In the wrong job
Did anyone see ‘Dragons’ Den’ this week?
I saw it last evening on the repeat show. There was a woman on the show pitching for £70,000 for her French furniture business.
Juliette Thomas is a single mother with 4 children under 8. At the time of filming she was running a limited company (or PLC whatever they’re called these days) as the sole director with a turnover of over £140,000 a year, she’d just sold a nanny business for £11,000 & stated that she was currently on state benefits & wasn’t taking any salary from her businesses.
This raised a few eyebrows amongst the Dragons & I confess both mine disappeared off the front of my head for a while.
She said that in order to cover the future loss of state benefits she would need to take £60,000 in wages as soon as the company started to make a profit. I don’t know if I;m interpreting that correctly, can a single woman with 4 kids actually get 60 grand from the state a year?
You can see an excerpt of her in the show at the Dragons’ Den home page, but I guess it will only be there for a few days.
PCSO Bloggs says:
Yep, I watched this episode. I must say I was rather shocked too.
September 2nd, 2008 at 11:55 am
Tony F says:
A bit bizarre, how can she be on state benefits? Or does she just mean child allowance? Or has everything gone mad??
September 2nd, 2008 at 2:51 pm
Zac Smith says:
I think that she meant that she would need to earn £60k to pay for childcare and to have the same income as she does now. Nanny at £25k out of taxed income = £35k, travel to work = £2-5k, work clothes £1k?, therefore benefits of £19-22k? Sounds more reasonable.
September 2nd, 2008 at 4:53 pm
200 says:
Zac… hmm, maybe but I’m not sure about that. I don’t recall anyone mentioning any of that on the show, so certainly some guesswork there.
September 3rd, 2008 at 2:35 am
fashionsista says:
There is no way she is running this business and not taking any profit. I brought a bed from Newton’s furniture for £845 (£580 in their sale) in January this year. Juliette buys the same bed of them and sells it for £1600. She even had the cheek to use the same pic as they do on their website. Her prices are astronomical.
September 9th, 2008 at 11:12 am