Join in if you are self-employed and work from home

Horace

Fantasy - when your business takes off..come off the dole, apply for working tax credits and apply for housing and council tax benefits (I had to fight to get my housing benefit and had to prove all sorts to them - they even wanted me to send off my receipts so I refused and said that they were available for them to come and view whenever they wanted). Also you can apply for a class 2 NI exemption as you are on low income. When you sign off the dole they will give you £100 back to work grant.

We all have to make a profit even from charities although I have offered my services free to organise a huge charity event knowing that it will look on my portfolio.

Good luck..in fact maybe you should have a chat to itsnowtime as she sells wonderful eco-friendly products on her website, she maybe an outlet for your soaps.

fantasy_dreams

Horace - thanks yes, I will. But so far as a brand new business I have had start-up costs and no profit. I am still in my infancy and as I have had a full time job for the last 10 years, I might as well claim JSA, especially as I am actually looking for a job, until this business can support us. (to have the same kind of income I had before, it would mean selling an awful lot of produce....)

I will speak to itsnowtime - how can I find her on here ? That sounds like the ideal outlet to me, as we are eco-friendly, Orang-Utan friendly, skin friendly...you name it... ;-) I am still getting my head round this a bit as I was never the eco-type (Birkenstocks are really not my thing), but it feels so right. And eco-things have come a long way, I actually find most of them better now than their not-so-eco-counterpart.

Thanks for taking me off my guilt trip regarding making money from charities. I will be charging them less than what my normal wholesale price is. It's not a charity we have picked as one of the ones which we support, so I don't normally sell for them, but I will be offering them to make stuff just for them under their own name. Not much advertisement for me, but thats not the aim here.

moneymabel

Thanks Horace, I do have a prom bit on my site but it could be bigger, I wasn't sure about doing to many different things on the site in case it gets confusing for people? I'll get some cards to you when Im allowed to drive again ( not allowed til the Prozac side effects settle down a bit)

mitty_2

moneymabel wrote: »

Prozac which has made me feel like carp for 2 weeks but supposedly things get worse before they get better.

Just delurking to say it does get better after a couple of weeks, hang in there!

moneymabel

Thanks Mitty :-) I've been told it takes a while so am sticking with it, thanks again. X

monkeymonkey_3

Hi guys, haven't posted for a while, but have been keeping up with what you've all been up to. Hello to all the new people :j

Star, I live in Reading too, moved here 2 years ago.

MrsT, my birthday is on Monday too! Spooky. In answer to you your question, I run an online gift and home accessories shop, including some of my own handmade products like quilts, cushions etc. I also work in an office job full time (as a temp, but been there nearly 2 years :cool:). Eventually I hope to give that up, but for now it's necessary.

I've got loads to do at the moment, but don't seem to be getting on with anything. Have to get stuff organised for a stall I'm having on Friday at a Christmas shopping evening. Also desarately need to get caught up on organising my accounts, and need to get on and get my self assessment form done, although now I need to re-register to do it online as I registered before and got sent the codes, but then I forgot about it and now they've expired....sigh...must be more organised otherwise before I know it it'll be Jabuary and I'll be landed with a fine

MrsTinks

monkeymonkey - I'm not far away
And we rock for having a cool DOB

monkeymonkey_3

MrsTine wrote: »

monkeymonkey - I'm not far away
And we rock for having a cool DOB

We do rock, it's the best day to be born! Where are you from again? (Sorry, I'm a bit forgetful )

MrsTinks

Just had a look at your site monkeymonkey - just a note (apart from loving loads of your stuff!) - you might want to look at the size of your pictures or the resolution of them. If the page has more than 1 picture on it then the pictures are very slow to load. It could be to do with where the pictures are hosted but I suspect the files are fairly large? ie a high pixel?

MrsTinks

monkeymonkey wrote: »

We do rock, it's the best day to be born! Where are you from again? (Sorry, I'm a bit forgetful )

That pesky outlet village across the M40 lol