Work Headaches and Life problems as usual

Wow, well at this rate it is going to take me all year just to catch up on our Christmas events lol......lucky I don't have much else going on to talk about right now!

Hubby has had the last two days off work, lets call it a couple of "mental health days" shall we?  He is pretty down about the way this job is turning out and the way his boss has been treating him since Christmas.  He is relieved to realise that others at work have noticed it and it hasn't just been his imagination.  None of them can work out what is going on at all.  Even the older guy who Hubby took over the job from, although he hadn't known how bad it was until Hubby had a talk to him on Monday, is shocked.  The older guy has also been getting treated badly too though.  He is a consultant for the company now and basically is mainly there to do overseas consulting and only works 2 days a week.  He has been told that when he goes to China on his next trip that he will only be paid for the 2 days a week he works even though the trip will take him away from home for about a week!!!  Needless to say I find that disgusting, its not like he is going on a holiday, he is going to get business for the company!!  I'm sure this is against some kind of workplace law.  I said to Hubby that something must be going on for the guy to be treating people like this.  I have a feeling that he has used hubby for his knowledge though and has gotten whatever it was he wanted from him and now is trying to make him leave.

Hubby is desperate to do something together, just him and I but I have my concerns about that.  We are looking at the moment at a cleaning franchise and have a guy coming out tonight to give us some information.  They do car cleaning, house cleaning and a few other different franchises.  They are very cheap franchises and it would mean we wouldn't have to take out a loan which does take away one worry.  I don't see it making enough money to support us though.  Child support is our killer each week, it basically takes over a quarter of hubby's take home pay and after a conversation with the Child Support Agency the other day, if hubby starts up a business and it doesn't give him the same earnings that he is getting now, that is just too bad, he will still be stuck paying what he is now, even if his earnings only end up being $30,000 or so!  They call it him deliberately downgrading his income to avoid paying child support and he has a higher earning capacity.  Basically they said that it doesn't matter what we want to do, his children require him to pay this money and its not fair on him to deny them that.  Now don't get me wrong, I have an ex as well who pays child support and I think that parents should support their children and I would never not help to pay for his children's welfare BUT having said that, I also believe that parents are entitled to be able to do what they want to do in their lives too.  If we had all remained with our previous partners we would have been able to do whatever we wanted and just because you have a relationship breakdown, why should you have to stick at a job you hate just to support your children.  Our biggest annoyance is that we believe his ex is earning money and a decent enough sum that they can run two cars, both only a couple of years old, both petrol guzzlers, they can afford Ipads, brand new phones (stepdaughter has gone through 4 Samsung Galaxy 2 and 3s in the last year!).  They have 4 people in the house using mobile phones and stepdaughter got told that her bill was ok each month provided it wasn't more than $100........We sure as hell can't afford to run 4 mobile phones with a $100 bill each in the month!  Stepdaughter is always getting new clothes, haircuts are done at hairdressers on a regular basis, the ex can afford to get tattoos and hair extensions, they have take away numerous nights of the week and go out to hotels for dinner at least every couple of weeks and movie cinemas........you tell me where the money is coming from and her partner has been unemployed for a few months too!  (Child Support have been told this but they say unless we can come up physical proof that she is earning we can't do anything about it,,,,ggrrrrrrrrr)

So back to my original point, I just don't know if us starting a business together is going to be wise from a financial point of view.  I'm off to ponder things for a bit today and try to come up with some ingeniuous money making idea lol,,,,,maybe we could come up with a plan to take over the company ourselves!!

I will leave you with a few more photos......

....or maybe I won't,Blogger has decided once again it doesn't like me today lol, maybe next week we can have photots!!!