The Budget and the Bills
Buying a building isn’t cheap, but it truly is the only way we can grow. We presently pay over $4000 a month on rent (for both our businesses), which when you look at the big picture, we are paying $50,000 a year just to be open. With purchasing the property, that money goes directly to our mortgage instead, helping us to build equity and a future that is more sustainable.
One thing to understand with owning a small business, we often make sacrifices to keep our dreams alive. Sometimes I think people forget that we are people just like you but we chose to not have a steady paycheck.
I want to be transparent with what we are doing. Maybe its for me, to give me accountability on what we are doing with our funds, but maybe its also for you, so you can feel like you truly are a part of something incredible.
The Big Picture
This building is super unique. I grew up in St. Pete and have always used Haines Road as my secret passageway through town. My BFF lived in Pinellas Park, so I drove that road a lot. The mantra was, if you need something unique, you’ll find it on Haines. There even used to be a fabric store on Haines at one point, so I brought back a little something lost. Our new building was designed and built by a former mayor of St. Pete, so that is a little gem we didn’t expect. Many of the buildings in Lealman are crumbling, but this building stands firm.
Except for the fact that the 10 year roof is on year 23. She needs a little love. The building is cool, but has not been maintained property, so it needs some work before we can begin to come in and customize it.
We are coming up with a game plan on how to pay it all. Luckily we have great credit, so I foresee a lot of credit lines being opened, but that is also not sustainable. There is a grant program in Lealman that we hope can help us cover some of the repairs and renovations, but we will still have to cover most of it.
We have a few fundraising activities planned to help us cover some of these expenses too. The first will be memberships. They will give us a little advance boost to getting some of the work covered. We are also looking at potential sponsorships for each of our classrooms. I’m sold on the sponsorship idea, but my husband isn’t. I have to sell him on it. We would have a portion of the classroom sponsorship go to fund the creation of the space, but also fund more scholarships. We presently fund most of our scholarships ourselves, but occasionally get donations from our community for them.
We know we will make it work, but its honestly overwhelming. I will start by outlining the first set of expenses that are not covered in closing. You know, the not-fun stuff we have to do. So my first goals will be to get these things paid off.
Insurance on the building for 12 months $11,541.26
Architectural drawings $15,000
New Roof TBD $54,000-75,000
The roof is only an estimate at this point, but its a flat roof that has active leaks, so not only does it need to be re-done, we need to have it re-sloped, repaired, then recovered. We will get hard numbers later this week.
Upcoming expenses that are unknown:
Mold remediation
Removal of a few walls
New header to remove a wall
Repairs to the interior
New flooring
Repairs to the exterior
New parking lot
Signage on the street
Landscaping
Fencing
Covered Seating area in the front
New furniture for interior (because we will have a lot more space)
And everything I haven’t considered yet.
I’ll keep you informed. I am also trying to post daily vlogs on Instagram, so if you want to hear more from me, tune in.