2 more kilo overweight and three months of debt: post Christmas blues

Christmas is long gone, but the debt is not.  The debt will be with me for another month or two.  Why is that it can take such a short time to fall in a hole which takes three months to dig out of?  I am sure it happens the other way too, but for me more bad things come to mind than good things.

Let me explain.

 It takes a week to buy Christmas gifts and Christmas lasts a day.  It takes three months to pay off the debt.  You have a couple days off at Christmas and you eat a lot and sit around, maybe watch TV, play a lot with the kids, relax and don't do much.... and gain 2 kilos or 5 lbs.   It takes three months to lose the same 2 kilos, if not longer.  I never lost the 5 lbs I gained Christmas 2015 and I gained 5 more Christmas 2016.  I better work on it.  That is the thing.  You have to work on it for three months what took one week to appear. 

The problem is, is that January and February are such contrarian, "anti working" months.  They work against you.

Let me explain.

Everybody wants to make changes in January.  Everyone is making those resolutions that now they are going to do something and make things happen.  For a small business owner,  that can only mean bad things.  January started off very badly for me.

The land lord

The landlord of my store comes in in the first week, and says something like, `you know, its been a year that the space next to you has been empty with no renters and I am losing too much money.  What I am going to do is give you a contract that says I can kick you out with three months notice.  See, because if someone wants the space next to you AND your space for a good price, then I want to give it to them.  Look, I know you have rented here a long long time, but you know, business is business.`  what he didn't say was that the space next to me was empty because he was asking too much money for it all year.  And he didn't say that people had made offers for the full space including mine but for the same price as what he wanted for two thirds the space.  The point is that it was a new year and it had been a full year with no rent from the other space, NOW he was going to do something about it.

The next week my worker sends me a text message that says he will only be working till the end of February.  Its a new year after all and he decided that he makes more money at his other job and he will do that job more and quit his job with me.  Fair enough. I cant pay a lot because I am paying too much to the landlord.  But the point is, the worker, a pretty good guy who I trusted and who knew his job fairly well, and I trusted him, I did mention that, decided its time to make a move in the new year.

See, if you are a boss, or manager, you want things to run smoothly, rational and routine like.  But what happens is that in January everyone and everything decides the opposite of running smoothly and routine.  The computer in the office broke and the computer fixers try to Jack me because hey they know people, as their logo says, and they know I know absolutely little about computers and hey, they have to fleece more because its January and no one is buying.   EVERY THING goes against you just because, well, its a new year, things have to change.

January just works against you.

And February...  February always reminded me of a copycat lazy brother of January.  It wants to be bad ass just like its January brother, but, its just too lazy and tired. So all the resolutions are still in place, but nothing more happens with them, but the problems are still there.  The problems are still there, but they are sleeping.  People mostly sleep in February. Or go on long weekends and ski.  It doesn't get worse, but it doesn't get better.  And you resign yourself to thinking forward to tackling the problems in March and the Spring. February is just a sleeper.

I resolved last Fall that I would start my swimming again for exercise.  And I did.  I had to break it for Christmas time, but I figured I would start it back up in January. And I did. Then my daughters started off another round of sickness.  Starting with my youngest daughter who of course got sick after we had a very nice weekend outside skating.  Six hours of weekend enjoyment landed her at home sick for the whole week.  I was home with her much of the week. On Saturday my other daughter and my wife were on a ski weekend.  For some reason my older girl got a stomach flu on the Saturday night and cut the weekend short and landed herself in bed for three days.  The very next Saturday I new something was wrong when I had no desire to eat chocolate or potato chips in the evening.  By 11 pm I too was sitting on the bathroom floor head deep in the toilet bowl.  Man that stuff burns when it comes up the other way. It just leaves me gasping for breath. 

I ended the month with a total of one swimming day.

January just works against you.  February is a sleeper.   

Pay off debt

Finally in March you can start to pay off your bills and do your exercise and maybe lose a kilo and get out of debt.  Start.  Maybe.  If you dont have enough to pay off from there being no business in January and February. 

One week of Christmas, three months of digging yourself out of the hole from Christmas.