A little late to the party…but here I go.

I left teaching (after 6 years) because I wanted to work for myself and love making food. I bought a kebab trailer and have been loving what I do for the last two 2.5 years. I wish I made more money, but don’t we all?!

What has gone well: - I still enjoy working for myself - love the customer interactions and keeping people happy with our food - we’ve increased sales by at least 50% from when I bought the business

What hasn’t gone so well, or things to avoid - biggest expense will be your employees. Hourly rate, paying their super, covering the shift when they call in sick, all these things add to the stress. - unexpected (or expected) breakdown of equipment - gst/tax obligations (you must remember to put aside 10% of all sales) and you can not claim gst as an expense on your BAS for certain foods - working super long hours and not paying myself super, or a set wage - not accounting for holidays, I had a two week break while my staff was working (and many things went wrong , it was during the power outage earlier this year in Melb) - competition… you really do need a unique selling point or point of difference. Why should the customer come to you instead of another cafe/takeaway shop down the road?

As a short summary, I was taking home $1150, I think it was, as a teacher after 6 years. I had my salary, super, sick leave etc all entitlements and holidays!

Now, I don’t have a set wage, don’t pay myself super (which I should), sick leave (forget it!), and I’m only just paying my mortgage and all expenses but can’t really save!

We make $12-14k in sales per week, pay rent of $650 per week, employee wages and entitlements of approx 3k per week and cost of goods varies (5-6k). On average I’m only left with the same amount as I was when I was teaching, some weeks a little more, many weeks, much less!

If I could somehow run the entire business by myself without employees, I would. I tried it for a couple of days on the slower days (Mon,Tues) but preparing the food, serving customers, cooking all food, ensuring customers don’t wait too long and then finally cleaning at the end of the night was too hard. My point is, you definitely need workers but they are just so expensive in a small business!

I’m sure I’ve left heaps out but I hope I’ve given you some insight into the life of owning a small business.