I feel trapped and have very few options

AngelPie78

bugslet wrote: »

The nights/days your OH has the kids, could you do mobile nail stuff at peoples' houses? How about setting up a little website and hosting make up parties, where you, a trained make up artist show people tricks of the trade. There isn't much catching up to do there - you have the foundation (sorry!) of knowledge, just watching some up to date youtube videos of what is currently in fashion should help. My friends very on trend 19 eyars old daughter loves the the videos of the drag queens,s tudy them - do a theme night.

You have a lot of qualifications, I think you need to think out of the box a bit more. I have an expired forklift drivers license, that's the sum total of my qualifications:o

Yep did that through uni and then it exploded and everyone is a mobile nail technician now! I had all the kit and do this for friends etc but it's only £10 an hour while the web dev is £20+ an hour so much more effective to spend my time doing that. Again, running two businesses is just diluting my time and making me more stressed. I've considered this though! I'd need to rebuild my kit for nails and make up and that's super expensive.

I could spend 24/7 working with the skills I have on my own businesses but I would burnout in about two seconds lol. The most profitable skill is my web dev work which is why I want to do that.

Thanks for posting though ☺️

ScorpiondeRooftrouser

Any chance that you could answer my question about the profitability of your business? You seem to be willing to answer everything else, but not that.

AngelPie78

ScorpiondeRooftrouser wrote: »

I really would like to know how you are working 40+ hours a week at your business, charging £20 an hour and not making a profit. That's an income of £800. Costs in a business like this should be restricted to costs of travel etc, occasional visits to clients and should all be chargeable, and should only increase as you get more work. Other costs (phone/electricity etc) should be negligible. What is eating up the income from the business? Are you not charging for the work appropriately or is there some significant outgoing? Even if only half the hours you work are chargeable you should be making a profit. Is it advertising?

Hi,

Costs are networking, marketing, meetings with clients, subscriptions to software and hosting and I'm not guaranteed any income (obviously). This week I've had £200 paid into my account and am chasing £300 which is outstanding. I have no other work coming in this month and, once expenses are paid, I'll be left with about £100 of that. I have projects that are in progress which amounts to about £500 but I need to work on them to get that money in which I do around the kids, networking, marketing, sleeping, eating, housework etc...and then there are the down days when I struggle to even get out of bed or have a crippling migraine (caused by stress!)

The ideal would be to build up a regular income for hosting, tech support and maintenance but this takes time...I have a regular income of £95 per month so far and that's taken eight months to get to that stage.

Obviously my name is getting out there and I get enquiries a lot of the time so it's working but it's just not helping right now. Prices are going up in September and I have a new business partner so things should *hopefully* improve but who knows?!

System

Electricity bill looked high, would LED lighting help?

AngelPie78

ScorpiondeRooftrouser wrote: »

Any chance that you could answer my question about the profitability of your business? You seem to be willing to answer everything else, but not that.

hehe just answered! Trying to keep up with all the posts!

AngelPie78

MatthewAinsworth wrote: »

Electricity bill looked high, would LED lighting help?

That's gas and electric - bearing in mind I'm home a lot. Just changed suppliers and the cheapest I could get was £10 a year cheaper so at least I'm not paying over the odds. It might be more like £15-£20 p/w once the change has completed. My mum suggested the same but can't afford LED bulbs lol !

AngelPie78

heartbreak_star wrote: »

If you enjoy the makeup, doing something like House of Colour might work too?

HBS x

Is that an MLM/Pyramid thing? Been there, tried those. I failed epically. I have no friends or a network to be able to sell to. Tried Avon, Arbonne, Forever Living and a bunch of others through uni and I was very very bad at it!

ScorpiondeRooftrouser

AngelPie78 wrote: »

Hi,

Costs are networking, marketing, meetings with clients, subscriptions to software and hosting and I'm not guaranteed any income (obviously). This week I've had £200 paid into my account and am chasing £300 which is outstanding. I have no other work coming in this month and, once expenses are paid, I'll be left with about £100 of that. I have projects that are in progress which amounts to about £500 but I need to work on them to get that money in which I do around the kids, networking, marketing, sleeping, eating, housework etc...and then there are the down days when I struggle to even get out of bed or have a crippling migraine (caused by stress!)

The ideal would be to build up a regular income for hosting, tech support and maintenance but this takes time...I have a regular income of £95 per month so far and that's taken eight months to get to that stage.

Obviously my name is getting out there and I get enquiries a lot of the time so it's working but it's just not helping right now. Prices are going up in September and I have a new business partner so things should *hopefully* improve but who knows?!

Your £400 expenses out of £500 coming in/due this week makes no sense to me for a business of this nature. What are these expenses?

What are the costs of networking and marketing? Meetings with clients don't cost anything, apart from getting there. Again, days where you don't work are not costs to the business, and your software subscriptions shouldn't be that high.

Unless you are spending a tremendous amount on marketing something is wrong if your business is making a loss. The time you are doing other things or have migraines is immaterial; if you are working a significant number of hours on the business that should more than cover the outgoings for a business of this nature; it's not a business with high overheads. If the case is as described then your costing model is fundamentally flawed.

AngelPie78

ScorpiondeRooftrouser wrote: »

Your £400 expenses out of £500 coming in/due this week makes no sense to me for a business of this nature. What are these expenses?

What are the costs of networking and marketing? Meetings with clients don't cost anything, apart from getting there. Again, days where you don't work are not costs to the business, and your software subscriptions shouldn't be that high.

Unless you are spending a tremendous amount on marketing something is wrong if your business is making a loss. The time you are doing other things or have migraines is immaterial; if you are working a significant number of hours on the business that should more than cover the outgoings for a business of this nature; it's not a business with high overheads. If the case is as described then your costing model is fundamentally flawed.

Decent networks and meetings can cost anything from £20+ and they are where I get most of my clients from. I spend about £100 a month on networking clubs and events. My subscriptions, internet, mobile phone and software purchases are about £200 per month, which includes my server costs, email etc. I also share some of my projects with a business partner, so she will get the remaining £100 from this month's payments. I also have to allow for buying coffees etc for clients, petrol and parking when meeting clients face-to-face. This is not something I actively do but I have to allow for clients wanting to meet in person or potential clients.

People think that a remote-based business is FREE to run - it isn't. Yes, there are significantly less overheads than having to have specialist equipment or an office, but there are always costs to any business.

I don't have to pay to build my own websites, do all my own social media and admin work, do skill swaps when I can so save on money and take the hourly work hit instead, I meet people local to me where it's free parking but many people like to meet in the centre so I have to travel and park there. I also do Zoom/Skype calls where I can to save costs but it's not always something I have control of.

stoozie1

I've only read the thread up to where you said you were also avtrained nursery nurse.

One possibility of a side hustle, on the nights where you dont have the children could you advertise yourself on childcare.co.uk as a night nanny? Or evening babysitter but that would be less lucrative.

Take your laptop and bash away at the html while the baby sleeps?