First, thanks for a great forum... a lot of good information.
I opened a music store about 10 years ago in California. I was young and didn't know what i was doing too much and opened it as a sole proprietor. The store was super successful and even considered opening additional locations. Fortunately i didn't. Years passed and the internet was growing super fast which meant music was easier to obtain...music stores started closing everywhere. I was fairly young and stubborn and I refused to downsize. I never saw the signs of my own failing business model. After 8 years i finally realized i had to close the store.... I had charged up all my personal credit cards and spent all my savings trying to stay open.... but i eventually gave in.
During the retail years i built a rather successful online store. When i closed the retail store I got an office where I focused on the website. Getting rid of the overhead of a large retail store as well as 6 employees saved me some money and i thought i would eventually get my footing. Sadly, the internet got harder to compete with. Between box stores, Amazon, Itunes, illegal downloading of music i just couldn't compete. I went from sales of a million dollars a year to barely $100,000 a year. I eventually had to close the office and now work out of my apartment.
The sad thing is i am now carrying a lot of debt i incurred as the business was failing. Between my own credit cards all at the max, a line of credit, vendor accounts i owe money on and minimal sales, I now realize i will never get caught up. I just don't have the sales i use to have in order to pay these debts. I am guessing i have about $100,000 in business debt. Which when making over a million dollars a year would have been manageable....but not anymore. I literally went from not much of a care in the world 3 or 4 years ago to not being able to pay rent or food for that matter... it has been very humbling. I have not made a payment on a credit card in 4 months. They all want these crazy amounts from me now. I used to make $1,000 payments on these cards just a few years ago but now can't even afford a $200 payment. They are all threatening legal action. I get about 20 phone calls a day from various creditors... i stopped answering my phone.
I have nothing to fall back on... I am making just enough to cover my rent... but if i lose this business, i will not be able too even do that and don't really have anywhere to go. I have no college education and no experience in anything other than my own business..
to further complicate things, i had a tax audit this year on my 2006 return. Due to a whole other issue i won't go into, the IRS told me i owed $181,000 in back taxes. I literally laughed at at this. How in the world am i ever going to pay ANY of this? And i doomed the rest of my life?
I have been in a very dark place the last 6 months. Separating myself from friends and family because i feel like such a failure. I know i'm not, and it's just the business model doesn't work anymore, but i should have seen that and planned accordingly. I feel like my life is worthless at this point and don't know where to turn. I will never get out of this. The hole i am in seems to get deeper and deeper. Suicide sometimes seems like my only option and i have played it out in my head a million times. It feels like my only escape from this. Filing bankruptcy will end this whole chapter of my file... but will i really have to give up my entire business? I really love what i am doing and feel without all the debt, i could actually make a comfy living doing this on my own on a much smaller scale. But i fear that is not an option.
Can anyone give me a few words of optimism to live for... you could save someone's life.
TooDepressed
I opened a music store about 10 years ago in California. I was young and didn't know what i was doing too much and opened it as a sole proprietor. The store was super successful and even considered opening additional locations. Fortunately i didn't. Years passed and the internet was growing super fast which meant music was easier to obtain...music stores started closing everywhere. I was fairly young and stubborn and I refused to downsize. I never saw the signs of my own failing business model. After 8 years i finally realized i had to close the store.... I had charged up all my personal credit cards and spent all my savings trying to stay open.... but i eventually gave in.
During the retail years i built a rather successful online store. When i closed the retail store I got an office where I focused on the website. Getting rid of the overhead of a large retail store as well as 6 employees saved me some money and i thought i would eventually get my footing. Sadly, the internet got harder to compete with. Between box stores, Amazon, Itunes, illegal downloading of music i just couldn't compete. I went from sales of a million dollars a year to barely $100,000 a year. I eventually had to close the office and now work out of my apartment.
The sad thing is i am now carrying a lot of debt i incurred as the business was failing. Between my own credit cards all at the max, a line of credit, vendor accounts i owe money on and minimal sales, I now realize i will never get caught up. I just don't have the sales i use to have in order to pay these debts. I am guessing i have about $100,000 in business debt. Which when making over a million dollars a year would have been manageable....but not anymore. I literally went from not much of a care in the world 3 or 4 years ago to not being able to pay rent or food for that matter... it has been very humbling. I have not made a payment on a credit card in 4 months. They all want these crazy amounts from me now. I used to make $1,000 payments on these cards just a few years ago but now can't even afford a $200 payment. They are all threatening legal action. I get about 20 phone calls a day from various creditors... i stopped answering my phone.
I have nothing to fall back on... I am making just enough to cover my rent... but if i lose this business, i will not be able too even do that and don't really have anywhere to go. I have no college education and no experience in anything other than my own business..
to further complicate things, i had a tax audit this year on my 2006 return. Due to a whole other issue i won't go into, the IRS told me i owed $181,000 in back taxes. I literally laughed at at this. How in the world am i ever going to pay ANY of this? And i doomed the rest of my life?
I have been in a very dark place the last 6 months. Separating myself from friends and family because i feel like such a failure. I know i'm not, and it's just the business model doesn't work anymore, but i should have seen that and planned accordingly. I feel like my life is worthless at this point and don't know where to turn. I will never get out of this. The hole i am in seems to get deeper and deeper. Suicide sometimes seems like my only option and i have played it out in my head a million times. It feels like my only escape from this. Filing bankruptcy will end this whole chapter of my file... but will i really have to give up my entire business? I really love what i am doing and feel without all the debt, i could actually make a comfy living doing this on my own on a much smaller scale. But i fear that is not an option.
Can anyone give me a few words of optimism to live for... you could save someone's life.
TooDepressed
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