To get annoyed by Mummy Businesses

[NeilFan]

You know the type cake making, knitting, cup cakes, carding etc. Generally SAHMs whos kids are now at school and feel the need to go back into work but can't really be bothered. They pick up some hobby that people have diplomaticaly said they are good at and think it can be a business. Only know one person who actually has a talent for their business choice, all of the others would be better just asking for cash directly rather than palming off sub standard products onto polite friends. Same goes for all of that pampered chef and candle party lot who are even more deluded. My first post on mumsnet but this stuff really annoys me!

terrible thread
"feel the need to go back into work but can't really be bothered"
can't be bothered!????
fuck off

'selling' not 'seeling'. Whatever that is.

My 'mummy business' pays for holidays, furniture and clothes.
I also have a full time job.

OP Would your life be better if I stopped doing this?

OP? OP?
Oh, she's vanished

The selling of products below cost drives me insane, and is the excuse reason why I refuse to bake cakes for charity sales at school. I do not want children to learn the incorrect economic lessons that charity bake sales so often illustrate.

Our local facebook selling pages are full of these things. Some of the cake makers are bloody awful.

I'm self employed and work from home alongside my proper job. I'm an adult webcam and phone operator. It pays for my car and holidays.

Bonsoir the issue of selling things below market value is a real problem in some industries.

The currrent offer for a debut novelist is £2500-£5000 9consider I got ten times that eight years ago). Yes, there's a recession, but there is also the factor that so many writers are willing to do it for nothing, just to see their name in print. Too many hobbyists IMVHO.

There's also the issue of people selling stuff illegally. Someone mentioned sock monkeys, 99% of the time it's against trading standards laws to sell these.

That's not much for a novel! I got rather a lot more than that for writing a case study - about 20 pages of A4!

Markets still work. Inferior products / services don't sell or last.

There's actually a shop where I live called 'Look What Mum's Made', proper premises and everything. All credit to them but I just don't need any bunting or bits of what is clearly some skirting board artfully half-painted with arch statements about gin, housework or kids to put up in my kitchen.

Mainly I just see people like this at the school Christmas Fair though - which seems fine!

I don't feel any need to fill my home with hand made art work that I need to spend money on - DD provides a plentiful, constantly renewed supply

It is shocking Bonsoir.

A year's work for two and a half grand. The publishers try to tell newbies that if their book sells well they'll make money on royalties, but what they don't point out is that a. that is not in the authors hands and b. with huge discounting to book sellers, the auhtor's chances of making royalties are very slim.

And don't get me started on the agents who are complicit in this crap. They too are a bunch of hobbyists who don't actually need to make a proper living from their authors.

I don't want to come over all Linda Evangelista but I wouldn't sell a book for that!!! I'd rather put it under my bed.

Well what a bitchy OP
I make cards I have never pushed them onto friends and always sell a lot to strangers when I do craft fairs as well as people who know me. So I know people like them.
One thing I have learnt from this thread is I probably need to put my prices up.

That is depressingly bad Word.

YABU. If someone does this kind of work then good luck to them. Why should it concern anyone else? If you don't want to buy the products then say no.

The selling of products below cost drives me insane, and is the excuse reason why I refuse to bake cakes for charity sales at school. I do not want children to learn the incorrect economic lessons that charity bake sales so often illustrate.

Agree- why am I wasting time making a cake that will cost me a fiver (excl labour) which the playschool then sells for three quid? Just hit me up for three quid and save me two quid and an evening.

What do you do for a living OP?

YABU, judgemental and patronising.

I have a friend who makes mice dolls - elaborate little things adorned with pretty dresses and jewels. I wouldn't buy one myself - not my thing - but she's never asked me to! She sells them at craft fairs and it funds her next lot of craft materials - kind of like a hobby that pays for itself.

What the hell is wrong with that?!

'mummy business'

Patronising twat.

I did just this to begin with and now have a small office, work room, shop and a small staff. I had to work very hard to get there and could not have afforded the whole outlay of comercial rates in the beginning.

I also like to think that the magazines that have featured my products and shops that stock them don't regard them as 'sub standard products'.

You are being very judgemental OP. YABU.

What's illegal about sock monkeys?

Where has the OP gone? Probably answering her door to numerous 'mummies' trying to flog her their wares. Poor girl.

We could tell you, paradisechick, but then we'd have to kill you.

::zips lip::

I get irrationality angry over 'handyman' type people. Jack of all trades, master of none and all that.

I got banned of one selling page. A guy set up saying he'd fix iPods, ds's, laptops etc. I asked about insurance and what would happen if he broke something. I thought people were crazy to hand over their gadgets to some guy with a mini screwdriver to fix on his kitchen table.

I love my handyman. He has a maths degree from Oxford and can do anything around the house. I call him in distress and he fixes all my problems and I don't even have to mention them to DP. What's not to like?

Do you mean Daddy Businesses, paradisechick?