Would you quit your jobs?

[TulipVictory]

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Without being too outing, someone close to us is buying a small holiday complex. We could possibly have the opportunity of living on site and running it for them. They will pay our wages. We think this could be a good opportunity to give up the slog of our day jobs. For reference we have three young children. I feel like I can't think straight as have never had such an opportunity. Does anyone have any experience in this field ? Would you do it ? Does anyone have any positives/negatives? Thankyou

I'd keep at least one outside job, just in case it goes wrong and you're left without an income.

Do you own any property? Or is the wage enough to keep saving towards one so when you no longer want to or can work you have a property or means of buying one? Do you actually want to manage a holiday park or will it just become another kind of slog? Can you cope with people knocking in the middle of the night in an emergency or because their neighbours are noisy? Do you like the area? What kind of clientele will it be?

It's a bit risky for you both to give up your jobs meaning your family would be entirely dependant on this enterprise for its income. What if it fails or doesn't make enough profit to pay you both a consistent wage? What if you fall out with the owner? I'm very risk averse so would not throw all the family eggs in one basket. Could one of you become involved but the other retain their current job?

We currently have a mortgaged property and thought we could rent it out for the time being. I work in the health profession so could easily do bank shifts if needs be. Don't want to jump into this though and be stuck and hate it. Originally thought it may give us a more relaxed life all in one base but now I'm not sure 🤔

They will pay our wages.

pensions? holiday pay? sick pay? bereavement leave? maternity/paternity pay?

What happens if we have a global catastrophe that shuts down the holiday sector?

Can you afford child care during peak season?

It may well be a slog, just a different kind. It's very hard, often unpredictable and you would probably have to be available 24 hours a day. You could end up working longer hours, especially during the season.

How easy will it be to return to your current positions on current wages if it all goes tits up?

Looking after a holiday complex isn’t easy work. You’ll have long hours. Plus if this pandemic has shown us anything, it’s that working in hospitality is a risky business.

There's nothing relaxing about working in hospitality!

Would you be able to save any money? What would happen if it went t*ts up? You’d be on call 24/7 I suspect though.

There's nothing relaxing about managing other people's holidays... How much will you be earning that your friends can afford to both turn a profit and pay you?

I think it's one thing running your own holiday complex, quite another to run someone else's.

How small is small?

It just sounds like you’d be cleaning/ doing maintenance 24/7. Would you both enjoy that?

I wouldn’t. If it was easy wouldn’t your friends do it themselves? By taking it you tie your home in with your jobs, making it much harder to leave, living on site there would be an expectation of always being on call, you wouldn’t be able to take holiday in peak season (potentially tricky with school aged kids). Would you get use if the facilities? What happens when people can go abroad again and demand lowers?

Being able to keep your hand in with bank shifts would definitely make it a less risky choice.

What’s the holiday complex like? Wherever you are it’ll probably be demanding work with long hours. But some places will be much more challenging than others, with constant drunken fights, serious vandalism etc.

Would you be able to ever go on holiday if tied to managing & maintaining the site.

What happens if they sell their business or they don't get many customers?

I couldn't do it
I don't have maintenance skills
I am bad at cleaning & don't enjoy it
but most of all, I wouldn't like having to stay near or onsite all of my time

I know this would work out fine for others, though, at least for a few years

@QuestionableMouse

There's nothing relaxing about working in hospitality!

This. It's a world where everyone but you is on holiday!

Keep your place and at least one job. I always advise people not to tie accommodations and jobs together.

It always seems to risky working for friends. Just seems a heigher risk of something going wrong.

It's not huge, around ten holiday cottages but they do have three bedrooms each. Our wages would match our current ones. What I would like to do eventually is sell our house (as we would be living on site) and buy a house to do up (in winter months) and make money that way. Keep doing up until we make good money and the opportunity to be able to do something up is an opportunity we wouldn't have had otherwise.

Presumably you would need to be around for all the school holidays ... how would you get away with your children for a holiday ?

I wouldn't tie us both to rely on one place for income

@Divebar2021 we have put in our requests to that we can have 6 weeks holiday per year so they would have to man it with other staff

Do your current jobs involve you working with the public? If not, you will be in for a rude awakening!

Sounds like an adventure to me then.

I can't see how the business would cope if you both wanted to take holidays at the same time. Especially 6 weeks.

[quote TulipVictory]@Divebar2021 we have put in our requests to that we can have 6 weeks holiday per year so they would have to man it with other staff [/quote]
What proportion of those holidaye coincide with the school holidays?