AIBU to think DH should get a job instead?

[EvilGreedyWife]

DH set up his own company beginning of the year. I was just asking about how much he has made in first 6 months (has been busy, enough work to do, I can't say he's been just sitting there doing nothing), and it means he could pay himself just about 1/6th of his previous salary per month. This is less than minimum wage in this country and would barely make a dent in our outgoings.

I earn a decent salary but we also have high mortgage and other expenses, and it's getting quite tight - in fact Dhs main topic of conversation has been money recently and how we spend too much and have too little.

My opinion is that this is clearly not sustainable. He should forget about the company and concentrate on finding a job, he could easily earn 8-9 times that. Trouble is currently there are no opportunities in our area - he would need to commute for about 1-1.5h one way (or stay over and commute weekly).

So my opinion: he just needs to suck it up and do it until something comes up closer to home. Especially as he does not see his company income drastically improving, ever.
His opinion - I'm U expecting him to do this, he would have no life, no hobbies, never see the kids. I'm especially U as my own job is a comfortable 10 min commute away.

AIBU?

Also, if he is doing exactly the same job as before, and he is busy but earning a fraction of what he was earning in employment, then he is charging too little.

He should take a look at www.reddit.com/r/freelance/ and learn a bit about pricing his time. If I was an agency and he was working for me, I would be billing him out at three times what I pay him. He's living in la-la land if he is billing himself out at £10 an hour as a freelancer - it needs to be £25 at a bare minimum.

Around here (South East) doing up to a 2 hour commute each way is perfectly normal.

My current commute door-to-door is about 1 hr 50 mins.

Heh, I knew we were going to get into who has the longest commute!

The thing is, an hour is perfectly normal and even on the low side in some places. I've done more than that myself, in the past. It is also, however, a substantial chunk of (unpaid) awake time each day. It just is. There's no getting round that. It's also rather more than OP is having to contend with. Now that's not her fault, the geography is as it is. But it needs pointing out that in expecting DH to get another job, she is expecting him to do something he not only doesn't want to do but that she doesn't have to do herself.

Also is the office absolutely necessary? Unless you're somewhere space is really cheap, surely that's a big chunk of profit for someone who's not even on NMW?

I also agree with astounded...

How many chargeable hours work is he doing per week?

What is he charging?

What would the company he used to work for have charged clients?

He could be an employee and commute part time, and run the business as a hobby at least then he's bringing more in and contributing to a pension plan. (or is retirement all on your shoulders too)

Also looking at it, OP says 1-1.5 hours, and I was reading it as 1 hour. That's potentially 15 hours a week then. I did 1.5 hours full time, and personally found it a fucking killer. Some people do. They're not BU to feel like that, however far some other people travel for work.

OP says part time work isn't feasible. The employed roles are full time. Shame, because otherwise that would be a great solution.

going self employed is bloody tough. you need not only a good business idea but a brilliant business plan with everything covered. you need a plan for growth unless of course its a hobby business.

this is a hobby business. if he is the one with a certain skill set - say for example he is a structural engineer - then only he can do the grunt work and build up the clients.

he should be working every hour he can to build up his client base so that he can get to the point where he needs someone to help him out.

reading your posts over a couple of times its obvious that this falls into the category of hobby business. only they can do it. they can only sell them for a limited amount and the capacity of the business is directly equal to their personal capacity - ie how many hours they can work.

sorry but either he isn't cut out to be self employed or his idea is only ever going to be "hobby".

what he is actually saying is "I don't want a full time job but I want you to have one and me to do what I want to satisfy me even to the detriment of my family"

not nice when you look it like that is it?

write a list of questions. look at his business plan together. look at his cash flow and projections, his time sheets (yes, he should be keeping these) his fixed and variable costs and see a) where you can make savings and b) what the business would need to do to double turnover in the next 2 years.

really though OP you should have done this months ago before he started this off. I bet when you look at hours worked they are less than a 40 hour week. he is coasting which is fine if you don't mind picking up the financial, physical and emotional tab.

I suppose my bottom line is that any partner of mine has to do whatever it takes to bring in a reasonable amount of income, because that's what I would (and do) do.

Would you be willing to commute the same distance OP if you had lost your job?

If not, then I agree you can't ask that of DH. If you would, I think it's perfectly reasonable since there aren't (as far as we know) any other factors like MH issues or illness.

Can you calculate a true hourly rate for his pay? So if he WAS previously earning say £70 a day for 9-5 including an hour lunch but he also had two hours commuting you could say that his hourly pay was £7/hour for his actual non-free time rather than £10/hour. So he has to be making £7/hour after costs as a minimum to make the change worth it.

Obviously substitute in your actual figures but it should highlight how little he's earning now even taking into account he's working fewer hours (which is absurd if he is truly committed to going self employed)

I agree with Astoundedgoat. Your DH is not charging enough if he is working FT hours for former customers of his old employer and earning a fraction of what he was before. He should be able to charge considerably more having cut out the corporate middle. Not sure how easy it would be for him to reprice himself with existing clients now though. Also I would be dubious about the cost / benefit of business premises.

