Winding Things Down

Today, I decided it was time to wind down my small business that I've been running on eBay for the last few years.  I've hardly been trading for a while now, and I just can't justify spending money on business banking charges and business credit card fees, when I'm not earning hardly any money. I'm just giving money away to the bank.

A quick phone call to cancel my business credit card saved me a £32 annual fee, which I think is due next month and a quick letter written to the bank to close my bank account, should finalise things, once I've photocopied it and posted it off.  That should save me another £50 this year in monthly charges on my account.

It's something I've been meaning to do for a year or so now.  I let the website domains lapse too, although I never did get around to building a website. In all honesty, it's a relief to be done with it. I will just have one more tax return to file next year and then I'll be back to the good old PAYE system.

The credit cards have been cut up, and I've gone ahead and spent some of the money sitting in my business PayPal account on a few bits that I have been watching for a while with a view to buying. There's still a few pounds in there, but I'll wait for some eBay fees to come out before spending those and closing the account.

The final thing will be to close my business eBay account, which I will do once I've received all of the items I have just bought.  I've already removed the only listing I had active and relisted it on my personal eBay account, which is where I'll be active on eBay from now on.

It's the end of an era, but I did enjoy the experience of setting it all up, learning how to sell as a business, keep accounts and file tax returns, etc., but I'm over it now and want life to return to the simplicity I experienced before.

I should receive a small amount of money left in my business banking account, after it is finally closed, which I've asked them to transfer to my current account. I'm trying to consolidate things and really simplify my business and personal finances this year. Less cards in my purse, less accounts to manage. It's an ongoing process that I hope to be finished with in a few months time.

I requested a transfer of some Isa savings today into a new Isa account that pays more interest. I also requested a copy of my pin for one of my credit cards. As a consequence of not remembering the pin number, I could only use the card for online shopping and I received a letter this morning telling me that if I didn't activate a new card they'd sent me by the end of the month, I would need to close the account.  I was tempted to do that, but this particular card is one I can pay online, whereas my other credit card doesn't allow me to pay it online, so I prefer the convenience of the former.  I may yet cancel the latter and just manage with one card. That would make a lot of sense now I'm shopping a lot less.

Anyway, I'm slowly getting there, bit by bit. I guess that sometimes we complicate our lives, and then uncomplicating them takes time and effort. Hopefully, the effort will be worth it in time and money saved, extra interest earned and more simple and easy to manage finances eventually.