I mentioned that we were conned by a Dato (his name is Dato Robert!) and we lost about RM100,000 on him. How did we get into this? Check out Part 6 HERE.
We do not have money left in our bank account to pay our cafe's expenses and to sustain our own living. We were in deep shit.
What now?
Literally from anyone we know. Including a few of our regular customers.
It's crazy to borrow from your customers, I know. Yet, when you don't have the choice, you just have to do whatever you think is possible. Even if you think it's not possible, you will still have to do it anyway. Because you would never know what will happen next.
We asked to borrow from our regular customers and promised to pay them back in the following month.
We were so blessed that we had 2 customers who were willing to borrow us some money to pass through that particular month. One of them even borrowed us RM10,000!
After borrowed money from our customers, we knew that we will have to keep our promise to return the money to them in the following month. Jerry kept telling me he will sort it out, asked me not to worry. I trusted him so I didn't ask much.
But where did he get the money from?
I only got to know about this when I saw a guy kept coming to our cafe and looked for Jerry.
My reaction after knowing this? Worried, but not showing out. If I did, I would have just stressed Jerry out more on this. It has happened, all we need to do is to pay the debt off to the loan shark as soon as we could.
I couldn't remember the amount that Jerry borrowed from the loan shark, but Jerry used the money to pay back our customers who borrowed us the money in the previous month.
After paying back to our customers, we were struggling to pay off the loan to the loan shark because the interest was too high.
We borrowed from our parents and friends, yet, it was still not enough. We can only pay back the interest but not the actual loan.
It was quite blessed that the loan shark did not come after us badly like what we have normally seen in the movies.
One early morning, while I was still in bed, Jerry woke me up and said something which I was so sad that I was crying after listened to what he said.
He said:
"Chris, we don't have enough money to sustain our own living now. I need to pawn our wedding rings in order to get some money so that we don't starve."
Our Wedding Rings
We bought our platinum wedding rings with diamond right after we came back from the UK. It costs a few thousand per rings, and we bought 3 rings altogether.
With a blurred face (in the morning), right after listening to Jerry, my tears started to drop. Even though I felt really sad and I was not willing to pawn the rings, there were no other options at that very moment.
So I said (while sobbing):
"Ok. Just take it with you."
Jerry hugged me for a while then left to the pawn shops.
Jerry came back a few hours later.
He looked me in the eye and said:
"I have a good news and a bad news. Which one would you like to listen first?"
Like most human being on earth, I chose the bad news first so that I can feel better with the good news afterward.
And he goes:
"The bad news is, we still do not have money now."
I looked at him with a huge question mark on my face.
Then he goes again:
"The good news is, we still have our wedding rings!"
I asked him why, taking my own guess that maybe he's too heavy-hearted to pawn it off. I got it all wrong! 馃槀
He answered:
"The pawn shops commented that our rings' diamonds were too small. Doesn't really worth anything, it's better for us to just keep it."
Right after that, both of us burst out laughing.
Was that lucky or was that not?
We were glad that we still have our wedding rings, however, we were upset because we did not have the money to sustain our own living.
When we first started the cafe, my mom mentioned to me that I have a granduncle (my grandma's brother) who were staying in KL and I should visit him one day since I am staying in KL too.
Just so happened that my grandma and one of my aunt came to KL to pay my granduncle a visit, so I went along with them.
I met my granduncle, his wife and one of his daughter, who is my cousin aunt. She doesn't like me calling her aunt because she was pretty young. I felt she were more like a sister to me than an aunt. Let's just call her SL.
That was our first get to know.
They were quite wealthy yet they were very down to earth, humble and very friendly.
Not long after that, SL gave birth to her first child. I went to her baby's full moon party with Jerry and my grandma. That was the 2nd time we met.
Now we couldn't pawn our wedding rings, the only option is to borrow again. Yet, we had been borrowing from the people around us, who else can we borrow from?
Then we thought of my granduncle and SL.
The thing is, I only met them twice, would they borrow us the money? It would not be just a few hundred or a few thousand that we need.
Without any other options, I called SL up.
I told her our situation and I asked if I can borrow a sum of money (a five-figure amount) from her.
She sounded pretty open to it and told me she will get back to me after discussed with my granduncle.
My heart was pounding with anxiety, didn't know what else can we do if my granduncle disagreed to borrow us the money.
After a few hours, I received a call from SL.
She said granduncle has agreed to borrow us the money. She said she understands what we were facing and hope we could get over it.
I just couldn't express how grateful I was other than keep saying thank you over the phone to her and my granduncle.
We never thought that my granduncle would have agreed to borrow us the money because I only met them twice. I couldn't imagine what will happen without them borrowing the money to us to get through our hard time.
Don't let your assumptions stop you from asking because you will never know what will happen after you asked and you will realize there were so many people around you who were willing to help.
They have never asked when can we return the money to them. But we were striving our best to pay them back bit by bit. We ended up spending years to clear our debt to them.
When someone helped you out of their kindness, never take it for granted. Even though they did not ask when can we return the money to them, it was our responsibility to return the money to them no matter how difficult our lives were and no matter how long does it take.
They were our lives saviors and I couldn't express my gratitude enough to them until today. We felt so blessed and we thank the universe for such arrangement.
With the money from my granduncle, to sustain our own living was not an issue now. We also used the money to pay off our debt to the loan shark and suppliers, our staffs and any other debts. We closed down the cafe and spread the news that we were selling off the kitchen equipment.
We manage to get someone to buy everything over with RM50,000.
With the entrepreneur spirit, or we call it a cockroach spirit, we started another business in a place where you would not think of.
Where is the place? What kind of business that we ventured into?
Stay tuned for Part 8!
Related Post:
My Part 1 Story: What I have been through in the UK when I was 19 years old
My Part 2 Story: I met the angels in the UK
My Part 3 Story: Goodbye Jerry
My Part 4 Story: I got myself 3 Apprentices in the UK and was arranged for a marriage
My Part 5 Story: Failed miserably, losing all RM500,000 from the UK
My Part 6 Story: Hell of an opportunity
