Flush

June swirled down the drain this week. I needed to average $105 per day to hit the month’s plan. I was running at $102 until this week fell to $67. June 2010 averaged $137/day, with nine days over $200 and three over $300; this year brought just five and one corresponding good days. Curio City covered its end-of-month credit card payment by less than $10, and that was a nail-biter. I nearly had to give it a loan.

June:

Total income: -26.5%
Total COGS: -27.9%
Payroll: -5%
Net Income (Profit): -85.7%


Year to Date:

Total income: -12.8%
Total COGS: -17.8%
Payroll: -7.6%
Net Income (Profit): -368%



July’s going to be craptastic, too. Last July was much better than average. 2010 didn’t waver until August and hit the skids in September, so I won’t have a chance to climb out of the hole until Q4, when my current slump settled in permanently. I will not despair until then. While the top line is probably hopeless, the YTD profit line is only down by $606 – hard to recoup, yes, but it’s not high finance.

I’m nervous that I’m going into a death spiral. Revenues just barely cover the cost of doing business, leaving nothing to invest in site improvements or new products. Payroll taxes are due again in July; I don’t know how I’m going to cover them. Vacation and its resulting income starvation is less than a week away.

Is there any way to put a positive spin on this? At this time LY my YTD sales were up 33%, so being down just 13% from that could be seen as a 20% rise over two years ago. Plus, Cost of Good Sold is down farther than sales, indicating better cost control. How's that for spin? I ought to work for the Democrats.


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Let us now mark the passing of Paypal’s Money Market Fund. I’ve always kept as much of my short-term cash as possible in PayPal to take advantage of their monthly money market dividend, since my checking account doesn’t pay interest. That brought in a few bucks a month before the economy collapsed. The interest rate gradually fell to its current microscopic 0.05%, yielding no more than a few cents a month. You can see why PayPal finally said “Why bother?”

I still have some emergency money earning 0.85% at ING Direct. The way things are going, that’s a better return than I would get from investing it in Curio City.

But I said I wasn’t going to despair unless Q4 flops. That’s my story and I’m sticking with it. I’ll be “off” for the next two Fridays (not that I ever really take a day entirely off), so you’ll have to amuse yourselves elsewhere.