I am a small two person shop. I have very low overhead($1200-1500 a month, not counting my employee’s pay and compensation). I estimate that my business will be off 30 to 35 thousand this year due to the lockdown. My employee is fine taking unemployment and working his side job of cutting firewood for the duration if this lockdown. I was turned down for a grant, and I do not see the sense of taking a loan as I have a healthy emergency fund. Is there any government program that gives out free money to help ease the hit I am taking? It’s roughly 15 to 20 percent of my yearly sales. Thank you if you have any information to share.

Did you apply for the EIDL with the SBA ?

What about your local or state level chamber of commerce ? Our local just put out a notice taking applications

You have two resources: EIDL with the SBA is quick and about $2000

SBA- PPP is more complicated application process (about 28 pages in my case), but is for 2.5 times your monthly payroll.

As a part of EIDL you can also apply for a 10k advance which is forgivable if you aren't approved for a EIDL loan.

You need to look at how much of your working capital your are going to burn through this year and that is what you should consider for one of the 30 years 4% or less loans to replace. If you are a sole-proprietorship you might be for some local grants.

Our county had 10k grants for small business, we didn't apply because we got the SBA PPP loan.

The PPP loan will cover payroll, rent and utilities for 8 weeks.

For the payroll loan, if my employee is laid off and I just take a check at the end of the year, how does that work? And do you have to repay a EIDL loan? Again, I’m just after “free cash”. No sense in me working my butt off just to prop up other businesses that don’t keep there house in order.

The EIDL advance which does not have to be repaid is limited to $1,000 per employee. I believe it's based on employees as of Jan 1 2020.

As of today self employed can apply for unemployment in California, you should check your state. In CA you would get between $167 and $450 as week plus the Federal $600 a week

Just an observation. You sure don't hear many negative socialist comments these days.

Rich, all is lost to on that front. Grab what you can before the whole thing collapses. People figured out that they can vote to take money from one person and give it to another.

Rich

OTOH people have been forced to shutdown their business.

Put your snark where the sun doesn't shine

Not that I have collected a dime.

I missed out on PPP round 1 by 4 minutes. I literally watched as I was pulling pages (19 pages) out of the scanner as the website closed.

For Round 2, I had the bank helping, but it was still a long day. Started with them telling me the site would be up and accepting apps at 9:30. Wrong, it was 9:30 CST - 10:30 EST.

Then, the site wanted more info and more , and the bank was trying to find out what was really needed. At 3:36, I pushed the Submit button, and got the screen that said my app had been accepted.

Two hours later, some flake from the bank tries to tell me they are not accepting any more applications - in a complete failure to communicate. Am I in or not in? You are afraid to tell me. Nothing like a spineless banker, eh?

Why can't the actual requirements be published ahead of the application? That is simple enough. Looks like we will have to have a Round 3. Rev up those printing presses at the Mint!

We applied for the PPP and the EIDL on 4/4/2020, and missed out of the first round. We called our bank president when the next round of funds were made available, she said our application was going to their underwriters. The next day, a Saturday, 4/25/20, we got an email saying our loan request was out of line with our payroll records. We quickly responded with more information and corrected a mistake we made. Underwriting approved the new request on Monday and forwarded everything to the SBA. On Tuesday we were approved by the SBA for the PPP loan. I still haven’t heard anything on the EIDL.

Well, it turns out we were approved, and the bank made a mistake telling me we had missed out on round 2. Cluster f**k all all around. But at least we came out ahead on this one.

We got the EIDL - 2K - 1k for each employee. It went into the bank without a word. I have zero documentation. Feels odd, but I'll take it.

This free money should work out pretty well. I will continue to write my Congressmen, asking for more. That one Demo candidate wanted to give everyone 1,000 a month, or week? Bring him back, I'm all for it.

We received the PPP loan and so far looks good. It covered payroll for our 5 employees while they were at home due to the shutdown in New York State. As of May 19, my workers are back on the job producing profits, but being paid by the PPP monies. From what I can tell, the PPP is working for us.