# Borrowing, the bank, and the spiral to bankruptcy - **Episode:** [16](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/16.md) (2022-12-13) - **Type:** other - **Tags:** debt, bankruptcy, financial struggle - **Time:** 26:02–29:47 (start 1562s) - **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/16?t=1562](https://truthliesandwork.com/16?t=1562) --- [26:02] Leanne Elliott: So what, what happened? How long was there between kind of this final change in, in how you're operating before you realized that the business was unsustainable? [26:13] Al Elliott: Probably only a few months. Um, the licensing law was, was starting to change. It was allowing local shops to stay open till 3, 4 in the morning selling alcohol at half the price we were selling at. Um, so I think, I think maybe about 6 months after that, the business closed. Um, we were selling out the back of a car. I remember I, I got mugged. Well, not mugged, but I got an order to this dodgy part of Leeds. I went there, um, and they kicked the crap out of me, took my, took my money, my phone, my car. Um, and at that point I was a bit like, you know what, this just Isn't worth it. So, so unfortunately I stopped and I went and got another job, um, but that still wasn't enough. Um, that still wasn't enough to sort of pay all my debts because I borrowed like £103 grand at this point [26:55] Leanne Elliott: Why'd you borrow that, that amount of money for? [26:58] Al Elliott: Well, the bank kept giving me more and more money because they were like, this is an exciting business. It was in the dot-com era. So all I did with my— when I wanted more money is I just, I went there and I went, I've got a new business plan. I put dot-com at the end of Gimme Some Beer, which was my company name, gimmesomebeer.com. They were like, oh, we're investing in dot-com companies now. So yes, here's another £50,000, you know, and they increased my overdraft to £40,000 or something. Then I had a van lease, which was like £30,000. So, and credit cards and all this kind of stuff. So if anyone's ever run a business and it's not going well, you'll know what the credit card dance is, where you go and apply for a new credit card, then that gets maxed out, and then you go and convert it to a loan, which Egg used to do all the time, then you'd max out your credit card again, and you just were just getting deeper and deeper and deeper into the shit. Um, which it all sort of came to a head when I realized that, you know, I owed this £103 grand. I was earning about £3 grand a month from my sales job, commission-only sales job, and I don't think I even covered the repayments on everything [27:57] Leanne Elliott: So what happened then? [27:59] Al Elliott: Well, I went bankrupt. It was the person, because everything was personally guaranteed. So it's the only thing I could do. Well, it wasn't the only thing I could do. I could, I suppose, have gone, but I couldn't really because I got so much stress, so much stress at— with all— I was basically working so hard. My— I was behind on my mortgage that I lived in, the place in Bradford which I bought. I was behind on the mortgage on my investment property in Manchester that I'd bought. And I was also renting somewhere that we were behind on rent there and electricity and all that kind of stuff. And I was just thinking, what's the point in even getting up in the morning, going to work? Because I need, I need like £500 today just to keep my head above water, just to pay the debts, let alone any kind of any food or travel or petrol or anything like that. You know, I remember used to go and raid my, my copper jar to go and put petrol in the, in my And that's the most ridiculous thing is when you, you go in and you put £8.40 worth of petrol in your car because that's all you've got in coins and you're driving so slowly trying to make sure it's gonna last you all day. So the, the most sensible thing was to look at bankruptcy, and which is what I did in 2007 [29:07] Leanne Elliott: How did it feel at, at that time to be living in that, that kind of world? Like you say, you were, you know, you're, you're coppering up to, to pay for petrol. Knowing that just a few months previous to that, you had a business that was doing 20 grand a week, 30 staff, a great work environment, a great culture, exciting problems to solve, and, and, you know, the drama of being an entrepreneur. And it does sound like a TV, some kind of like short series of, of kind of Al versus a licensing guy in Leeds. How did it feel being in that, in that darker place and looking back at what what you'd had and what you'd lost?