Hello, my name is Tan France, and I'm going to be
watching a video on my phone that I've never seen
before. It is called "Living on $38,000 a Year in
Charlotte, NC - Millennial Money." I'm going to watch
now. Be sure to smash that like button.
I want to have my own coffee shop, I want to wake up
one day and walk down the street and be able to open
my own store.
I'm Chloe Potter, I live in Charlotte, North Carolina,
and I make about $38,000 a year.
She runs her business out of her apartment.
I used to do that too! You work really hard and
you make money having your business, you have to be
careful. Chloe used to run her business or runs her
business out of her apartment.
I did that for like the first two and a half years of
my business. I shipped from my apartment.
I did all my office work from my apartment.
I pretended I had three employees so I had three
different emails, just so I seemed more legit.
I did all of that through my apartment.
So to be so meticulous and to count down to the penny
and to me, it's just like too much anxiety.
Cutting back on expenses, to just like going out down
the street to get drinks.
I mean, it's not a question.
She's spent $600 on food, which seems...
fair. But my gosh, that's way more than I used to
spend. I used to be able to live off like $300 a month.
That seems like a lot.
I couldn't afford to go out for dinner.
I don't know if she's going out for dinner.
And I definitely couldn't afford to go to coffee with
people. I know she's making her own coffee, so she's
saving money there. But still, I wouldn't spend the
extra money on going out.
I would live on Indian food.
Five dollars can last you at least three or four days
for Indian food. So, yeah, that's how I kept my budget
so low, however I'm also British and as a student, I
used to live on something called beans on toast like
Heinz Beans, other brands exist so feel free to go
with those. But beans on toast, wonderful!
I'm from Boca Raton, Florida originally.
I moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, about a year and
a half ago. Charlotte's someplace where I found like I
could make it work. I didn't feel like I could make it
work in New York where cost of living is super high.
OK, two things. I think she made a really smart
decision, not starting a business in New York.
I had originally started my business in London and I
realized my mistakes within a heartbeat, but I
couldn't avoid it. That's where I lived.
And then I moved to Utah to relocate my business,
which is why I'm in Utah now, because the cost of
operating my business out of Utah was so much cheaper
than out of a major city.
Smart, smart, smart.
My partner and I, Xavier,
We met in Carlsbad.
Health is super important to us.
So we spend a hundred dollars each per month on a
weightlifting, functional fitness membership.
To many, I'm sure you think,
"Why are they spending that much money on working out?"
$100 does seem like a luxury a month.
However, I really do value exercise.
I think it's wise to keep your heart as healthy as
possible. And wwhen I was a business owner, there was
so much stress every moment of every day going to the
gym, just that hour and getting on the bike or the
treadmill or whatever. It was just a great
distraction. So in my opinion, it's great for your
mental health. My partner and I are vegan.
We do like to spend a little bit extra money on buying
organic foods that are healthy to fuel the busy lives
that we have. I don't know how much you're meant to
critique, but I've got constant notes.
Being vegan is very expensive, as they mentioned that
it is quite costly, however, I know there are options,
vegan options that are much cheaper.
As I said, Indian food, a lot of Indian food is vegan.
I think that if they are spending a lot of money on
their dietary choices, I think that they could
probably find ways to reduce that by just YouTubing or
Googling recipes that are much less costly.
I'm not vegan, but I lived on a very veganish diet
because I couldn't afford anything else.
I ended up getting into coffee because of my love for
traveling, and then I would, as I traveled, go to like
the local spots and visit them, I feel like that's
where a lot of culture is.
That's how I've made friends from coffee.
I started Levitate Coffee Roasters in June of 2018.
I went online before ever starting it and I was like,
"How to start my own coffee company?" And they were
like, "You need $25,000 to start your own company." I
was like, "Well, I don't have $25,000, but I'm going
to start small, super small."
Chloe started a business that she didn't really know
too much about.
I think that's very risky and great, if you can do it,
great. I wasn't that big a risk-taker.
I found that having knowledge of my industry
beforehand and working every job I could within that
industry helped me build a business that was
successful. I do find it interesting that she was told
that it would cost $25,000 minimum to start a
business. I was told it would cost at least $100,000
to start my business. I started my business on $4,000.
The expenses that come with having your own coffee
business, initially, I put it on my credit card.
Oh, I understand that Chloe
had to use a credit card to build a business.
And initially, I think relying on a credit card to
expense your business is very, very, very risky.
You can't guarantee your income and therefore you
don't ever know if you will be able to pay your credit
card up in time.
