Pay Yourself First
No one likes to work for free, but
builders do it all the time. Instead of
taking a regular paycheck, they pay
everybody else first — suppliers, subs,
and employees — and take what's left as
their salary. But this is exactly the opposite
of what should happen, according
to San Francisco Bay Area remodeler
Paul Winans. "The single most important
component of your overhead," says
Winans, "is your own salary. It's one of
the first expenses you should cover."
In 1991-92, when business was slow,
Winans wasn't always able to pay himself
the salary he had budgeted for. His
solution was to record the difference
each pay period as a debt that the