Let me start by calming your fears. No, I wasn’t kidnapped by a drug lord. No, I didn’t go off-grid and join a commune. And no, I didn’t join the witness protection program and change my name to Consuela Banana Hammock. (Only fans of the show “Friends” will get that last one, and, you’re welcome.)
I’ve just been, well, busy. And, if I can be completely honest, I was a little burned out for a while. Over the last few months, I’ve been swarmed with emails and blog comments, many saying variations of “I want to buy a laundromat. Can you help me?” Or worse, those that ask questions that I’ve already discussed in a blog post somewhere. Urgh.
Some I’ve responded to, and some I haven’t. I just don’t have the time to get to all of them. And if I did, my kids would go unfed and I would start to look like Tom Hanks in “Castaway” from lack of consistent bathing. (So if you wrote and I haven’t responded, I’m sorry. Sort of.)
Don’t get me wrong, I love my readers in whatever form they come. But after a while, I began to feel like “the laundromat lady”. I was even starting to get quasi-hate mail that said “I wrote you a week ago, and you never answered me. I need answers. Are you going to respond???” As if I owe people something. So I stepped away for a while.
So What’s The Latest?
It’s the end of the year, so I figured it was time to give an update on life, finances, and laundromats. I’ll start with the first one.
Life
Life is busy, but fairly normal. I recently took a sabbatical (possibly permanently) from all social media. It was taking up time and space that is better used elsewhere. And two months in, I don’t miss it a bit.
Our second oldest turned 18 recently, and she now has a job, and the independence that comes with having her own car. In fact, I’ve started calling her “Sasquatch”; I’m told she exists, but sightings are rare and undocumented.
And as you may remember from my last post, my husband Randy left his stressful, exhausting management job a few months ago, and retired at the age of 49. It’s great having him home (and awake past 6pm), and seeing him so relaxed and rejuvenated. He’s even started taking drum lessons, something he’s wanted to do for years.
As for me, I got a long-awaited promotion at work to Manager of Client Analytics. Woot.
Finances
With Randy retiring, it meant going down to one income (mine), but our living expenses were already less than what I make anyway, and I make pretty good money, so it hasn’t been much of a change. We do have less money for splurges than we used to, but I still wouldn’t change a thing.
As far as our progress towards financial independence goes, our savings have slowed down some. When Randy was working, he was investing his entire paycheck, so the laundromat income has now had to fill some of that savings gap. But, we’re still investing some of the profits back into the business itself. So once the laundromat remodel is completely done (we’re close!), we’ll be able to deposit more into our investment accounts.
And I still need to do a new Net Worth calculation to see where we’re at, but I’m admittedly a little nervous about the number I’m going to see. But I’ll eventually put on my big girl pants and do it.
The Laundromat(s)
When I last checked in, we were in escrow to buy a second laundromat, located about 20 minutes away. The seller was willing to carry the financing, and we were approved by the landlord to acquire the lease, so we thought things were fine and dandy and set to close.
But…then the landlord decided to dig into their toolbox, find a wrench, and throw it into things. They wanted to change the way the water bills were handled for the shopping center, which would have increased the expenses for the laundromat by about $600 a month (resulting in a loss of $7,200 in net income annually).
They had no plans to lower the rent to compensate for the additional water expense, and implementing the billing change was taking f-o-r-e-v-e-r, delaying the purchase of the laundromat. So after 5 months of waiting, with our cash sitting idle and uninvested, and no end in sight, we withdrew our offer.
But just a few weeks later, we found another laundromat for sale. Only 5 minutes from our house. It’s a real fixer-upper, but we negotiated the price down to the point that we could pay cash for it. (Details to come once we close escrow.) We’ve already been approved by the landlord to acquire the lease, and yesterday we wired the final funds from our investment account. We take possession on January 1st.
