moment, it looks like I may be able to save about $120 a month on this and might be able to get as much as a $600 credit. So, this move, alone, could save me about $2,000.
I'll keep posting my progress. I'm waiting for word back from Sprint on whether they'll credit me from the date that I requested that a service be removed. If they don't, I'll be leaving Sprint for good. We'll just have to see.
============
January 13, 2012:
Just changed trash service. Will save a little over $160 a month, for an annual savings of about $2,000. We went from 2 dumpsters, serviced once a week, to 2 dumpsters, once a month.
============
January 18, 2012
Have been baking a lot and eating meals at home. Contrast to previously, where I ate almost all my meals, out.
If we take out the acquisition cost of all the junk I bought, this still represents a huge savings.
Okay, here's how I calculated the savings:
1. Bake 2 loaves of bread per week, vs. buying one loaf of bread. I've also already made hamburger buns and will try hot-dog buns here, soon. Conservatively, I'm calling the cost-avoidance $2.00 per week in avoided bread costs.
2. Bake 1 pizza per week, versus my typical take-out pizza order. Conservatively, $20 per week in pizza expense.
3. Eat at home for the equivalent of 5 days a week, versus eating out pretty much every meal, all week long. Conservatively, $5 for breakfast, $8 for lunch, and $10 for dinner, 5 days a week.
Subtract $1,000 in cooking supplies and $2,600 in annual grocery shopping costs, and the total cost savings for the above is $3,524.
4. Avoid one pop from the pop machine, 5 days a week, 8 months a year. Total cost avoidance, conservatively, about $215.
So, food cost avoidance is $3740, for a total cost avoidance so far of $5,740.
==============
Still waiting to hear from Sprint. That should be a $2,000 cost avoidance. However, if they don't pipe up, soon, I'm going to just get a $45 a month plan from some local provider. I also bought an Ooma box, to provide phone service to my home. I really need one. However, I won't include avoided landline cost into the forumula.
However, conservatively, this should work out as follows:
Current cell phone cost is about $2,700.
Cost of Ooma Box: $200
Cost of new Cell Phone: $100
Cost of new cell phone plan: $600
So, worst-case, I'm looking at about an $1,800 cost avoidance.
So, the total should be up to about $7,500 here, soon.
I'm considering dropping my gym membership, but it's so cheap, just $20 a month. I don't have to use it much for it to be well worth it. I think it will depend mostly on how often I get there.
===========================
January 19, 2012: Business VOIP
Okay, getting voip for my home was an inspiration. I am going to get it for the business, too. All told, we were paying about $430/month for services that we can get for $130/month with VOIP.
It will cost us a bit. We need to buy 4 IP phones at $90, each. It will also cost us $250 in cancellation fees for our main lines.
So, costs: $560 in cancellation and new phones. This will probably happen by first part of February, but fudging, conservatively, we'll say we will only save money for 10 months instead of 11.
So, 300/month for 10 months, less $560 in costs and it's $2,440.
Basically, that does it. $10,000 in savings and oddly, the biggest savings just came from telephones. Not surprising is how much money I could save on food.
That was a lot easier than I thought it would be. I think I'm going to see if I can wring out some more savings. I'm going to be on a mission in 2012. I won't retire any of my term-debt, but I can try to reduce other expenses.
So, to recap, how I did it:
1. Saw an overcharge on my cell phone bill. Am switching to a lower cost plan. Eliminated a service I wasn't using. Takes monthly cell phone from about $225 to about $90. Plus, getting a credit for a service that should have been cancelled for a little over $500.
Even if I don't get a new phone, this is a little more than a $2,100 cost avoidance. The key here is to keep reviewing your cell phone bill. They're complicated (if you ask me, deliberately complicated) and sometimes they don't do what they say they're going to do.
2. Got an OOMA box for landline service to my house. That was actually an additional cost, but I needed one. So, +$200. But the inspiration carried through with...
3. Switched to VOIP for business phones. Basically reduced the monthly bill from $430 to $130 a month. Will cost me about $350 for 4 IP phones. Also, will have to pay a $250 cancellation fee from Frontier. However, even after costs, VOIP (including an OOMA box for my house) will save me another $2,100 a year.
4. Reduced our trash pickups at the biz. Half the time, the truck was pulling empty dumpsters. Keeping two dumpsters, but only having them serviced once per month. So, $160 cost savings per month times 12 months; $1,900 for the year.
5. Changing eating habits. Learning to bake. Eating less takeout. Drink less pop from machines. Total savings: about $3,700.
Total is right at the $10,000 goal. This happened so quickly that I feel like I should dig deeper to try and root out any unnecessary expenses. This one, frankly, was easy to achieve because the phone companies were just flat out arse-raping me. The nicest part of all this if you ask me, is that the folks at Nextiva are great and the folks at Frontier and AT&T are useless. I'll be very glad to not have to deal with them anymore.
I have a few ground rules for this. One is that nothing I do can have any impact on my son at all. I want to save money, but not at his expense. The other is that I am not trying to be Amish. I'm going to keep cable TV. There's programming on cable that you can't get through Netflix or over the air, like Disney channel, which my son watches quite a bit. Also, I like to keep up with sports now and then.
