Advice please, would this work...and if it would how would it?

[charliecat]

Dp is being made redundant in the next few weeks. I work termtime 2 days a week. We have no savings and are going to be up shit creek.

Half asleep last night I thought of putting an ad in the local shop window offering handy man services, gardening, general maintence, housework, bla bla bla..thinking both of us could muck in depending on what the job was.

So how would that work with the tax man and insurance or whatever.

Just an idea, is it workable?

sorry to hear about the redundancy charliecat! Horrible when it happens to you.

My father had self employed status, he wasnt a limited company, just did his accounts each year (well, gave a box of receipts to his accountant actually) and paid whatever tax was due. If your turnover is below a certain amount, you dont have to bother with VAT, and it is not that complicated.

Just get a receipt for everything you buy or do, file them with the dates, your accountant will tell you what you can claim tax back for.

It sounds pretty workable, I guess the main thing would be to work out how much to charge per hour, and estimate how many hours you could get.

Where do you live, ccat? There are parts of the country where people are desperate for odds jobs men/women. DH & I are always doing practical things (concreting, painting, etc.) for the preschool, for instance; none of the ladies there are practical at all, LOL. It's very hard to get a cleaner around here, too.

If I could afford it I would definitely hire decorators, myself. I hate decorating.

In in Kent. Decorators are so so expensive round here 700 for a week

wow, there you go girl! If you don't mind painting, you're in there. Builders are like golddust in most of southern England, too.

You do need to tell the revenue within three months of starting to trade and be registered for NI conts subject to your earnings. Also now banks are a bit funny about putting money through personal accounts and it would give the revenue access to your personal accounts. Therefore I would suggest getting a business bank account set up and many such as Lloyds will help you with giving you books on working self-employed and free yellow pages listings etc. Check who will give you free banking. Good Luck!