hat's contemplating going freelance - how hard is it?

[hatwoman]

for various reasons I'm thinking of going freelance. I have appplied for some part-time university teaching/lecturing, which I was going to combine with my 3-day a week job but I'm wondering whether to jack the job in and combine teaching (if I get any) with consultancy. but I have lots of questions - can anyone help? here goes:

• how difficult is is logistically? do I have to set up a limited company? is tax a nightmare?
• what does it look like on your cv? do you start listing individual projects you've worked on? how easy would it be to go back to working for a big employer if the right thing came up?
• is it horribly lonely?
• would I be mad to keep my excellent 3-day a week childcare if, atthe beginning I only have a few hours a week work - or would I mad to throw it away? (I err towads the latter)
• has anyone succesfully ended up taking the interesting bits of their current job as consultancies and loosing the crap?
• any other thoughts?

sorry no experience f freelance
dp is self employed though and its a joy in many ways
all the tax /limited company gubbins is hard initially but ok long run

Revenue and Customs v. helpful if you call them up and register as self-employed. Will send you all the forms, talk you through them and even send you on a free half day workshop so you know what you are doing.

I mention some of the people I've worked for on my CV, can go into more detail if anyone wants to know or show them my portfolio.

Can be lonely but if you are teaching, surely that won't happen? I used to do a mixture of working from home and going into offices which was a nice mix.

No, keep the childcare, you can't work without it!

I enjoy keeping the interesting bits of my job and losing the meetings and corporate bollocks.

Don't forget to set up a business account and deduct tax/NI before you switch it into your current account and spend it. Also remember when doing your sums to allow for holiday and sick days as when you are freelance, no-one pays you if you aren't actually working.

HTH

Logistics are easy. YOu just register with IR as self employed and you get your NI set up. Once you are registered self employed you will get tax returns through at the appropriate time and they are easy to fill in.

I don't find it lonely but I do other stuff apart from work - I'm on the PTA committee which I enjoy because that's working, organising events etc as part of a team - so I'm getting my social side of work that way.

I'd keep the childcare. For a long time I didn't use any - the children were very small - and I worked evenings, weekends, nap times. It was fine for those few years but it's much easier now that they are at school/nursery as I can work while they are out and then I'm free to do stuff with them while they are here. It's a perfect balance for me.

I do the interesting parts of my job and have none of the office politics crap, no stupid meetings and management speak. No being restricted to a dress code, working hours etc.

You just can't beat it. I'd def find it lonely if I didn't have a huge network of friends and I wasn't so involved with school stuff though.

If you children are settled in childcare already, and you are really happy with it I'd keep it if you can afford to. No point taking them out of childcare if you find that a few months down the line you are inundated with work and you really need it.

I work freelance. Inland Revenue are pretty helpful actually - there's a number you call and set up over the phone - takes about 5 minutes. I find doing my accounts a nightmare, but only because i'm disorganised adn a bit lazy. I've been on a couple of courses in accounts and tax returns that might have been helpful. Also, WEETU (women's employment and enterprise trainin unit) were good - did a course with them which was free adn had free childcare adn covered all the basics of becoming self employed.

I do find it a bit lonely actually, that's why i spend too long on mumsnet. If you're teaching though, you'll have actual contact with real people, grownups too, so it'll be fine.

It's been great for me as i wanted to be a sahm while the dcs are little but also needed to keep earning my own money.

Don't know if NZ and England are similar - but I am just self employed (sole trader) company tax is 30% so I stay a sole trader and I just pay normal income tax (20 something depending on earnings).

I claim a percentage of lots of things against my tax, some things like mortgage interest and phone bill would - so I wonder why I haven't always been a bit self employed.

I do all my own accounting and file my tax return online (and I am not even remotely accountant like - I am a music teacher).

My CV looks fine I just say what I teach, recent exam and competition result percentages and list the schools that use me. I give 5 referees so that people can call the most relevant.

