BUSY, BUSY, BUSY

O.K. here we go. I got my foundation poured the other day for the building. Here is a photo of what the foundation looks like. My building is set to deliver on October 30th. Yep it is only 3 days from now. I am getting very excited and somewhat nervous. The building is brought in on a truck and they use a crane to set it onto the foundation. The people who bring the building are responsible for unloading the building and setting the building up. This is all part of the delivery charge. I paid $2,700 dollars to have it delivered and set up. I didn't think that was to bad. There is metal plates in the foundation that will be welded to the building to attach it to the foundation. That reminds me that when we were digging for the foundation we hit bedrock. It is very unusual to hit this in Richmond according to my contractor. I mean we have a lot of bedrock in what we call the gorge where everybody walks on trails and such, but it isn't that common in the center of town. We dug down about 1 1/2 feet and hit it which was like trying to dig up concrete. It wasn't happening. We had to go and rent an attachment for the bobcat that was like a jack hammer to get through the bedrock. Anyway my building we be almost impossible to settle sitting on this rock. The crawl space is bigger than anticipated also. I guess I really didn't pay attention to that when initially looking at the plans or I would have probably poured a concrete pad in the bottom and used it for storage. I still thing I will be able to keep some emergency stuff stashed there, but it could have been a lot nicer.

I have been in the process of starting to get my equipment and inventory. I have purchased a meat slicer off ebay for 350 with shipping and it is a twelve inch slicer which I am told you need. There is 7 inch meat slicers you can get new that are about 300 to 400 dollars, but I am told you will be buying another one in less than a year because they cannot handle the use. Anyway this unit is an Anvil meat slicer and it seems to be in good shape. I have been talking with Mike from bearcreek and he has sent me the price for the starting inventory on supplies, some of the ingredients, shirts, hats, aprons, and barista equipment. The total for all this was around 4,200, which I didn't think would be that high. I have cut some of the quantities of some of the items such as shirts, polo shirts, hats and have taken a 465 credit on a blender they were going to send me. I have gotten it down to around 3,000 which is a lot better. I took the credit on the blender, because I wanted to purchase my own. I am looking into getting a Blendtec blender, which can be programmed for drinks, can hook into syrups and has a ice hopper and a water line. This will dispense the right amount of ice, water, and flavor to make a drink pretty much by itself. The blender I was going to get was just a blender. Anyway I am bidding on one at ebay now and will let you know if I get it or not.

O.K. the only thing else I have been working on lately is getting my paperwork filled out for state taxes, which here in Indiana is called a BT-1, which lets you collect sales tax and lets you deduct taxes from employees paychecks. It is really kind of mind boggling at first. I mean you have federal taxes, state taxes, local taxes, social security, medicaid. There is a percentage for each and as an employer you have to match the contribution on the social security and medicaid. You alos have unemployment to deal with and workers compensation insurance to deal with. I got my workers comp plan started it is calculated by the number of employees you have and the payroll you will have. For us since we are a corporation I also have to figure the salary I am going to pay myself also. Anyway what I figured was three employees including myself and a payroll of $70,000. I know the salary I am going to pay out for the employees, but mine is just a guessing game. I plan on having one full time 40 hour week @ $8.00 an hour for 320 for the week and one part time at 20 hours per week @ $7.50 an hour for 150. So my employees labor should be $470 per week and $24, 440 for the year. The payroll really determines you workers comp insurance rate. Mine will be around 1,350 for the year or around 115 per month. We had 116 budgeted so we are right there. My insurance agent is who provide me with this and he also got me insurance on my building and liability. My insurance will be 720 per year or 60 per month. We had 83 budgeted so we came in under that which is good. Well I think that is enough for know.

Robert