Leaving employment to go self employed

[Summerdreamss]

Did you have any regrets? Or does the pros outweigh the cons,?
Bit worried about loosing security of holiday and sick pay etc.

[Summerdreamss]

Anybody?

[QueenDoris]

In short - no!

I have more money, more freedom and don't have to piss about with corporate crap. No more setting objectives in a balanced scorecard that no one ever pays any notice of until your next round of appraisals

However.... depends what self employment you are thinking of doing. Running a coffee shop is completely different to being an IT consultant, for example.

Things to think about....

• Can you survive without an income for a period? Do you have money saved? Being self employed can often be feast or famine.
• Is there an up front investment? Do you need to tie up money in stock? Will you get in trouble with cashflow if you don't get paid on time?
• How will you win business? How is your network? Are they willing to spend money on whatever it is you are offering?

But from my point of view - best thing I ever did!

[Summerdreamss]

That's really helpful thanks!
I've no outlay and i have being building up work over last 5 years whilst still employed.
Got enough work (education specialist) to get started but getting cold feet about rather plunge, yet I think it's the right thing to do.

[QueenDoris]

Best of luck. If you are not putting capital at risk then go for it! Worse case scenario? You don't enjoy it or revenue is less than expected? In that case go back to working for The Man.

If you know people that do the same sort of thing then pick their brains. Most people will be more than willing to tell you about how it worked for them and offer advice. And sweat your network as hard as possible. Most work comes from people you know - if they like and trust you that is half the battle won

[Summerdreamss]

Yes I think it makes it easier as I have a good stream of work coming in already.
The thought of no office politics and no obigitory pointless corporate nonsense is certainly appealing

[Frequency]

I have massive regrets. HMRC, with no warning, stopped my tax credits because they declared I was earning no income therefore not self-employed. They also stopped my child tax credits which in turn put the heebie jeebies up the council who stopped my housing benefit and council tax support.

I lost work due to the time it took to gather evidence to disprove their claim/seek legal advise/attempt to get sense out of them on the phone us it was right before Christmas which is a quiet period for me anyway so I was left with only £600-700 per month and child benefit to live on.

They'd looked at the wrong accounts and disregarded my actual income as they didn't understand it. They they decided as I didn't draw any money from the freelancing account to my bank account my earnings weren't income

I started a new full time employed job today and am taking HMRC to tribunal as per the advise of my solicitor. I've been advised it could take up to a year to sort out and I'm not entitled to any tax credits or benefits until the tribunal is heard.

I'm a lone parent. I will never go back to full time self employment no matter how much it pays. The risk is too high with no safety net to fall back on.

[CourageCalls]

As with anything in life there are pros and cons. I am my own boss, make my hours, if I need more cash out I take it out however sometimes I'm so worried about the instability it keeps me up at night!

It totally depends on your circumstances both myself and DH work for our business so no other money coming in. I'm thinking I might go back to employment just to have a safety net. Brexit has cause uncertainty in our area of business therefore having a back up right now would be prudent. So in conclusion I would say consider your personal circumstances and think about the future in your area of expertise.

[FevertreeLight]

What do you specialise in? I would say that it is a really bad time for education consultants. IR35, changes to how academies can employ, ESFA leading to a reduction in daily rates etc.

[babynelly2010]

I love my self employment but depending on what you do and how steady your work flow is ask yourself if you can handle going with out work for a while and what is your back up if things fond go well.
Pros
Be your own boss
Make your own schedule
Choose work you want to do
Be proud of what you do
Find better balance in life

Cons
There is a lot of admin work
You must wear many hats
Chasing new work, chasing invoices
If you are used to big office and going to be working from home you might feel lonely
Depending on what you do you might not have a big name behind you that you may be getting which your current work which may be gets you new projects
Your work is constantly on your mind you must learn to check out
Self employment is not for everyone but can be very rewarding

[Clavender]

Just occurred to me that some of the cons you mention babynelly could be done by someone else - the admin work, wearing many hats and chasing invoices, as long as you've got income coming in you could hire a virtual assistant to take these off your hands if you don't like doing them. That would be giving business to another self employed person as well!