Setting up as a cleaner

[ForestFox]

Hi everyone.

Relatively new here. I had to leave my job after my son was born as they couldn't offer me shifts that would fit around my sons nursery care. I worked as a veterinary care assistant. I have decided to look into being a self employed domestic cleaner, I did a lot of cleaning in my previous job and a super house proud and really enjoy cleaning so thought it was an obvious avenue for me to explore.

Anyone else started from scratch have any advice? I'm not sure if I should advertise myself first to see if I get any jobs and if it looks good then declare myself self employed or if I'd get into trouble for not declaring it immediately lol. I want to do everything right and above board obviously!

Many thanks in advance xxx

Hi i worked as a cleaner on and off for 20 years !!
Its good money but to be truthful most jobs dont last more then 2 years some clients gey bored of the cleaner or get weird and dont pay instead of saying if you havent did something its happened twice most are nice but cleaning jobs on a regular basis in my opion are just if you are lucky 3 times a week as too many people doing it now .i dont think its enough to live on i was lucky as i was living with my late mother and she paid rent so it was just pocket money for me the most i ever earned in a week was £70 14 yrs ago .hope that helps i live in london btw

People are crying out for cleaners here. My cleaner does 8-5, 5 days a week.

People are crying out for cleaners in my area.

Op get insurance
Work out whether you use your own products and charge more.
Charge a higher hourly rate for a fortnightly ckean
Keep all your petrol receipts, to claim back
Work out what days you want to work, nursery days
Factor in travelling time
Word of mouth is best recommendation

Round here a cleaner using own products is £25 for two hours

I started off from nothing. I made 12k (gross) in July August September. I'm not an agency. Only me but I did subcontract some work. There is a lot of money to be made cleaning.
PM if you want.

Yep there is money in it, for sure. My cleaner charges £12.50 p/h and uses her own products. 40 hours a week at £12.50s not bad, eh?

Whereabouts in the country are you? I know a couple of self employed cleaners who do holiday lets and they do very well out of it and are always in demand, however I do live in Cumbria so there's plenty of holiday properties! Might be worth looking at if you're in the right sort of area

Our cleaner in the NE chargers £10 per hour. I found her details in a news agents window. She now does lots of people in our street on the same day. This cuts down on travel costs. We told everybody about her as she was looking for more work.

How did you get on Forest? I'm just looking into this now - it was something I considered over a year ago but I set up a cat sitting and pet care business instead. However the income from that is very irregular so I'm looking into starting a cleaning business too and was wondering if you'd started yours yet and if so, how it's going?