I agree with you Chester - it's not fair. In fact, it's utter bovine excreta and there is absolutely no way these turkeys can operate transparently - who is going to know if they sell kilos of coffee and not record the "kick starter tax" instead shoving the $$ in their own pockets. I too have spent 10 years going without - no holidays, no fancy dinners, no fun shopping trips to reward my long suffering wife, no essential repairs to my house (still have a leaking roof and toilets that are dodgy), zero spending.......what's it called again.........."living the dream........., etc. Have just bought another new roaster (#5) and had to save all my money to do so.........geez life could have been a lot easier if I used other people's money. Would be nice to drive a car around day to day 7 days a week instead of a damn delivery van..........on the rare occasion I have to do something not work-related.....I turn up in a delivery van........yep.......living the dream. Reminds me of a friend about 7 years ago. He has a business that is not new, not innovative and has been around for 40 years........vending........(a.k.a. filling a machine with consumables).......yet he managed to coax $30K in capital from the Australian and Victoria governments in "small business startup grants".........sheez, what I could have done with that money in the early days instead of working 2 jobs and not paying myself any salary for 4 years. I wonder about the sorts of people who pledge these programs.......particularly when I have thousands of customers around Australia who kick up a stink when the price of coffee goes up $1 a kilo (despite the fact the Aussie dollar has devalued 20% in the last few months and roasters are now paying up to 70% more for raw coffee compared to 12 months ago).