We have plans to completely gut the place and bring in new (or new-to-us) machines, and perform a full cosmetic overhaul. So I’m sure I’ll be sharing some dramatic before-and-after shots in the future as we remodel the place. We’ve got our work cut out for us, and it will likely take at least 6 months to a year to get it all done, but we couldn’t pass up the opportunity. It’s a calculated risk, and we hope that it pays off.
Well, I better wrap this up, I’ve got a holiday party to get to and I’m sure you’ve had your fill of me by now. If I don’t pipe up again before the end of the year, have a safe, wonderful, thankful Christmas holiday and New Year. 2015 treated us very well, and I’m hoping that 2016 surpasses all of our expectations.
Until next time…
Glad to hear you’re still with us 🙂 Looking forward to hearing more about the laundromats, Randy’s retirement, life in general . . . but take your time and post when you feel like it — we’ll be here. Have a Blessed Christmas and a Wonderful New Year!
Well, well, so the lady is alive! I was a tad taken aback however when I saw that Tom Hanks (hairy beard) pic, at first assuming that her hubby had gone “native” from too much laundromat stress! 🙂
Happy to read about your promotion, Laura. I’m sure Randy now enjoys life better, playing the drums and being a “kept man” (j/k of course). 🙂
All the best of luck in your journey in becoming the next “Donna Trump” of the laundromat empire, wishing you and your family a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year in 2016. Still hope that you find some time to “pop back here” (in your blog) to say hi and give us an update (and a giggle or two).
Glad to hear that everything is fine and that your business is still expanding.
Thanks for taking the time to write this update and … looking forward to learn how the fixer-upper acquisition is going.
Have a great holidays!
Laura the Laundry Lordess! Glad to see you’re back! Congratulations on your promotion and I’m thrilled to see that Randy is enjoying his retirement.
I’m sorry that the deal didn’t work out, but is sounds like the new one has more potential.
I’m curious about the water issues. Since your in California, how much of a risk is it to this type of business?
I hope you and Randy have a kick-ass 2016! We’ll be in San Diego for FinCon in September. Perhaps you need a vacation in lovely Southern California? We’d love to see you both again.
In the long run we think our current deal will work out better for us. We were able to pay cash for the business and it’s a lot closer to home. We basically bought our closest competition. Now instead of competition, the new location will just expand our reach.
We have heard threats that there will be excess charges for home owners and businesses that don’t reduce water usage. I am really holding out hope that we will be exempt. Our machines are more efficient than the normal top loaders most home owners have. I have used the water situation in our advertising telling customers they can reduce their water usage at home by using us. If we do get hammered with higher water bills, we will just have to raise prices to compensate. The beauty of raising prices is you can maintain your income but lower utilities, thus increasing net income. You would be surprised at all the income strategies for a laundromat. We were shocked. Some have risk, but as in everything else, the greater the risk the greater the reward.
The water thing is an interesting issue. Like most things in life, droughts are cyclical. I remember reading somewhere that Australia had a long, miserable drought. Now, they are back to normal, but people are much smarter about water.
Yeah, I remember some of those strategies. Who knew? It is fun to think about which levers to pull.
Hmm, we should make this a video game: Laura’s Laundry Empire!
Your challenge is to acquire and grow as many laundromats as you can! Can you conquer California or will water bills send you into the poorhouse? Are you able to keep the machines up and running or will your customers and their quarters leave for the competition!???
OK, that may be the worst game ever, but I want to play it now!
Can i ask a silly question? How do you pickup all the quarters for this laundromat? Are you concerned about security?
Don’t worry Larry, very few questions are silly around here. 😉 First, we have a change machine, so the quarters essentially just act as ‘tokens’. We take the quarters from the machines and put them back in the change machine, and take the cash and deposit it at the bank. Customers go to the change machine, insert dollars, get quarters, insert them into the machines and the cycle starts over again. As to security, we vary our collection days/times, and Randy has a CCW (concealed weapon) permit. So he’s always “packin” just to be safe.