I was raised in a very active Muslim household, which
means we're not allowed to finance, which means we
weren't allowed credit cards or overdrafts.
If you didn't have the money, you couldn't buy the
thing. And so I for my business completely and
throughout the life of my business, I wasn't able to
ever use a credit card.
And I think it built a very strong business because it
meant that every penny the business owned was mine.
I do find it risky when people run their business by
credit card or a lot of credit.
I'm not profiting from my business yet, I don't expect
to profit from my business until at least three to
four years in.
I feel like the first few years when you're opening
your business, you are experimenting and figuring out
what works and what doesn't work.
It's worth it when it's something that it's not work.
I love that Chloe's not taking a profit from her
business yet. She said that it might take a few
years. It does or it should if you haven't had major
investment in your business, if it's something you
sell funding, in my opinion, you shouldn't be paying
yourself for quite some time.
I waited three years to start paying myself.
I had a job on the side that paid for my my cost of
living. But as far as my business was concerned, every
penny that I earned went back into business to build a
business. And that's, I think, in my opinion, how you
build a sustainable business.
You don't have to answer to anybody else, that's your
company, and it's not about the money at that point.
This one point she's mentioned, I love because she's
said,"You don't have to answer to anybody else." That
is the main reason I started my business.
I do not take instruction, orders, commands, any of
that well from anybody.
Don't ever tell them what to do.
No, thanks. I started my own business because I wanted
to be my own boss. I want to make the decisions and
because I was sick of idiots telling me how to run a
business, what they were doing, a terrible job of
running their own. I'm 26 years old and I
don't have insurance. Because I am working for a
startup company, there aren't enough people to kind of
get on the insurance bandwagon.
So they don't offer it yet, but we are looking into it
I know as a company. I can't afford health insurance
with a growing small business.
That's the only part I'm really not loving.
Health insurance, I think is so important, and I know,
it's so costly. I had the luxury of being in England
when I first started my business and the majority of
my life. And we don't have such a thing as health
insurance. But then when I started my business and I
was living in America, one of the first things I did
was got health insurance myself.
It was the basic bare minimum even that is, I know,
incredibly expensive. But God forbid something should
happen that could bankrupt her if she has to pay for
that. Two hundred dollars a month for moderate
insurance, that's just not affordable.
Having an emergency fund would be great.
Things do just pop up, you know, you have medical bills
or you have dentist appointments or car maintenance.
I think that having a savings and a retirement isn't as
easy as it used to be, I'm hoping that eventually my
small business can make money so that I can have some
savings and so that I can have some retirement.
I'm about $7,000 in credit card debt.
This was a thing I was concerned about with her
building her business on credit.
She's now $7,000 in debt and that's got to be keeping
her up at night. When you are a small business owner,
you are constantly worried about your business.
There's so much that you're thinking about.
The last thing I would want on top of all that is be
worried every night that I had so much debt hanging
over me. Every month I put like $400 towards it since
my minimum is about half that.
I don't have any student loan debt.
A lot of my friends have like 30 or 40 thousand
dollars of student loan debt that they're paying off.
I don't have that, thankfully.
Just because somebody else has $40,000 of debt,
$100,000 of debt, a million dollars worth of debt
doesn't mean that that negates your $7,000 worth of
debt, especially if it's causing you anxiety and is
making you focus on that as opposed to focusing on
your business. So, yes, I know that your debt might be
smaller than your friend's or your neighbor's debts,
but we need to find a way to get out of that as soon
as possible. Having debt isn't where all my energy
goes. I'm sure, like it's stressful at times.
I definitely have my days where I'm freaking out.
But you can't focus on that all of the time, just
focusing on being an autonomous person and having my
own business as my focus and being able to eventually
help out my family. You know, right now I get some
help from them. And eventually I would like to be in a
space where I am able to help those around me that
have helped me out.
I love that that's a goal, I love that she wants to be
able to help the people that have helped her.
I love that she wants to help her family.
That was one of my major motivators when I had my
businesses. And thankfully, when my businesses really
started to take off, I was able to help my family and
friends. But to get to that point, it required so much
sacrifice. And I do believe that Chloe is actually
sacrificing a lot.
So she's doing incredible work.
It looks like the business is actually successful,
which is wonderful. Not many new businesses can say
that. However, there are a few tweaks she can make to
really get to the place she wants to be.
Thank you so much for watching.
I really appreciate it.
Be sure to subscribe to CNBC's Make It and be sure to
watch Boost My Business on Facebook Watch.
Thanks, bye.