Staying Fluid...

The company that I work for has been around a little over 50 years. One of the things that we have done since it's inception is to pay our bills on time. Sounds stupid and simple right? You might be surprised how often that is not the case. One of the reasons our retirement plan is so good and our profits are great (aside from us working our tails off) is that we have no debt. Plain and simple. No debt. We pay all of our bills within seven days, no matter how big and if it is something that would cost more than we actually have in fluid assets we find another solution.

We own our own property except in cases where it makes sense to lease and in those cases we generally try and get as good a deal as possible and sign 20-30 year leases so that we can lock in the income from that location.

We used to own our own restaurant supply company as well as be self-insured but have moved away from that completely over the last few years as it became financially better to have someone else do it for us.

One of the reasons that so many large and small businesses go under during recessions and rough periods with the economy is debt. If you owe more money than you actually have then when times are hard you have to either borrow even more money to stay afloat or go under.

More people need to apply these principles to their personal affairs as well.