I wish I could say that my financial situation has improved since the last entry but at best it has held steady.
The house is still on the market. We lowered it an insane amount on Thursday with the hopes that we would have a couple offers and be done with it. We lowered it to less than we paid. We have had one offer so far and it was a term offer from a company whose website doesn't exist. No thank you.
We have had, and continue to have, a ton more showings so still hoping an offer is coming our way soon. We just need it to sell.
In the meantime I have got to tackle this credit card debt. I am embarrassed and ashamed but neither of those emotions pay it down so I gotta start somewhere new. For months it has been "things will be better when we sell the house, we just have to make it through just a little bit longer" but now I have got to shift gears to doing whatever it takes to get these debts manageable, then paid off.
I loved Mint to track where my spending went, and when it went away I switched to Rocketmoney. I don't love it but it is getting the job done. I am not seeing a ton of places where we can cut back. We spent about $700 last month on groceries and eating out, and by eating out I mostly mean drinks. We can certainly cut down/back on the eating out part but I will say everytime we go out we do meet people who have never been to our business and they end up buying tickets to a show (a real "you gotta spend money to make money" situation)
As far as groceries go, I am still trying to mystery shop as much as I can. And also meal plan. Meal planning is rough with my partner (he likes to decide what to eat the hour before we start cooking and that just...is not mananable) but I have come up with a loose plan. I have 8 categories of recipes that we can cycle through every 10-12 days and that allow for leftovers on our busiest days, as well as a variety and some room for eating out occasionally because we deserve a treat sometimes.
If you're interested there are our categories: roast (make in slow cooker), pasta (stroganoff, ravioli, spaghetti and meatballs, etc), rice based slop (meat and veggies in a rice bowl with different seasonings and sauces. This is a recent favorite: https://www.mealime.com/recipes/thai-red-curry-fried-rice-ground-pork-carrots-snap-peas/25772), BLTs/paninis, baked potatoes, taco/burrito bar, meat plus veg, big salad/sams club heat up meal.
We just need more income. Cutting back will help, but it is going to take forever to get into a better financial position with our current income. In June I left a job where I made $16/hour for 32 hour work week for one where I make $22/hour with a 40 hour work week. It is more exhausting but certainly is helping. There is a small amount of overtime, and there will be more as I am trained on more and more things.
I am also ramping up my reselling. I am conflicted though. The stuff I sell is small and easy to ship, but also means that the profit margin is like, $5. Is it worth the time and effort to take pictures, list, manage, pack up and ship for that little money? I would like to get to the point where I am selling $100/day, but that is 25 $5 items. Right now, I use a $9 a month tool that helps me cross post across 5 platforms and automatically delists and relists. My goal is delist/relist 60 day old listings at least 5 days a week, and add new listings 1 day a week. I started about 2 weeks ago and my sales have increased, so I am hoping that sticking with this plan will get me up to my goal.
Once the house sells, I am going to use a bit of the money to spruce up my rental house on the west coast then list it. It is the only one with a mortgage, which is why I haven’t tried to list it yet. If the tenants decide to stop paying we wouldn’t be able to afford the mortgage (but will have the buffer once the house sells) I did approach my tenants about buying it and we went back and forth for a few weeks but couldn’t come to a price that both of us liked so we have tabled the conversation.
After that sells we are going to use some of the money to flip a commercial building we (stupidly) bought in 2022. It shouldn’t take a ton to do the necessary work. The biggest problem is it has become a catch all for all our stuff, so I will have to make tough decisions on what to keep, what to sell, what to donate and what to just trash.
Selling these 3 properties will net us who knows how much cash, but also reduce our expenses by probably $2,000 a month. Having that buffer back will be HUGE. I would think it would take about 6-9 months after the house sells for us to list the other two places, and who knows what the market will be doing then. Hopefully these next two properties sell quicker than our current house- we will definitely price them better initially this time.
I want to start posting weekly, in order to be held accountable but also to try to help with the stress. Knowing I have a plan and sticking to the plan will help regulate my emotions when things feel like they aren’t changing at all.
All of this is on top of running our business. That is a million entries just by themselves. I don't know how I will have time for everything other than there just isn't a choice not to right now.
This month I have a million goals, but I know setting too many goals at once can be overwhelming. So the one I am focusing on this week is to not use the Chase Pay in 4 at all, and to have all of my remaining ones paid off by the end of September.
Right now my total balance is $289.11 across 7 “loans.” First thing Friday morning when I get paid (I get paid weekly) I pay off the ones that are due before the next pay day, so there’s no way I get a late fee. Then I pay the bills that are due before the next pay day. And whatever is leftover is what we try to live on.
Here are the details for accountability. I will update next week with an updated total.
Pay in 4
Jun 30, 2025
$101.63
$25.41 due Aug 11, 2025
Payment 2 of 4 completed
Pay in 4
Jul 01, 2025
$69.96
$17.49 due Aug 12, 2025
Payment 2 of 4 completed
Pay in 4
Jul 30, 2025
$58.23
$14.56 due Aug 13, 2025
Payment 0 of 4 completed
Pay in 4 -
Jul 18, 2025
$54.70
$13.68 due Aug 15, 2025
Payment 1 of 4 completed
Pay in 4
Jul 19, 2025
$67.12
$16.78 due Aug 16, 2025
Payment 1 of 4 completed
Pay in 4 -
Jun 22, 2025
$75.00
$18.75 due Aug 17, 2025
Payment 3 of 4 completed
Pay in 4 -
Jul 09, 2025
$69.96
$17.49 due Aug 20, 2025
Payment 2 of 4 completed
August 4th, 2025 at 11:07 pm 1754345261
If you are going out for drinks to meet potential clients, is that a business expense that is a taxable offset to your business income?
For stay at home moms or retirees looking for an entertaining side gig, re selling doesn’t need to be looked at as a per hour return on investment. But if you have a full time job and multiple other income streams, you need to evaluate your per hour return from each gig because maybe time would be better invested elsewhere.
August 5th, 2025 at 01:54 pm 1754398463
My other question is, would it better to clean out that building, possibly sending anything sellable to an auction or offer it as a huge lot to someone to buy and clean out the building and then sell it? Is is worth storing all that stuff there?
August 6th, 2025 at 11:41 am 1754476875
Our business business, that is set up as an LLC and run like a "real" business is a live entertainment venue. We bring nationally touring acts to our stage, sell tickets to the show and then food and drink at the show. So our "clients" are potential ticket holders. So sometimes when we go to the restaurant behind our venue and talk to people at the bar and encourage them to check us out we have the business pay for it but our margins are so small right now that it is not financially wise to do it every time.
Rob- The building needs $50-$60k of work to get it to the point where selling it make sense. The stuff that's in the building- oof. 1/4 of the stuff is the Mr's mother's. We rented a uhaul (at our expense) in 2021 and moved one of her storage units that was 4 hours away to here. She promised she would come every weekend until it was sorted through. She came 4 times. It has been 5 years. There is my stuff which is a lot of my mom's stuff that I just am not ready to get rid of yet. There is my stuff that is junk that I just need to get rid of. And then there is stuff that came from the building our business is in that I just need to be able to let go of. None of it is worth particularly much, so it would probably be best to just divide between goodwill and a dumpster.
August 8th, 2025 at 08:19 am 1754637545
Where is the money suck? Sometimes the hardest part is writing down all the money sucks. Facing it is hard.
August 8th, 2025 at 01:57 pm 1754657846