Mumsnet Talk

have got into terrible rut of just working constantly, 7 days most weeks (though not always a full day) with some very long days - but now have had first week off in over 3 years (only because of injury to eye, can't drive) I realise how exhausted I am and how hard it is to care for self properly, never mind the children, never mind the house, never mind the horses etc. Obviously every day I don't work is another loss of £££ immediately, plus likelihood of losing customer altogether over time. I do seem to have to clock up an inhuman number of hours in order to break even, but then I did opt for work that was more therapeutic than profitable so on balance?

short of finding a male meal ticket to shack up with I suppose my only other option is to work for someone else, where at least there are holidays and sick pay and so on - but am sure there were excellent reasons for becoming self-employed in the first place

pointless thread in which I just think aloud, sorry

Can you charge more? Are you selling your time, or a product? Is the rate set by your competition or what you think your customers can afford? Do you have to respond to urgent customer demands or could you (hypothetically, if there was less work) plan when you worked?

If you worked for someone else would it be doing the same kind of thing you are doing now, or something different?

Not pointless, this is what this topic is for!

I reckon all of us probably feel like this some days. I definitely do.

I really know what you mean about 'every day I don't work is another loss of £££ immediately'.

Total sympathy - I work ridiculous hours and I'm in the process of trying to get some kind of work/life balance. Maybe the eye injury is a blessing in disguise and will force you to re-address your situation. (My personal 'Waterloo' came when I finished a job and tried to stand up from my desk only to realise that my legs had gone totally numb because I had been sitting in my chair for 18 hours straight...)

Obvious (and slightly depressing) questions - all of which you will have thought of before.

1) Is there any way that you can rationalise your working week - filling out the 'less full' days and reducing the over-full ones?
2) Is there any way you can 'delegate' tasks - get someone in beneath you, up the overall 'job rate' and take a decent cut. (Probably fantasy island...)
3) Is there anyway you can increase the 'value' of the service you provide so you can concentrate on providing 'quality' over 'quantity' and hopefully reduce your hours?

For me (working from home) a big part of solution is to stop fannying around/procrastitating during the hours that I have free to work (school time) so that I don't have to sit up until the small hours finishing off jobs. Is there any way in which you could be managing your time better or are you at the beck and call of clients?

procrastitating - rather like this word. Must patent it.

I am coming to the end of a 3 month stint at the company I left to go freelance 10 years ago.

I cannot wait to get back out and into projects and consulting.

The commmuting, the endless meetings, the fannying around, the politics, the useless gits, the people who live to work, the inexperience, the senior guys who spend the money I am making on recarpeting their offices...aargh!

Yes, it's nice having someone to sort IT and travel arrangements and supply an inexhaustable range of envelopes. But I am now completely convinced freelancing is FOR ME.

may have lapsed into 'grass is greener' mode a bit there, possibly need to remind myself of all the pros of my work?

was just thinking how nice it would be if 1. got sick pay, 2. could phase a part-time return to work as am really below par now and 3. could have holiday time, weekends etc - rose tinted glasses probably

thanks for all the things to think about though, had to adapt during the recession and make a downward transition from working fewer, planned and profitable hours to just doing endless unskilled work. I am the problem though, I rarely if ever say no to the third party I get lots of work through - would and have had exactly the same problem with employers, so would take that with me where ever I worked?

You could take out illness insurance if you really, really wanted it!

But you should be factoring these things into your hourly rate -as you don't get paid for hols or sick days - so you should be earning more than if you were employed!

You could have a slush fund of say - a day's pay a month - and put it into a bank account - should you ever have a day off - the money is there!

You need to factor in:

20 days holidays (minimum)
10 days bank holidays
10 days sick
20 days downtime between contracts (minimum)

Gross you have 5*52=260 days but you only work 200 or so.

Then you have to raise the permanent salary but a contribution for costs in replacing you (agency fees for example), then employer NI costs, insurances, any pension payments etc.

So when you work it out versus the permanent salary, your starting 50k salary might well be 80k and you'd divide that by 200 to get £40 per hour. You should be invoicing significantly over that £40 per hour as a risk premium for being freelance, costs of running your business, tax etc. If you cannot, then you are better off on PAYE.

OP I'm in a similar situation. I feel like my work and home life are recently merging into one another, meaning I'm always trying to do one when I should be doing the other.

Working with the kids around is exhausting, and fitting a full work day into a school one is equally so. I need more childcare but can't afford it and I have to say 3point14's post has made me see why.

I don't invoice enough to have any kind of slush fund or back up and have been craving a break (a real break) for a while now, but even when I'm not working I'm thinking about all the things I should be doing and how I'm going to make up my hours so I don't lose money.

I'm a strong believer in doing whatever is right for you at the time - I'm starting to feel like I want the challenge of working for someone else again, even in a different sector but there's a part of me that really does value the independence and flexibility that comes with freelancing and I'm afraid I'll feel suffocated in an office.