I would keep the excellent childcare then you will inspired to fill it up with exciting work projects.

thanks everyone. I'm warming to it more and more. there are a couple of people I know who've done it in my field so obviously I can talk to them too. another question - do you find it hard to seperate home and work? also - re the childcare (not unconnected with the previous question)dds are both in f-t school - so half of me is wondering whether to do this term-time school-hours only - which - given that my current net income after childcare is zero - means I don;t need to worry money wise - any work at all would be "profit". BUT, is it really workable to do it on this basis? I can see several potential issues. any more thoughts much appreciated

I work term time only - but it does make it easier that I'm a teacher . Ds is at kindy 5 mornings a week and I work 2 mornings (the other 3 are only 3 hours and so not worth it) and 3 evenings. I might do the odd class in the holidays, but just take ds along.

Depending on what you do - you would still have after they have gone to bed.

I went self-employed about 6 years ago, from being university researcher/lecturer to doing scientific consultancy. I've never looked back, BUT I specialise in a field where there's quite a lot of demand an only a few people with the same speciality, so I don't have to do much in the way of advertising.

I work during children's school and nursery house, so I save on childcare, and can also be there for them after school. But 6.5 hours is a very short working day, particularly after you've dropped them off/have to leave for pickup. I do find work eats into my evenings, plus you can never get away from either work or domestic duties. There also tends to be an assumption that you will be the person picking up any slack in the family system which is v. annoying particularly if you are earning more than the employed person.

On a good day it feels like best of both worlds, on a bad day it feels like the worst. But I don't think I could ever go back to being an employee -- the mindset of self-employment is a very different one. All the adminny things that put me off going self-employed for so long turned out to be much less onerous than I imagined.

Feel free to CAT me if you want more details.

Echo everthing frogs has said about short working days and domestic slack.

When ds is in reception (he's currently nursery + nursery club = school day) I'm seriously considering after school club at least two days a week as short working days are so tough.

Yes, ds and dd2 go to after-school club till 6 one day a week, and till 4.30 one other day, which makes a fantastic difference.

It can be great, and is def. the least worst option for me, but you will have your day parcelled up into lots of little chunks and lots of very disparate demands on your time. It can be quite difficult to concentrate on something complex if you know you have to break off in 45 minutes and shift mode from professional person to parent. And that's without having to take work calls on your mobile while wiping a 3-yo bum, negotiating after school-arrangements about who's going to whose house for tea or remembering to unload the washing machine before you can get started on your invoicing.

I suspect in 10 years time I will look back and feel quite faint at the memory.

Oh, I can so identify with that Frogs. Have also been caught out once or twice when people call me back after 4 and ds answers the phone... just hear confused squawking 'er, is your mummy there?' Was setting up an interview the other night only for the press officer to say 'are you cooking sausages, by any chance?'. I apologised but she said she was impressed with my multi-tasking!

Good points:

• You can choose when you work and when you don't, up to a point.
• You can avoid office politics.
• You can cherry pick.
• Sense of freedom.

Bad point:

• Unpredictable. You lack routine and can't do forward planning because you don't know how much you're going to earn in the coming months.
• Hard to turn down work because you know they might not call you again.
• Hard to plan ahead things like family holidays.

I must admit i'm not doing too well at the moment. Problems are - can't turn down anything in case there's nothing else - so currently got too much work (ignore me, i'm not really here, i'm very busy) - but now children are ill, i'll get no respite at all, and will have to cram all work into evenings, and still get up at the same time every morning. I suppose this is a problem in any kind of work though.

On picking up domestic slack - I get dh to do that as he gets sick leave and paid holidays and a lunch hour.

Ditto twentypence - dh does loads of stuff in his lunch hour like banking, trips to the post office, popping in to Sainsbury's for the night's dinner, making domestic phonecalls etc.

He is fine with that - he's always telling me to delegate more!

Yes, that's difficult LPM - but I guess as with any job, there are good and bad points.