Having to lay off my employees was one of the most difficult decisions that
me and my business partners have ever had to make.
We never thought we'd ever have to be in that position where that was
something that we would even think of having to do.
But we had really no other option.
My name is Alex Pardoe.
I'm twenty six years old and I live in metro Detroit, Michigan.
Since I did my interview and my video for you guys last year, I have
purchased some investment properties, so that has been able to kind of
keep me sustained as well.
I still make, on average, about like one to two thousand dollars on
Instagram monthly.
And income through my hair care product line is around about $1,000.
And through some other investments, it's around about like a thousand or
two thousand dollars. When I did my interview last year, I had no
financial adviser just because I didn't know any better.
And I was young and dumb.
And I think a lot of people are young and dumb and they just - you're not
taught finances.
You don't know anything about finances.
It's just like how I can't expect anyone to know how to highlight hair if
I've never taught them how.
I feel like the past year, I've learned a lot about just how to manage
things a little bit better.
And I'm still learning now, but it's been a little bit easier for me.
Jesus, my budget for white wine and White Claws has skyrocketed, let me
tell you. The past month has been a little intense for me and my business.
We ended up shutting our doors on March 17, which has been difficult for us
because we have so many employees that depend on us to have a place of
business and to work and to generate income for themselves.
We ended up taking advantage of the small business loan.
The second we open back up, everyone gets their job back.
So it's all temporary for us.
I am getting $362 a week from unemployment.
It's definitely not covering what my income would be, but every little bit
helps. The change in income for me personally has been pretty drastic.
Obviously, I'm not doing a lot of hair behind the chair, which was a huge
portion of my income.
But because I have multiple streams, I am still making money.
I still have my hair care product line that we've moved to e-commerce last
year. We're still shipping, which has been amazing.
And I'm still doing some online education, which has been lucrative as well
for me, which has been great because every hair dresser is out of work.
So I know you guys would be super proud of me that I have not been doing
almost any food delivery services for the past year.
I really tried to focus on putting my money into other places.
On average, I maybe spend like $300 a week on food as opposed to the
thousands I was spending last year.
Cooking is a very loose term for what I'm doing.
I don't know if frozen pizza and chicken nuggets really qualifies as
cooking, but I am doing a lot more cooking from home as opposed to eating
out. I just live by myself and I have my roommate, my dog Biscuit.
Between when we filmed last and today, I purchased my house.
I'm not paying rent and paying a mortgage and my mortgage with all my
insurance and everything I think is around $1,600 a month.
I ended up putting $35,000 down.
I still do have both of my cars. I was actually supposed to sell my BMW in
March. It's just unnecessary for me to have two cars, obviously.
Just being, like, really young and having disposable income,I think we all
would make like really bad financial decisions.
And I think getting that BMW was a bad decision.
So I'm excited to hop off that train.
My car payment for my G wagon is $2,300 a month and BMW is $1,300 a month.
My car insurance for both is about $250, which is a little bit lower than
last year. So I'm not spending any money on clothes right now.
If anything, I've been doing a lot of cleaning out my closet just because I
have a lot of time on my hands.
For me, I use my Birkin or Hermes or Kelly bags as investment pieces.
I mean, you know you're annoying when you have a Birkin in your Birkin.
And I don't necessarily have any sentimental attachment to them.
So I would have no problem selling for Birkin to pay for three months of
expenses because it's going to be a huge return on my investment
regardless. Usually anything I have leftover at the end of the month, I
like to keep about $20,000 in my checking account and everything else I'm
moving over into a higher yield savings account.
I have about $35,000 in my high yield right now.
The last time I checked, which was like two months ago.
Because I haven't been transferring anything right now, because I don't
have anything coming in. I have not been dipping into, deeper into my
checking or into my higher yield savings yet to cover expenses.
If we're going to be quarantined past May 15th, I will most likely and cut
back on adding any money into my life insurance, my Roth IRA and my
brokerage and my other savings plans.
Just because if this goes any longer, I don't want to keep shoveling money
into accounts and not being able to replenish it.
I do have a little bit of credit card debt, a couple thousand, I think
it's like $3,000 on my credit card.
I try as hard as I can to pay it off every month now.
But because I'm not working, I'm not paying it in March and April, which
is probably a bad choice.
But if I'm not getting anything in, I'm not going to put anything out.
I'm definitely keeping in touch with a lot of my clients, especially doing
hair extensions.
In the beauty industry, a lot of hair care product lines have been really,
really supportive of stylists during this time.
You can create affiliate codes, and send your clients root color touch up
kits or root color sprays and things like that.
If you're at home in quarantine and you have grays coming in and it's
making you feel ugly and covering your grays is going to make you feel
pretty, by all means, do it.
I'm not going to judge you. I've been thinking a lot about how our salon
is going to bounce back after the pandemic ends.
And truthfully, I don't feel panicked about it just because, if it's
something I can't control, it's not necessarily anything I'm gonna throw a
fit about. My salon specifically,I'm not necessarily worried about us
bouncing back just because I know our clientele and I know just the state
of our clients in general.
I know that they're really, really excited to get back in the salon.
So I feel really confident about our salon bouncing back.