A Plan
Kind of sort of...
Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt. ― Kurt Vonnegut
I would like to start this post by wishing everyone a very happy new year. 2024 and into 2025 have been heavy and difficult for so many. I truly wish that 2025 will bring much joy, security, prosperity, friendship, adventure, and success to every one of us. I want to especially start off the new year by thanking all of you for supporting my Substack and my writing by reading, sharing, and subscribing to Life’s a Feast. Many huge thanks to my paid subscribers who help make my writing and recipe development possible. It truly means the world to me.
We had a plan. Well, we had a plan with variations. In 2015, we bought the hotel with a 7-year loan. 7 years, that’s how it works in France. The banks want their money back as quickly as possible, before anything can go wrong, I assume. But that’s beside the point. We bought our hotel with a hefty loan that would be paid out at the end of 7 years. The monthly payments were heavy, indeed, but we quickly found that the hotel income could comfortably reimburse the bank on top of operating expenses. Whew.
So our 7-year plan was simple. Keep our heads down, our shoulders to the grindstone, work hard, reimburse our loan, and then we were free. At the end of these 7 years, we would decide either to sell the hotel or stay. Each year we stayed, we reasoned, was that much yearly income back into the hotel - for raises and bonuses for our employees, for hiring additional staff, for any remaining renovations needed, or such like - or, well, that money could go right into our pockets. That’s delayed earnings. We were going to pay ourselves a pittance during those first 7 years, knowing that we had a free roof over our heads (we lived on the premises) and didn’t really need much more. And then; once the loan was paid off, we could reward ourselves for those years of demanding, challenging work.
Whether or not we stayed beyond those 7 years would really have everything to do with how we felt physically and emotionally. Back in 2015, my husband was optimistic. 7 years, he reasoned, went by fast. I was a bit more dubious, but I agreed to wait and see.