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Old 02-12-2009, 11:12 AM
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Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: WI/Marinette + United States
Posts: 1
Default How do we fix this?

My husband started his business in 2002. We ran it out of the house (office in garage) and were doing pretty good. Over the next couple of years he decided to rent some office space and move it to town and bring a friend of his up to run the door part. Well his "friend" took a nice nap every day and made just enough to pay his salary. Anyway, those were the first two bad decisions. The next one was we decided to expand our house and build our own office building next door. When we took out the loan there wasn't enough money to cover it. Now, we've been playing the borrowing from Peter to pay Paul gave for the last three years. I just don't know how to get us caught up and on track. All of our bills will be paid in full next fall so that will be behind us but I just can't seem to get us caught up. It would take about $50,000.00 to do this. We're in construction, fireplace sales and overhead door, sales and service. If the economy was good we could get out of this but I'm so worried the way things are right now.

I don't know what I'm looking for here. I guess just any advice or just venting.

Thanks!
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Old 02-12-2009, 12:28 PM
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Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Forida/Palm Beach Gardens
Posts: 17
Default Re: How do we fix this?

What exactly is your fear?
Are you behind on the construction loan to build the office and risk losing your house? Is business slow and you are not making enough money to meet your monthly bills? Are you stuck with a lot of inventory and have no way of selling? You said all your bills would be paid in full next fall but you can't get caught up..what do you mean by that? You said there wasn't enough money to cover the construction when you took out the loan, how is that? Did you get proper plans and estimates drawn up for the project? I'm not sure what your exact problem is.
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Old 02-24-2009, 08:52 PM
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Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Ontario/Essex Canada
Posts: 103
Default Re: How do we fix this?

For your immediate problem any chance at getting refinanced via a new mortgage? Beyond that there is not much you can do but tighten your belt and hold on like your doing.

Now everyone else we should take a lesson from this, I learn this over 15 years ago and the following is how we solved it and prevented the grief it causes.

Having been involved in several major projects for a former employer, we always got several bids, for planning we always used the highest bid plus 20%, because something always seems to go wrong that should have been planned for.

The last two, both of which I was in charge of I made a list of everything that had gone wrong before. Took the time to consider all those little possible extras that might be wanted. Give everyone two chances before the final decision was approved to ask for what they needed. At that point I put together the final estimate the project cost 25% (7% of the saving came from using one contractor we trusted on time and material instead of bidding it from him) below the estimate we made. During construction or electrical contractor got us a chance to get a larger generated then planned which cost drove our cost up 2%, but it saved us major upgrading four years later.

Take your time planning and do not make changes afterward that is always dangerous and expensive, contractors love the word "extras".
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Old 08-18-2009, 05:19 PM
Fay Fay is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: cape town south africa
Posts: 24
Default Re: How do we fix this?

The fact that the company is still afloat is positive, it means that there is money coming in and that the both of you must be doing something right. And you're doing that through one of our worst recessions for a long time. If I was you I would make peace with where you are at the moment, you're not as bad off as some people, and think of ways you could reposition the business so that when the upturn comes, you'll be more than ready to seize each opporunity as it is presented to you.
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Old 10-05-2009, 05:28 PM
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Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Salt Lake City, Utah
Posts: 16
Default Re: How do we fix this?

Given the business you're in the best thing you can do is probably cut expenses where you can. If you have an employee that isn't contributing much during the downturn it may be time to let them go or find other expenses that just aren't helping you pull in revenue.
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