A few more to look at

Sorry for the lack of updates. We've been away for the past 3 days travelling all over the country looking at dairies.
We left on Saturday and went down to Otorahonga to see a dairy that was supposedly doing $17,000 a week. It was a huge store ... like a mini supermarket. It had 6 isles and 2 checkouts. But was in such a bad state. The shelves were barely stocked infact alot were totally bare! The floors dirty and the shelving units rusty. It was situated quite far off the road and had a brand new 6mth old Woolworths supermarket across the road.
We could both see potential. By stocking the shelves and cleaning the whole place up we could possibly make a go of it. But with the new supermarket across the road and being in such a small town really made us nervous. It would be a huge risk and we couldn't see how they could be doing $17,000 turnover a week ... no way! He was asking $150,000 for it, too much in our minds. We had thoughts of putting an offer for $50,000. But really we both had doubts in our minds that even after fixing it up whether it would work.
So we thought we would wait and see what else we would find to compare.
We went from there to mum and dad's in Hamilton. Left the kids with them and Bill took me out for dinner. A really lovely evening!! We don't get many chances to go out alone so cherished the moment! He took me to an indian restaurant and I ordered a tomato based curry chicken on steamed rice. Really nice and probably quite low in points but no real way of knowing.
Then we went and played a couple of games of pool. Bill and I used to do that all the time during our dating years. I won 2 out of 3 games ... so yay!
Then Sunday we went across to Tauranga to see two more dairies. The first a small one, really tiny infact... but its right on the main street of Tauranga with a bus stop and post box right out the front door. A McDonalds across the road and a new complex being built 2 doors down with a Pizza place, Video Ezy and Subway going in January next year. And they áre only asking $69,000 all up including stock and it's doing $7,000 p/w turnover. At this stage they are only stocking lollies, chips, cigerettes, icecreams, drinks, pies and magazines. So we could immediately improve it by stocking more grocery items. Although the floor space is small there's still plenty of room for more stock.
The next we looked at was on a fairly busy road but had very little parking. It was a big store with still more potential by getting a liquor license and selling beer and wine. But they were asking $110,000 for it which we could still get but wouldn't leave us with anything left over. This store is doing $7,500 turnover p/w. For the $500 extra turnover a week we don't think it's worth the extra $40,000.
Back to Hamilton Sunday night and Monday morning we went to one in West Hamilton. This one had accomodation at the back (a big positive) but it was in a really, really bad area!! Down a back road with no through traffic and with bars on the windows and doors showed the security risk of the area. We didn't even look inside this one, it just didn't feel right.
So after arriving home and reanalysing all the opportunities we both feel right about the first Tauranga one we saw. Cheap price, fantastic location, still more potential yet. Turnover is a little low but still enough for us to survive on, and hopefully it will go up more when the new eating places go in. It just feels right. We will put an offer in of $5,000 less today ($64,000) and see what happens.
After arriving home yesterday we went to the travel agent to see what our trip to Fiji was going to cost ... wait for it ... $21,000 for 14 days!!!! My eyes popped out of my head when she showed us the figure!! lol. This was for all 6 of us and going out to the outer island resort of Castaway island.
The other option she priced out was for Shangri La's Fijian Resort on the main island. They have heaps of cool pools and a kids club in which they will do fun things with the kids all day and have a personalised nanny for Jese for just $5 a day. All the kids eat free too!! All this for $10,500.... still alot and more than I had expected but alot cheaper than $21,000!!
I'm having second thoughts as to whether we still go. It's such alot of money that could be used else where. But as Bill reminded me we have the money now and we would never be able to afford it at any other time and we all certainly need a break.
I had organised for a guy to come fix the mould spot on our carpet yesterday. He turned up and asked if we wanted to save money. Sure I said (like anyone would say anything different!! lol) He said it would cost between $90 and $100 normally but he could do it for $50 today if we paid cash. I was keen of course but as soon as I agreed he said he would ring his boss and cancel the job. It wasn't until then that I realised what he actually meant. I really didn't know what to do or say. His boss immediately rang me back to find out if we actually were cancelling. And the scaredycat that I am I passed the phone over to Bill and asked him to explain. While he was telling this guy that his employee was ripping him off doing cash jobs under the table the guy came into the room and over heard Bill talking to his boss. He then took off to his car and we heard it start up. Bill told the guy to ring his employee and sort it out because we wanted the work done and didn't want to be in the middle of anything nasty.
A few minutes later the guy came back inside and started working on the mark. I asked him what the story was and he said that yep it was still $50 cash. When I paid him he said that when his boss rang to tell him we got a friend of ours to do it. I just felt sick about the whole thing.
His boss rang us back later in the afternoon to ask if we had infact got a friend to do it. Bill said NO WAY. Apparently he had suspected this guy was doing the dirty on him for a while but could never catch him. He was appreciative of our honesty. This guy got the boot because of us and I was terrified he would come stalk us down. He looked pretty rough, so we locked up the house extra tight last night. I really don't need anything like this adding to our life dramas!!! Just hope we did the right thing.
On the eating front ... hmmm ... I've made wise choices ... sometimes lol. Only had 2 glasses of wine in the last 4 days but gave in to the icecream offer last night. Bad, Bad, Bad!
Been too scared to jump on the scales but my clothes still feel lose. Infact bought a size 10 jersey on the weekend. I thought it was too tight at first but Bill bought it for me anyway. I think it was actually the fact that I'm not used to having hugging clothes on because I got heaps of compliments that day on how slim I was looking.
On that positive note I'll sign off!
Catcha
Lyn :)
SW 107.4kg
CW 73.2kg
WWGW 71kg
PGW 65kg