If you are self employed - what do you do?

[CocoE]

I am trying to get out of my current job to get away from the long hours, pay ceiling and my desire for autonomy. My main goal is to find something to do that is school hours friendly. I'm looking for ideas. Please can you help me by telling me what you do for a living?

[girlwithagruffalotattoo]

Chammy, for the purposes if tax returns do you just register your buisness as "freelance" in the description? I'm thinking of adding some different income streams to my self employment and not sure if I need to register a whole new business each time?

[EssexMummy1234]

MugsLife - can I ask if you have your own clients e.g. locally or if you work for a firm remotely? I see jobs on PPH etc where the rates that people are willing to work for are extremely low (particularly those based in India or Eastern Europe)

[Juninho]

I hope its ok to join this thread?

I'm looking to set up my own business, i'm a customer service manager with 20 years experience but want more time with kids. The issue is money, I have to almost earn what I do now, so am thinking of starting small with local businesses offering email and social media management that I can do in the evenings etc to build up...what do you think? Any tips?

Thank you :)

[bunnie1975]

I have my own pet sitting business. Fits around the children & their activities & I love what I do.

[Elliethinks]

I am a graphic designer and marketeer and work from home. Sometimes find it hard though to motivate myself. Although I don't miss the office politics I wouldn't mind the odd conversation during the day!! MugsLife, I'm happy to join forces and design front pages for you if you ever get stuck, I've looked at coding but not my thing. When I do websites for small business I tend to use Squarespace because I don't need to code!

[Wordsmith]

A lot of one man bands (like me) and small businesses outsource the financial side of things - accounts, tax returns, VAT, book-keeping and so on. If you have a finance skillset is that something you could do? If you did it from home you could work more or less when you liked. It's always best to set up self-employment in a sector you know something about. You could always pursue the coding side of things with extra training until you were able to offer it as part of your business, for example setting up simple book-keeping programs for clients, or similar.

[mmmkayyyy]

Antenatal teaching and baby massage franchise

[NoSpamPam]

Massage for gentlemen

[Ifiwasabadger]

I'm a PR consultant and DH is a photographer.

I have to say that when you are self employed, your hours don't magically decrease though. They are fragmented (which is great, can do bath time etc, take an afternoon off when I want) but overall the hours are longer....it take a lot to build a business.

[PixieChops]

Psychic Medium and other "woo"'stuff

[WriteforFun1]

Pixie, I'd love to know how you get employed in woo!

[PixieChops]

I'm good at what I do and speak to dead people. Ok a self employed psychic medium and I absolutely love it. Especially if someone has lost a loved one and I can describe that person, get their name and pass a message on without the client uttering a word to me. I get great job satisfaction from it

[WriteforFun1]

Pixie how did you get work? Don't suppose you do fortune telling?

[takeaturn]

Really? I'm always so sceptical about the actual net profit mlm schemes make.

Love my chiropractor though. She works really hard.

[takeaturn]

Congratulations on the pregnancy though

[OnePlanOnHouzz]

I'm a freelance concept planner - designing the complicated rooms in the home ( kitchens /bedrooms/dressing rooms etc) for clients to shop around with one set of plans so they can compare like for like ! And also reconfiguring existing layouts of ground of first floor etc to get the home working better for the owner etc too . Love my job ! Been in the industry since 1985 !

[Chellors123]

I left my job in Recruitment for a FTSE 100 company and now offer a CV Writing and LinkedIn profile service

[OhDearMe2]

To those that do Matched Betting, how many hours a month/week (on average) would you say you work to achieve £500 ish?

[rrhughes84]

I'm a designer and have just started my new company as couldn't go back to work due to long hours and distance from my house.

I did NEA Scheme (new enterprise allowance), it's a government led scheme and you get a weekly allowance and mentoring for the first 6 months of your business. It isn't much money £1300 in total I think, but it's been really helpful for me to pay for advertising and equipment.

[Whitecovers]

Elliethinks, can you do designs for t shirts?

[MugsLife]

Hi Essexmummy - I've just noticed you asked me a question. I don't use pph, and yes when I started out I was shocked by how little people charge for this work and wondered how I would be able to compete. To be honest I found it hard to find people in the UK who are willing to spend any actual money on marketing and websites (seriously people want you to design whole websites for £50!). Most of my work comes through a web design agency in the US and basically it was a job I applied to. I would like to one day build up more of a name and get work as myself, but I guess it takes time and I'm happy just being able to earn doing what I love for now.

Elliethinks - I will pm you!

[LunaLoveg00d]

I see jobs on PPH etc where the rates that people are willing to work for are extremely low (particularly those based in India or Eastern Europe)

I freelance too and use PPH a lot for work. Yes, there are people on there who expect the moon on a stick for $5, and people in India or Bangladesh who say they can deliver it. They are happy with a cobbled together website or poorly written content, and "cheap" is the main criteria. There are lots of people though - mostly UK based - who are happy to pay more for a quality job. I just don't bid on the jobs which are paying a pittance.