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

tyllwyd

Hi wordsmith/cheekymonkey

Thanks! Yes, you are both right.

wordsmth yes, I am terrible for not asking enough questions about a job when it is offered, and only finding out what I've agreed to when it arrives. And I am often working for three different publishers at the same time, and trying to juggle deadlines between them all. On top of that, I've got a few jobs that come in on a regular basis (two monthly or quarterly) so I have to keep on top of those. And of course there are the jobs that are offered that never arrive, or worse arrive months later when I'd given up on them but of course are now urgent! I have tried asking for a bit more time, but the last time I did that the in-house editor developed selective amnesia and managed to shorten the deadline instead of extending it ...

cheekymonkey - it would be lovely to tell my clients that it will take as long as it takes, but unfortunately they are all working to deadlines themselves, so if I am not helpful they won't use me again!

Sorry, my original post sounded a bit more down than it should have done - its been a tough few months but I'm trying to take a bit more control now, and be a bit more assertive with my clients. The stress over my OH's operation is the worst thing, and not knowing when it will happen - its fine when he's feeling OK, but when he's going through a bad patch it is difficult.

cheekymonkey20

thinkin of getting a seperate business phone line put in, any ideas. With sky for phone bbdand tv and line rental.

mrscmr

Happy Friday Lunchtime everyone,
see that we have all been busy.

Wordsmith - i love your daily task list - i do those over and over but maybe i should post on here then i can be nagged about them. toothpaste situation sounds grim!:-)
Cheekym - you sound you are getting sorted and organised.
Tllwyd - thank the lord for parents ... thats what i say ... mine bailed me out 2 yrs ago and my mum is super with odd bits of cash for the kids. the payment on account thing really hacks me off but this january i got a rebate as i had over paid, so had to pay nothing for a change - first time in 13 years though!

so onwards and upwards to us all. its sunny and we are working [yes even me mrs procrastinater]
have great weekend - although im gonna squeeze a couple of hrs in if i can.
mrscmr

salfordspam

I'm so pleased to have found this thread although it is proving to be yet another deterrent to productivity! I'm an ex-solicitor now running my own online legal consultancy. It's very early days as I was only made redundant last month (no pay-out) but I alternate between feeling petrified and excited. I have loads of debts and practically no income at the moment but I'm hopeful that my hard work will eventually pay off. It's great to know there are others struggling with life & finances - self-employment is so often portrayed as 100% lucrative and glamorous. I shall drop in regularly to see how you're all doing and share anything useful I come across on my journey.

Horace

Hi all

I went to the chamber of commerce today to see my mentor (as part of the New Deal programme), I told him about the possible job of organising a product launch at the Dorchester in October and he was over the moon. He was even more chuffed when I told him about the stuff I had picked up at the auction especially when I showed him the quality of one of the items (no, I didnt lug one of the dresses to show him, I took a bodice instead).

Whilst I was at the chamber, I spotted a leaflet on the desk and promptly picked it up - it was from the HSBC and their Start-Up Stars Awards 2009, I think I shall apply if only to get the £75 worth of Google AdWords advertising which is offered to all entrants:j

Find out more and enter today - https://www.startupstars.hsbc.co.uk

The closing date is 25 April 09. Entrants must have been actively trading for less than three years on 4 March 2009. Entrants to the Graduate Award musbe be university students or post-grads who graduated within the last year prior to 4 March 2009. Their businesses can still be at the planning stage.

HTH

Wordsmith

Hello, Salfordspam. Good luck with your venture. Keep us posted as to how it's going.

Thanks for info, Horace.

mary_mungo_+_midge

Hi!

can I join this too, as I often feel a bit left out on other threads as can't ever post an accurate SOA because my income fluctuates wildly.

I'm a childminder and have been for last 11 years although I am having real problems with my work/life balance at the mo. I have 4 kids of my own, OH is in a steadyish job and all my earnings go on my self administered DMP.

The payments are set at £600 pm which is a realistic amount for me to earn each month.

However, I've gone a bit mad with taking on new work recently as the local after school club has shut down, so there are loads of school kids needing childcare.

A year ago, I worked 55 hours a week for £150. Have just signed up new kids so hopefully after Easter I will now only work 25 hours a week before and after school, term time only, for 3 times as much money per week. However, this money will have to be put aside to cover the school holidays when i won't get paid. Hope I'm doing right thing.