A third rule is that the savings have to be actual savings that I would have paid if not for taking action. It's too easy to play games with this, like, "I would have paid full price for a pizza, but used a coupon, so I saved $10.00." None of that. It has to be real savings.
Fourth, this will combine personal and business spending. I doubt I could squeeze this much cost-avoidance out of my personal budget, alone.
The first item on this list is my cell phone bill. I'm paying over $200 a month. It's also probable, I was overpaying for a service I requested to be cancelled. At the moment, it looks like I may be able to save about $120 a month on this and might be able to get as much as a $600 credit. So, this move, alone, could save me about $2,000.
I'll keep posting my progress. I'm waiting for word back from Sprint on whether they'll credit me from the date that I requested that a service be removed. If they don't, I'll be leaving Sprint for good. We'll just have to see.
============
January 13, 2012:
Just changed trash service. Will save a little over $160 a month, for an annual savings of about $2,000. We went from 2 dumpsters, serviced once a week, to 2 dumpsters, once a month.
============
January 18, 2012
Have been baking a lot and eating meals at home. Contrast to previously, where I ate almost all my meals, out.
If we take out the acquisition cost of all the junk I bought, this still represents a huge savings.
Okay, here's how I calculated the savings:
1. Bake 2 loaves of bread per week, vs. buying one loaf of bread. I've also already made hamburger buns and will try hot-dog buns here, soon. Conservatively, I'm calling the cost-avoidance $2.00 per week in avoided bread costs.
2. Bake 1 pizza per week, versus my typical take-out pizza order. Conservatively, $20 per week in pizza expense.
3. Eat at home for the equivalent of 5 days a week, versus eating out pretty much every meal, all week long. Conservatively, $5 for breakfast, $8 for lunch, and $10 for dinner, 5 days a week.
Subtract $1,000 in cooking supplies and $2,600 in annual grocery shopping costs, and the total cost savings for the above is $3,524.
4. Avoid one pop from the pop machine, 5 days a week, 8 months a year. Total cost avoidance, conservatively, about $215.
So, food cost avoidance is $3740, for a total cost avoidance so far of $5,740.
==============
Still waiting to hear from Sprint. That should be a $2,000 cost avoidance. However, if they don't pipe up, soon, I'm going to just get a $45 a month plan from some local provider. I also bought an Ooma box, to provide phone service to my home. I really need one. However, I won't include avoided landline cost into the forumula.
However, conservatively, this should work out as follows:
Current cell phone cost is about $2,700.
Cost of Ooma Box: $200
Cost of new Cell Phone: $100
Cost of new cell phone plan: $600
So, worst-case, I'm looking at about an $1,800 cost avoidance.
So, the total should be up to about $7,500 here, soon.
I'm considering dropping my gym membership, but it's so cheap, just $20 a month. I don't have to use it much for it to be well worth it. I think it will depend mostly on how often I get there.
===========================
January 19, 2012: Business VOIP
Okay, getting voip for my home was an inspiration. I am going to get it for the business, too. All told, we were paying about $430/month for services that we can get for $130/month with VOIP.
It will cost us a bit. We need to buy 4 IP phones at $90, each. It will also cost us $250 in cancellation fees for our main lines.
So, costs: $560 in cancellation and new phones. This will probably happen by first part of February, but fudging, conservatively, we'll say we will only save money for 10 months instead of 11.
So, 300/month for 10 months, less $560 in costs and it's $2,440.
Basically, that does it. $10,000 in savings and oddly, the biggest savings just came from telephones. Not surprising is how much money I could save on food.
That was a lot easier than I thought it would be. I think I'm going to see if I can wring out some more savings. I'm going to be on a mission in 2012. I won't retire any of my term-debt, but I can try to reduce other expenses.
So, to recap, how I did it:
1. Saw an overcharge on my cell phone bill. Am switching to a lower cost plan. Eliminated a service I wasn't using. Takes monthly cell phone from about $225 to about $90. Plus, getting a credit for a service that should have been cancelled for a little over $500.
Even if I don't get a new phone, this is a little more than a $2,100 cost avoidance. The key here is to keep reviewing your cell phone bill. They're complicated (if you ask me, deliberately complicated) and sometimes they don't do what they say they're going to do.
2. Got an OOMA box for landline service to my house. That was actually an additional cost, but I needed one. So, +$200. But the inspiration carried through with...
3. Switched to VOIP for business phones. Basically reduced the monthly bill from $430 to $130 a month. Will cost me about $350 for 4 IP phones. Also, will have to pay a $250 cancellation fee from Frontier. However, even after costs, VOIP (including an OOMA box for my house) will save me another $2,100 a year.
4. Reduced our trash pickups at the biz. Half the time, the truck was pulling empty dumpsters. Keeping two dumpsters, but only having them serviced once per month. So, $160 cost savings per month times 12 months; $1,900 for the year.
5. Changing eating habits. Learning to bake. Eating less takeout. Drink less pop from machines. Total savings: about $3,700.
Total is right at the $10,000 goal. This happened so quickly that I feel like I should dig deeper to try and root out any unnecessary expenses. This one, frankly, was easy to achieve because the phone companies were just flat out arse-raping me. The nicest part of all this if you ask me, is that the folks at Nextiva are great and the folks at Frontier and AT&T are useless. I'll be very glad to not have to deal with them anymore.
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