Last year I was in the same position with my DP. As a compromise we agreed to give it to a certain point in time for him to have a chance to build up enough money.

The agreement was that if that hadn't happened by that point he would do whatever it took to bring in a reasonable income (I.e. Give up the business and get a job).

In the end he gave up the business, got a job and now does the 1.5-2 hour commute like me.

First year of a new business is always hard! Your unlikely to make a profit until 18months in.

I don't think you are being unreasonable, OP. He owes it to you and your DC to put what he 'wants' behind what all of you 'need'. He can not make enough money to contribute what the family 'needs' at the moment, and it doesn't look like he will be able to in the foreseeable future. His 'business' is a 'hobby'; he won't even be able to take business tax deductions for it if he isn't making a profit after a certain amount of time. I think he needs to get a grip.

I think he should close the business and seek an employed job.

However from his point of view he shouldered the financial responsibility whilst you didn't work and stayed home, now the roles are reversed but on top he's tying to establish a business. He Gould be doing 50% of the house stuff though if both working.

So he was made redundant and decided to set up on his own? Are you sure he would get another job or that the company cannot sustain him better?

jobs are in various other towns, some an hour away, some up to 1h30 commute.

I suppose my bottom line is that any partner of mine has to do whatever it takes to bring in a reasonable amount of income, because that's what I would (and do) do.

I agree, absent agreed SAHP situations of course, but it's what we mean by 'reasonable' isn't it?

Was OP a SAHP rainbows? I can't see where she said that, am I missing something?

Rainbows what do you mean reversed roles? I haven't been at home supported by him.

So I don't think the family should be on, say enforced economic vegetarianism, no holiday, £10 for Christmas gifts etc just because one person wants an easier life. Nor do I think one person should be forced to deal with a lengthy commute, when the other isn't, for the sake of luxuries. And ten hours a week is a substantial chunk of time, however far other people commute. I don't think DH has any right to expect you to pick up all the financial slack for his choices, but I also don't think it's ok for you to expect him to have a harder life than you, ie a lengthy commute where yours is short, for the sake of inessentials.

This, basically. Finding the compromise is tough though.

stumbly yes there were some challenging times at work recently and I considered my options, and yes I would commute. Would be a pain of course, but you do what you got to do.

You need to have a talk, and review TOGETHER the real possibilities that the business have.
You can't expect a business to give you such a high income in 6 months. You need a much longer investment to make it work.
But you also need to know that it's possible (I'm worried about the comment that he can't see that being much better. Much better in the next month or still the same in a year? That's pretty different).

Otherwise I think you were naive to think he would get a good income with 6 months. Starting something like this means making some sacrifices for 18~24 months. You can't escape that.
Have you talked about that when he started and decided together what you would be OK to live on and for on long you would be happy to do that before packing it up?

I'm basically in a similar circumstance with my husband now 3 years into setting up a business which included over a year of retraining. I am the only breadwinner and I feel resentful as to the impact on our lifestyle. We have now no spare money for treats or days out yet he's still insisting on persevering.
I commute 90 mins each way every day so I personally don't think that is a massive commute, so would be do-able for him.

We haven't managed to find a compromise, I wish I'd managed to before now. I hope you can.

look some jobs will never be anything other than a single self employed person. that's how it goes. people are obviously only employing him at the moment because he is cheap. if he upped his hourly rate they might go elsewhere unless he is offering something "value added" to them.

OP - from his time sheets how many hours is he working per week?

Hmmm. Husband decided around ten years ago that he was going to take redundancy and start his own consultancy. He was in a well-paying job, with security (he elected for voluntary redundancy), 6 weeks hols, pension etc. I was also in a good job with good pay etc.

Anyway, a few weeks after starting out on his own, he secured a 3 month contract. The next contract was a bit longer in coming, but as I had a good salary, we managed. The past few years have been a mixture of high times and low times. Sometimes he's managed to get a contract for 6 months that turned into a year or 18 months and as he can command a good daily rate, it's been fine. The problem is that I became severely unwell to the extent that I couldn't work and then was forced into accepting redundancy. Since then, husband's contracts have been sporadic. We have had to use up all of our savings. I managed to get a job overseas a couple of years ago, which I loved, after two years had to resign from last August for various reasons not of my making. Since then I've applied for about a hundred jobs and haven't even had an interview - could be my age, I'm 57. Husband's last contract ended in March and we haven't had a penny in income since then and again we have used up the nest egg we had managed to accumulate in the last two years. We can't get an overdraft, no more credit, nothing and I lie awake each and every single night worrying how we're going to get through. I have just over £100.00 left. He has about the same. Meanwhile we have rent and other outgoings due at month end. Thankfully, he's just gotten through to the second stage of interviews for another contract and we're optimistic as to the outcome. What we will do if neither of us manages to secure a job in the next couple of weeks is anybody's guess. I'm at the stage now where I'm suggesting to husband that he looks for a permanent role because I cannot stand the uncertainty, instability, worry about how to pay utilities etc anymore.