Advice needed on working from home please

[mummyhill]

I am contemplating setting up a small home business making curtains, cushions, bean bags, baby carriers, childrens and womens clothes.

What do i need to know/do?

I can sew (obviousley)and have had loads of complimentary comments/suggestions on the playground and hate working in my current job. Am i mad to even consider this?

Make sure your home insurance covers you operating a business from home. With a lot of policies you may find either that the policy is invalidated or that it does not cover any of your work equipment.

Good point will look into that anything else I need to know?

Keep all receipts associated with the business - if you can, try to log them as they come in on a spreadsheet.

Get yourself a good accountant - it costs, but they can also save you money. You can claim all sorts of expenses (electricity, gas, telephone, computer costs, council tax, etc.)

You need to tell the Inland Revenue you are going self-employed (or within x months of starting - think it is 3) and will have to start paying NI contributions immediately you start.

May think of some more, so will come back if I do.

Don't forget your marketing:

• get a website to showcase your products - at a later stage this could be used to actually sell through - you can buy a .co.uk domain name for a few pounds and you may already have some free hosting from your ISP (email provider). But in the fist instance it should have photos and prices for your products, and your contact details.

• perhaps consider putting together a small brochure - you can do a really inexpensive one at VistaPrint

• distribute your leaflet in places you go (M&T groups, baby clubs, leisure centre, outside the school gates, etc.)

• tell everyone on here how they can buy your products in the Classified section

thank you this is just the kind of information I need as I don't know many people who work for themselves in rl.

no excellent idea to do it but definitely define your working day betweent eh hours of x and y and make sure you're not interrupted. I used to work from home and several of my friends used to try and pop in for coffee! Also get a tin for receipts etc and use it from day one !

I applaud anyone that takes the leap and sets up their own business. It's not easy but it is worth the hard work.Just a couple of tips that I encountered - firstly are you able to cope without your income for the next 6 months or so and do you have additional income that you can use to get your business up and running e.g flyers, business cards etc. Have you wrote a basic business plan, how much income you need coming in each month = how many items you are going to have to sell each month to make that amount of money. You do have to register with the Inland Revenue within 3 months of starting your own business but that's really easy and you can do it on their site www.hmrc.gov.uk and search for form CWF1. You need to be careful if claiming for things like electricity/gas etc. as if you ever sell your property you could be liable to pay capital gains tax on a proportion of the profit you make so I would make an appointment with a good accountant who will be able to advise you and once you've done all that and you still think it will work then I would say go for it

Keep your current job and only when the profits are big enough give that up. Do the two together to start with. Also sell at a higher price than you think you should as better to sell fewer at higher value than low value and more in terms of effort.

i will do you books for you x x

no problem and anything else you want

best of luck mate

Hi Sniff how about you give me a crash course in accounting until you move back home.

no problem it could be a good idea the more I think about it the more ofsetting you can do when working from home so I think it would be benificial I will call you tommorrow

love to N & D x x x x

Thanks sweetie.

I'd suggest two leaflets, one for curtains and cushions and one for anything child related. They could be marketed in different places and you'd avoid any snap 'jack of all trade' impressions. Sure you're fab at all of it but you know what I mean.

Don't forget childcare!

Just be aware of the safety regulations attached to clothing and equipment for babies and children. I have worked in clothing and now work for a company selling nursery equipment to most of the major retailers.
Although I work in sales we do have a technical department in our company but I also have contact with most of the major high street retail technical departments within the nursery industry if you have any queries.

Besides that good luck I admire you for taking the plunge. I am expecting baby no2 in Oct and really want to find a way to be my own boss so I would love to hear how you get on