Charles Bott is the founder of The Hotel Works, a hotel advisory consultancy that guides hotel owners, developers and investors through the hotel development process. The Briton, who set up his company in 2009 following a redundancy, says he has experienced a financial roller-coaster ride since first moving to Dubai in 2000.
Describe your financial journey so far.
When I was young, I hated it when people asked what I wanted to do with my life because I never had an answer. But my parents - my mother was a headmaster's secretary and my father, a sales and marketing director - spotted my love for food, going out to nice restaurants and staying in hotels and thought the best idea was to get me into the hotel industry. So at 17, I got a holiday job working in a hotel in the Lake District. My first pay packet was £25 (at today's rate, Dh117) for a week's work and I put £20 of that straight into a savings account. When I left hotel and catering college to work full-time at 19, I would save everything I could - not because I was saving for anything in particular, I just wanted to put it away.
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How has moving to the UAE affected your finances?
I arrived in Dubai with nothing, apart from a house in the UK. I started saving in 2003 and built up enough for a deposit on a villa here in 2007. Since buying the house and having two daughters, aged four and six, the financial journey has been more challenging than at any time in the past. I was made redundant in July 2009 and we managed to stay in our house until midway through 2010 before we got a tenant and moved to a two-bed apartment. It was a money-saving move - the rent for the apartment is half what the tenant is paying me for my house, but one day we'll move back.
Are you a spender or a saver?
A saver. I am not interested in materialistic things like cars or the latest electronic gadgets. I will drive the cheapest thing that gets me from A to B. I don't have an iPod, but I still have a videocassette recorder.
What has been your most valuable financial lesson?
To never involve friends in helping you out with your business. Before I launched, I took an offer from a friend to run my hotel consulting business on the back of his trade licence. But as soon as I started earning money, he wanted a piece of the action. We had never agreed to a percentage and eventually fell out. Similarly, another friend allowed me to use his company bank account to process my invoices in the early days, but after the first payments came in, he wanted a percentage of my fees. I would never do that again because those friendships have gone.
Have you experienced any financial difficulties along the way?
When the redundancy money ran out, we had to tighten our belts. Moving out of the house, from a four-bedroom 4,200-square-foot villa with a garden to a 1,500 sq ft apartment, was the biggest sacrifice. But we did things such as shopping in LuLu rather than Spinneys, not going on holiday and declining more social engagements. We just came together as a family to ride the storm and we now know how to put things right when things go wrong.
What has been your biggest financial challenge?
Setting up my own business with nothing in the pot again. To be out of work for 11 months plus the time it took to set up the business was hard. The day you stop looking for work and set up your own business is not the first day you get your first dirham in the bank account. When the redundancy money ran out, we had to borrow money from family and liquidate a unit trust worth £20,000.
What do you like to invest in?
After everything that's happened, it has to be cash. Any spare money we have pays off debts or is literally put underneath the mattress. We have two houses and are able to pay school fees and the mortgage, but we don't have a lot spare at the moment for anything else. And the family money that we've borrowed has all got to be paid back, too.
Is money important to you?
Yes, very important. Because I don't have a steady income, money has become everything to us because with two children we've got to have somewhere to live and be able to feed our kids.
What do you like to spend your money on?
Holidays with the family. It's the only thing I love spending on and I will push a two-week holiday to three weeks if I can. However, we're still recovering from me being made redundant, so we haven't got a huge amount in the pot. Our next trip will probably be back to the UK to stay with family. But on the shopping list is a return trip to New Zealand and Australia and a revisit to The Seychelles and Mauritius.
