Collecting Money from Fall Product Sale

After this week of trying to collect money from neighbors that placed orders from Tumbling Girl, I now know that I never want to work for a collections agency.  Even though my neighbors ordered the items, and they had arrived, I felt so awkward asking for the money that they owed.

I ended up breaking the rules a bit.  Technically, I was supposed to fill out an Outstanding Debt Report Form because I have a lifelong friend that had enough money to throw a big party over the weekend, but not enough to pay the $7 that he owes.  I am also not comfortable loaning him the money.  I loaned his girlfriend a little over $30 2 weeks ago because she was supposed to get paid that weekend.  I spotted her the money for my son's popcorn fundraiser for Cub Scouts.  She is actually working, so there's a chance that she'll pay me back.  Lesson learned, though.  He is unemployed, so I don't want her getting stuck with his debt, either.  I'm just not comfortable loaning money to an unemployed person.
 
Money is already pretty tight around here, but his order only came to $7.  My hubby and I talked about it and we agreed to pay for it.  However, if he and his girlfriend don't pay us back, we are keeping the orders.  We paid for them, after all.

I am doing this in part so that there are no hurt feelings between all of the kids.  Our kids play together.  I know how awkward things can get when parents are having issues.

Last year, a family in our neighborhood placed an order for popcorn and didn't pay for it.  For that fundraiser, however, orders must be paid for first.  I kinda think I like that better after this.  I tried to keep it between the adults, and told them when they had to pay by.  They didn't pay, so their popcorn order didn't get placed.  I thought that everything was fine until they sent their kids over to collect their popcorn.  I told them that the payment and order were handled through the grownups and they needed to send their parents over if there were any questions.  They also were telling people that they did pay and we kept it.  This year, I just told that family about the store front sales and told them that if they wanted to place an order, to go to the stores and get the popcorn on the same day that it is paid for.  I'm also a much bigger fan of store front sales after this week.

Thanks for reading!

~Vanessa