Mystery Shopping Thread 25 *PLEASE READ THE OP FIRST**PLEASE NO CLIENT NAMES OR FEES

enevel

Something up with Sassie this morning? TNS, Bare, Catalyst, React - all out. All others seem fine.

JohnnyG

bylromarha wrote: »

Gonna miss the Christmas period - I negotiated some outstanding premiums between Cmas and New Year where no-one else was working - looking forward to January pay.

I picked up a few GAP visits over the Xmas period, at eye watering premiums

naarestrup wrote: »

Well, I am still relaxing for a few more days before I have two weeks fully booked with mystery shopping and a small translation job.

2014 looks quite promising indeed.

I've got my first couple of shops of 2014 this morning, then a few next week, but nothing to write home about.

I've not seen one job on GfK for weeks :cool:

Big_Graeme

naarestrup wrote: »

Oh, and ISC have lost the Coffee boutiques to Bare.

Good, could never get on with ISC for some reason.

naarestrup

enevel wrote: »

Something up with Sassie this morning? TNS, Bare, Catalyst, React - all out. All others seem fine.

Yeah, I've been having problems as well. But seems to have been sorted now.

Scarlet1982

JohnnyG wrote: »

I picked up a few GAP visits over the Xmas period, at eye watering premiums



I've got my first couple of shops of 2014 this morning, then a few next week, but nothing to write home about.

I've not seen one job on GfK for weeks :cool:

There's a few car tax enquiries been uploaded in my area.

Macadamia

Happy New Year.


MS can, on occasion, be a lonely and frustrating business, and I really appreciate how this thread provides support, tips, advice, community and the occasional laugh. It helps. So a big thank you.

I hope 2014 is good to everyone who reads and posts on here.

Although I don't do a huge amount of MS - for 2014 I resolve to read, and if I can, contribute, more often.

Larac

Scarlet1982 wrote: »

There's a few car tax enquiries been uploaded in my area.

Thanks for putting that alert out. Picked up one in the village next to mine. :T I found GFK over last month, not had much in my area. Similarly for me ESA has been quiet for last couple of months - they seem to want you to give them 'days' and I can't do that due to FT work. Joined PIP last night and picked up two jobs for next week and now done my Bare basics so should now be able to pick up some work eventually when I get my grade up.

emmylc

How do you guys handle withdrawing the money for printing and mileage that you put as an expense against your jobs?

For example, if I take a job for £5 fee with £5 reimbursement for a required purchase as part of the job then I class that as £10 income for tax purposes. I then add a charge of 6p per sheet printing expenses and 45p per mile for travel to/from the job as I now have a car, then subtract the total of these along with the cost of the required purchase from the income amount to give the profit/loss on the job.

Last tax year was the first year I was MSing so I left all the money paid to me as income from the MS companies in my bank account (I have a separate one for MS specifically) and then after I'd worked out my total amounts for expenses like printing, travel and telephone/broadband and my total profit for the year, I made separate withdrawals for each of those amounts so I had a clear paper trail of what they were.

However, I was wondering whether to withdraw these payments on a monthly basis instead as I'm now doing more jobs and travelling more so having the money coming in to my personal account for the printing/travel etc each month would help with my costs in general rather than waiting until the end of the year and withdrawing them in one go.

Not sure whether the question will make any sense to you guys but would be good to hear how others handle getting these payments out from your MS account to see if there's a better way I could be doing it.

samtastic7

On my cheap supermarket visit I saw a few bakery items out of date apple pies 24th dec....:eek::eek:

Big_Graeme

emmylc wrote: »

For example, if I take a job for £5 fee with £5 reimbursement for a required purchase as part of the job then I class that as £10 income for tax purposes. I then add a charge of 6p per sheet printing expenses and 45p per mile for travel to/from the job as I now have a car, then subtract the total of these along with the cost of the required purchase from the income amount to give the profit/loss on the job.

I take the fee as the figure for tax (unless it is a reimbursement only job like a restaurant or one of RA's toy stores where the reimbursement is what you are doing the job for) and treat everything else as expenses so I don't pay tax on them.

So basically if I do a job with a £5 fee and £5 reimbursement with 3 miles and 10 pages the declaration to the tax man would be -

5.00 - (1.35 mileage + 0.70 printing) = 2.95 declared as profit to HMRC This goes on the spreadsheet (well it works it out for me) and also has the monthly expenses for phone, internet, electricty, parking and other general expenses.

This has been checked by an accountant and is HMRC compliant as of 01/12/13, others may have a different method or account in other strange ways, this works for me.

emmylc wrote: »

Last tax year was the first year I was MSing so I left all the money paid to me as income from the MS companies in my bank account (I have a separate one for MS specifically) and then after I'd worked out my total amounts for expenses like printing, travel and telephone/broadband and my total profit for the year, I made separate withdrawals for each of those amounts so I had a clear paper trail of what they were.

Not really needed, as long as you keep a decent spreadsheet with all the details you'll be fine, once the tax is paid it is all your money at the end of the day, all I do is keep a running total of what I owe to HMRC.