In January I focused, as usual, on looking over my stores and giving them some TLC during the quiet time. I spend around £20,000- £30,000 sprucing up my shops. I put in new counters at two of them, for example. Now I’m looking at ways I can save money in the shop, ahead of the Minimum Wage Bill on 1 April. There are tough times ahead, and it’s not going to get any better, so it’s about maximising where you can save money and cut back on any wastage. Cut costs where you can.

We’ve moved from Lloyds Bank to Well Pay, and that is saving us £25,000 a year. I never thought we’ve save that much over all the stores just by changing banks.

We’ve gone through all the staff hours to make sure they’re up to date and have already saved a couple of hours here and there.

Take time to analyse your staff hours and where you can save money

Make sure you’re looking across all the shifts. We’re already on a bit of a skeleton crew here, but we’ve still found ways to cut costs further.

Do you need a two-hour crossover or can it just be an hour? Over the course of a week, that’s almost an entire day’s wage, so that’s £350 saved just by tightening up one hour a day. If we have two members of staff working, can we make the second person a younger employee because they cost less money?

We’re looking at more things like that – it doesn’t always work, but it’s important to look for them.

You have to make sure that everyone is working as efficiently and effectively as possible. I don’t always understand the margins and charges, so I found someone who did and that has tightened things up there.

We’ve found other areas where we can save money because the wage bill increase will cost every store. On top of that, the disposable vape ban looks set to hit our income.

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