How much does working cost you?

[staranise]

I work from home part-time freelance and have always worked around the children but am going to start paying £400 a month in childcare (approx 11 hours a week), now the DCs are older and need more attention etc. I'm also considering renting desk space as working from home is driving me crazy, hence I'd be paying out £600 a month before I'd even earned anything, for approx. 8 days work a month - not guaranteed work either. I'd have no other expenses eg, transport, equipemnt etc. How does this compare? Do people ever work at a loss just to keep their career going? What expenses can you claim back from the Inland Revenue etc?

Sorry but I do not think I would rent desk space at that price if you do not even know if you will bring in any money. If you really want to do it and have savings to cover it could you rent the space for a short contract only, say 3 months? I would be wary of getting into a longer contract.

Anyway to answer your question, working costs DH and me each month £2500 childcare + £250 travel + say £60 on food if staff lunch out is imposed on us + say £250 on work clothing = £3,060!!!

Yes, this is more than one of our net incomes but if either of us give up it is very difficult for us to get back into our lines of work so we carry on. It will be better when both DC are school age as our childcare costs will drop substantially.

I've worked at a loss before, you sort of have to when self employed? It pays off in the long term, my earning reduced by expensive to run vehicle for work, using other people's land, admin support, domestic help (!) rather than child care. Did serve my time with costly patchwork childcare in earlier days though, but work has always had intrinsic value of its own for me - as well as putting takeaways on the table and keeping leaky roof over our heads. Am not working at present though.

You're right, desk space would be a luxury, but I'm just going crazy at home and I think it would be difficult to continue working here when my CM is here with the children (she'll be using our house). Perhaps I can compromise by using the library for the time being til I see how my income averages out. I struggle with the idea of overheads without a , I don't even have time to generate work.

whoops, missing text! Meant to say

I struggle with the idea of overheads without a guaranteed income but without childcare, I don't even have time to generate work.

i work evenings so costs nothing. i do 5 til 10pm as a retail manager 4 nights a week. my dc are 8 months (currently on maternity with him) and 4, she starts school september.

I work full time, half goes to childcare