Secure job but I hate it.

Sncjw

You will likely make a loss early on when starting out so if you need 40k a month to live on. I don't think getting a new buisness espcially in a amstket that is over saturated with coffee shops is a good idea.

Find a gap in the market if your wanting your own buisness. 

Sncjw

I meant 40k a year sorry early morning

balanceseeker749

Sncjw said:

I meant 40k a year sorry early morning

haha. I'd do pretty much anything for £40k a month!!! 

TBagpuss

Id also check out how the CMS would deal with your child support of your current job ended and you were starting a business - they will review your liability if your income changes by 25% or more but you may want to look in to how they would approach a situation where you were starting your own business where your income is  unknown, so you can budget /manage timings as to when and how they will review (and, ideally, also talk to your ex if there is going to be a significant change as that would affect their income as well!) 

It might be worth you drawing up a budget and trying to see what your minimum requirement is - then try living to that budget for a few months, putting the surplus into savings, which would give you a bit of a cushion of savings if you do change to a lower pad job or start up, and also give you an idea of what you can realistically manage on and therefore what you could take on in terms of different / more appealing jobs even if they mean a drop in income. 

MalMonroe

Hello and welcome.  As you say you have free time evenings and alternate weekends, have you thought about perhaps doing some more learning or training for an occupation that would better suit you? As many peeps on here are fond of saying, google is your friend. There are so many part time courses at colleges and universities and oh, everywhere! Degrees, NVQs, any kind of certificate and diploma and degree you could wish for. So much opportunity. And with your background, you may be able to jump a year or two. I don't know, you'd have to do the research.

That way you could be assured that you are working towards a far more rewarding and exciting career and future while still working and earning a good salary.

My daughter has just embarked upon a part time MA degree course - without having done an undergrad course before but with having years of experience and skill in her chosen field - while she's working and she is absolutely loving it. I thought it'd all be quite tiring for her but she has even more energy as she's doing something on a part time basis that she's really enjoying and is very motivated.

It's something to think about anyway. Instead of travelling around in the cold winter months in a van with coffee cups rattling around, you could be studying at home, working towards a career in something you really love. Good luck! But just think on. .  . 

Ditzy_Mitzy

You may have dreams but, at this point, they are clouds in your coffee.  Sorry.  £40,000 pa is a lot of money, and it sounds as if you need it.  Assume that you personally earn £1.00 per drink sold by your hot drink stall, which is optimistic; assume too that you work six days a week and take four weeks off annually, meaning 288 days worked in the year.  
You will, therefore, need to sell 40,000 hot drinks in a period of 288 days.  That is, rounded up to the nearest whole drink, 139 units per day.  Do you really think you could sell 139 hot drinks a day, every day, for the rest of your life?  
There will be occasions when you will sell many more drinks, particularly if you can get onto the show and fair circuit, but then you've got to factor in the costs of diesel to get there as well as the likely need to employ an assistant; that's another matter entirely, but one man cannot make drinks fast enough to satisfy a queue of more than about half a dozen.  
There will also be occasions when you won't sell anything like enough drinks to meet the target.  Think about weekdays in high summer, when people aren't bothered about tea and coffee, or wet days in winter when nobody can be bothered to go outside.  

root

Ditzy_Mitzy said:

You may have dreams but, at this point, they are clouds in your coffee.  Sorry.  £40,000 pa is a lot of money, and it sounds as if you need it.  Assume that you personally earn £1.00 per drink sold by your hot drink stall, which is optimistic; assume too that you work six days a week and take four weeks off annually, meaning 288 days worked in the year.  
You will, therefore, need to sell 40,000 hot drinks in a period of 288 days.  That is, rounded up to the nearest whole drink, 139 units per day.  Do you really think you could sell 139 hot drinks a day, every day, for the rest of your life?  
There will be occasions when you will sell many more drinks, particularly if you can get onto the show and fair circuit, but then you've got to factor in the costs of diesel to get there as well as the likely need to employ an assistant; that's another matter entirely, but one man cannot make drinks fast enough to satisfy a queue of more than about half a dozen.  
There will also be occasions when you won't sell anything like enough drinks to meet the target.  Think about weekdays in high summer, when people aren't bothered about tea and coffee, or wet days in winter when nobody can be bothered to go outside.  

If more people took five minutes to do the fag packet maths like this, there would be a lot less than the current stat of 80% catering businesses dying within a few years

gwynlas

I can understand your frustration having been in jobs i've dsliked and the thought of working for yourself in a coffee van which might seem like a good idea when the weather is good and people are hanging around having a break. What you need to consider though given you have a child is how does this fit in? It might sound over the top but before leaping into the dark why not take on a second job in a catering business either flipping burgers or serving drinks in a pub to see whether if the service industry suits you/ The only real way to make money in the catering industry is to own and tightly manage th business. Look to where your strengths and intersts really lie if this is servicing aircraft then move to where you can make this happen but realise that this would mean living apart from your child.Being you are from a military background wouldn't this be the norm anyway?