Want to set aside one day a week in school hols to do work work paperwork which at the mo is done at about 11pm at night when kids are in bed, and then one day a week for debt busting as I know that loads of my debts do not have CCA's and/or have charges that could be claimed back but at mo simply don't have time to write the relevant letters.

Good luck to all on here and thanks for starting this thread x

downshifter

Good morning everyone. Am so impressed by how organised and disciplined everyone seems to be. And driven. I have resolved to up my activities a bit this year, although I'm scraping by, and happy to do so, I don't have any backup for large bills or unexpected emergencies. I tend to take on low paid but interesting jobs for charities or public organisations, I think I might become a bit more commercially minded for a while. I had looked into proof reading a while ago, having done a Plain English course and because I do bits of academic medical abstracting. I might follow this up, though I believe it's hard to get into.

I too tend to say yes without being really sure how long it would take but I always feel guilty and so burn the midnight oil to get something done. I beat myself up that I may have spent too much time wasting the customer's money, or I could've worked faster and so on. It's such a burden to be paid hourly, I'd rather be paid for a quality job well done than an hourly rate. There are so many differences between working for yourself than at work, things I hadn't realised. Like photocopying facilities, having worked in large organisations, eg Civil Service (yuk)or NHS where there were super printer/copiers which someone somewhere serviced and filled with toner. Now I have a cheap printer which costs me a bomb in ink. Also I've become aware of how much timewasting goes on at work (and how much tax payers money goes on it) - people would come into the office and chat about their holidays/new baby/retirement plans for an hour or more, which now represents £14 to me - And most of them were on far more than £14 an hour!. They would also go into the subsidised canteen for breakfast, lunch, coffee and stay for hours. More £14 multiplied up. I find that incredible. Obviously some of this is important informal networking which oils other work, but it easily added up.

Do weekends exist for us as they do for 9-5ers? As I live alone I don't mind that they don't, it feels like even more freedom from the 9-5 if I can work on a Saturday afternoon - I didn't go in at all yesterday anyway. Having the choice is what it's about. My shopworking day is Sunday too. So today I'm going out for an early mother's day coffee and gooey fattening cake, then later into the office for a couple of hours. And some time at home in between doing the garden and more faffing about. Sounds good to me. Have a good weekend everyone, whatever you do.

Jan

tyllwyd

Hi - I'm working on a Saturday morning too, trying to get something into the post this morning to arrive on Monday (and my six year old's voice is going right through my head - lovely though she can be, there are times when an office of my own would be bliss ...)

downshifter wrote: »

... I had looked into proof reading a while ago, having done a Plain English course and because I do bits of academic medical abstracting. I might follow this up, though I believe it's hard to get into.

If you have got medical knowledge, why not follow up the proofreading? It costs a bit to do a proofreading or copyediting course (the publishing training centre is probably the best http://www.train4publishing.co.uk/) - mind you, it's not rocket science so you might be confident enough to do it without - and then its a matter of sending your cv out to a publishers who publish in those areas. You have to be prepared for a lot of rejections, but if you can get a couple of clients it would be worth it, and if you can work in a specialist subject area you are competing in a much smaller field. If you have contacts at the publisher you do your abstracting for, why not ask them if they would be willing to add you to their list of freelancers.

Edited to say ... or how about indexing? Its hard work, but a bit better paid than proofreading, and it would be a good use of your specialist knowledge

Horace

Hi and welcome Downshifter

Have you thought of charging a minimum fee for your work and then charging an hourly rate thereafter? For some of my bespoke services - I charge a minimum fee of £150 and £50 per hour or part thereof thereafter.

I try and have one day off in the week and one at the weekend - during the week I will try and visit my local spa where I have membership and I can spend the day in the thermal spa (treatments are extra so I limit them due to their extortionate cost). Mind you, I still have my business cards with me so I guess you could stay that I am still working on my day off because I get chatting to people and cards exchange hands:rotfl:

I agree that ink is expensive so I buy mine from 7dayshop which is based in Guernsey, I can still buy Hewlett Packard ink cartridges and a really good price and sometimes I don't have to pay postage either and they don't charge VAT.:D

Well best go and wash my hair and head off to the postoffice to pick up some parcels and to the dry cleaners to pick up a dress.

Have a good weekend everyone.