I was making $150,000 a year and decided to ‘stand on my own two feet’.. two years later my wife was counting groceries at the checkout counter. Here’s what went wrong

Dan Muir risked his savings and well-paying job to pursue his dream of starting his own business.

But just 18 months later, his wife, who had just become a mother, was so strapped for cash that she found herself counting groceries at the checkout.

Sometimes she had to awkwardly ask to put things back and most of the basic necessities were immediately unaffordable, despite the fact that Dan worked 80 hours a week.

The 40-year-old shopfitter began to decline mentally. Then he saw his first company go bankrupt, because he realized that the big companies that promised to pay long-awaited invoices would never cough up a cent.

Speaking to FEMAIL, he admitted that losing his first company was “crippling” and “took him down a dark path”.

“I had never had any mental health issues before. We got through the first two years of the business. Then we hit a rough patch for six months and about three months after that we realized we weren’t going to get paid. We were left with $120,000 in debt and had to go into receivership,” he said.

And he is not the only professional who goes out and suffers – not because of the quality of their work or staff, but because people do not pay their bills on time – or at all. And hounding them with lawyers is too expensive an undertaking.

In fact, so many tradespeople are struggling to get money from their clients that Shaun Jones, who runs a business that hires subcontractors, has started his own invoicing company, supported by a legal team.

Grunt Invoice Protection has only been active for a few weeks, but has already helped dozens of small businesses recover their money.

San Muir, 40, went down a dark path when his first company went bankrupt

His wife Larissa, pictured here with their daughter Matilda and son Hamish, remembers the tough times well – having to count the groceries at the till. This was when her daughter was a newborn

Shaun, 42, who lives on the Gold Coast, was fed up with dealing with bad debt. He organised the tradesmen for jobs, got promised payment, was strung along and then realised the people he had done business with had packed up and left town without paying anyone.

“You would pursue them legally, spend thousands of dollars on lawyers and then find out they have no money,” he said.

“Usually they start out paying on time or they catch up the first time they’re late, but once they get into a relationship with you, they stop.”

He has now set up his company in such a way that Grunt Invoice Protection follows up on overdue invoices and takes legal action on his behalf.

Most of the companies he has done business with have paid on time since he started using Grunt Invoice Protection to collect invoices.

“At the end of the day, I have a wife and three boys to support and we would be a lot better off if we got paid on time, or not at all,” he said.

‘A lot of these guys never have any intention of paying, which leaves me juggling school fees and personal bills, because I pay everything first.’

Shaun has known Dan for over ten years and knew his story. When he launched Grunt, he was one of the first to sign.

Dan was making $150,000 a year when he decided to venture out with his own company, and lost it all

When Dan decided to quit his job and move out on his own, he was making $150,000 a year and had money in the bank. He was also about to become a father.

After the collapse of his first company, he was $120,000 in arrears, became depressed, and his relationship was strained.

He pinvested $250,000 in his business in the first two years by purchasing machinery and was excited about the future with less stress and greater flexibility.

Instead, he was left with “what if” questions his entire life.

‘It still affects me. I think: what if people don’t pay and it collapses again?’

He now runs a successful business in Tasmania. The couple moved to the southern state so his wife could have the support of her family the next time they started a business.

Shaun Jones, 42, started Grunt Invoice Protection because he was tired of trying to cover his bad debts by cutting his own income

The cycle of ‘bad debt’ continues.

He admitted that he recently spent $10,000 on a $40,000 bill.

“Everything is going downhill, if you’re at the bottom you don’t get paid,” he said.

He is taking a stricter approach to companies that do not pay on time and has even joined Grunt Invoice Protection for a number of major clients.

Companies pay Grunt by invoice, but companies do not need to sign up every customer.

Then he can finally provide a good life for his family, which has grown by one person since his first disastrous attempt.

“I won’t say I’m living in a fairy tale, doing business is still as difficult as ever, but I’m in a much more stable position than ever,” he said.

‘Most of my customers are regulars. I think the fairy tale is just that: a pipe dream sold to young entrepreneurs.

‘But the fact that this company is successful is a bit of a relief.’

Shaun hopes that businesses like his and Dan’s will no longer get into trouble thanks to his second venture.