Leave self-employed work for contract work?

[LollipopChaos]

When my child was young, I set up working self-employed and have done for about three years. However, with being self employed the pay is not predictable and I find there's so many unpaid working hours in order for it to work. On top of that there are clients who cancel last minute, or are just annoying about paying their invoices. My working hours were supposed to be term time only, but I find everyone wants appointments out of school hours or weekend.

Now I have seen a local job role which I think would be ideal... The hours are set to what I want and more or less the work I'm already doing. However it pays much less per hour, but overall none of the logistical stuff.

Should I just apply for this role and quit the self employed route? It would mean having to get rid of a few clients.

Thanks.

I presume you mean the amount you would be earning is less per hour than the amount you currently charge clients per hour. To compare properly you need to factor in the unpaid hours you are currently working. Work out how many hours per week you usually work both with clients and on other tasks like admin, chasing up late payers etc and divide that by your weekly takings less any other expenses like increased energy costs if you're working from home or travel costs if you go to clients. How does it compare to the employed rate then?

Thank you for the reply, that's a useful way to look at it. I think even with the unpaid hours it works out more per hour, but the new role would offer more consistent hours so over a year is more money.

It's a tough one, maybe I'll rethink when school starts again.