Christmas Don't Be Late

Last October brought four Christmas orders of $250 or more. I haven't had any big sales yet this month. October's slow when you strip away the Christmas sales, so that puts me way more than $1,000 behind already.   

And yet, my credit card debt keeps ballooning with Christmas merchandise orders. Holiday sales don't shift into second gear until Halloween, so I'm not alarmed yet -- concerned, yes, but not alarmed. In three weeks I'll have nearly all of my holiday stuff in stock, whereupon I can stop shelling out money and start taking it in...I hope. It kind of has to work that way. It always has.

I just threw away a tempting pitch for a  business loan from an outfit called Funding Circle because they require $125,000 in annual revenues for a minimum loan of $25,000. I'm just too small and insignificant; Curio City probably won't even gross $60,000 this year and I only need $10,000 (although spending $25,000 could be fun). Their interest rate would have been about half of what American Express is going to start charging me in January, but their loan origination fee would have wiped out some of the benefit of refinancing, and I'd have been locked into regular payments.

So waiting for those Christmas orders is still the only plan I've got. If you haven't started your shopping yet, now would be good.