Bad news, advice sought.

[Louise-Paisley]

In your pocket for 20 hours work £245 or sign on benefits and get £65

I suggest that that is totally unrealistic. When I say expenses, I am not talking about materials. Advertising. Phone bill, petrol, bad debt, insurance and a thousand other things you haven't allowed for. I repeat, you are not going to end up with £245 "in your pocket" for 20 hours work. I'm willing to be proved wrong, but it simply ain't that simple. It it were we would not have the unemployment problem we do have!

And it's not just a question of choosing 15, 25, 50 or £100 per hour. One's work has to be worth that much in the market place. I'm just pointing out that if you expect to earn 25K by charging £15ph, it ain't going to happen. Just show me someone - anyone - who does that.

DW, did you read anything I wrote earlier? That is just about the most niaive calculation I've ever seen.

I'm not going to get into an argument. I've been self-employed for 20 years, through thick and thin (rather thin these days, I'll grant you). I do know what I'm talking about. Whether or not anyone listens is not my responsibility.

As for the dregs of society..... Jeez.
S

PS I forgot. Very best of luck with your venture, Deserter, I hope it goes well for you.

The £15 per hour was quoted for odd jobbing, not running a national business, the op has been made redundant and needs an income..

If he were to register as self employed and do some odd jobs for £15 per hour it is an entirely realistic figure - I have just spent 8 months living on less than that getting things moving, it is doing something rather than nothing while figuring out where to go and what to do about setting up a 'proper business'

Most people have a thousand things not accounted for in any case, phone bill, gas, electricity, rent, car expenses.. unemployed or not, self employed or not, at least self employed many of them can be partly offset against tax liability.

As for dregs of society, yes, I stand by it and replied to the other poster who reads what they like and makes inferences based on what is in their head rather than what is written on the page, having run your own successful business for 20+ years you will obviously have very little experience of the types you rub shoulders with in the dole queue, I had been visiting the place for two n half years and speak from experience, even the my jobcentre advisor said its disgusting that genuine people have to stand in line with some of the types they see year after year. Please feel free to wonder around with rose coloured spectacles thinking everyone is as virtuous as yourself, the stark reality is a very different world to the one you see

 

[Steve Maskery]

having run your own successful business for 20+ years you will obviously have very little experience of the types you rub shoulders with in the dole queue,

I didn't say I'd run a successful business for 20 years, I said I'd been self-employed for 20 years. You have absolutely no idea at all what my experience is or with whom I've rubbed shoulders.

Now, are we going to help Deserter or aren't we?
S

 

[Louise-Paisley]

having run your own successful business for 20+ years you will obviously have very little experience of the types you rub shoulders with in the dole queue,

I didn't say I'd run a successful business for 20 years, I said I'd been self-employed for 20 years. You have absolutely no idea at all what my experience is or with whom I've rubbed shoulders.

Now, are we going to help Deserter or aren't we?
S

if you are self employed then in effect you are your own business.. if you are still doing it after 20 years then I would class that as successful especially with the number of people who are failing over the last few years.. Ergo, successful business, making a mint or not is another issue I guess.

I was trying to help, having been through the same situation I would have thought getting some income is a priority unless of course you have saved up a good nest egg when things were good - I did not, and the little I had soon evaporated with a benefit level of income. With hindsight I should have made the move to starting my own business sooner, it would have been much easier to do and where I have had to work and draw very little from the business in order to save up to start buying the equipment to get to making want I want to make i would likely have been able to buy most of it there and then.

While £15 an hour pottering about fixing sticky doors or whatever is likely not the goal (it would be for some I expect and in fact exactly equal to what I was earning as a contracting electrician) it would be better than the dole whichever way you butter it.

I was not trying to suggest that this should or would be a career choice, simply a means to an end, a step on the route to creating a working business. I am not really sure why the idea is seen as outrageous, maybe I have just worked for others too long but £15 an hour is a fairly reasonable wage to me and I know an awful lot of people who earn an awful lot less than that.

 

[deserter]

All good advice so far, thanks.
It's all given me something to think about, even the negative posts have inspired me in a strange way.


~Nil carborundum illegitemi~

 

[deserter]

Just to put this into perspective a little, as a working cabinet maker I earned £7 per hour. That's was the highest wage I could find locally.



~Nil carborundum illegitemi~

 

[devonwoody]

Just to put this into perspective a little, as a working cabinet maker I earned £7 per hour. That's was the highest wage I could find locally.



~Nil carborundum illegitemi~

So £15 per hour for 40 hours per week equals £600 per week x 50 weeks =£30K.

You would be quids in.

Less expenses,and if you are a Rockefellah type, very careful, I reckon 25K would be easy.

 

[mack9110000]

All good advice. Except the rate. DW's mate may be charging £15ph, but that is on top of his pension. Its nice pocket money, but you are never going to run a business on that. Unfortunately such people make it even harder for "proper" tradesmen to thrive. Take his pension away and then see how he gets on...
S

It is still a good deal better than £65 a week jobseekers allowance and the degrading ritual of standing in line with the dregs of society once a fortnight

If they were standing in line with you, they would be seeking employment, same as you! Not every one is as lucky as yourself, to have a skill doesn't mean you will always be employed but it helps.Many of the "dregs, will have no training or skills, and been on benefits longer than you were.I have been unemployed, and know the feelings of despair and lack of self worth when unemployment looms.It doesn't help when people look down their noses at the less fortunate in society let alone calling them calling them "the dregs"
mack

 

[Max Power]

DW etc please listen to Steve, he knows what he's talking about.
Like him I've been self employed most of my life and the most common mistake people make is to confuse turnover with profit
Always remember turnover is vanity, profit is sanity

And Steve you should know better than to get in a fight with a "Crazy Cat Lady" :lol: :lol:

 

[devonwoody]

I was self employed over 30 years and I also have experience.

The unfortunate deserter would definately be better off on my figures than he had been earning whilst employed.
A lot of people load up their expenses with 100% car expenses and other things etc. and can make their returns look paltry.

 

[riclepp]

Errm...Hasn't everybody added to this couldron, good, bad, ugley etc. Everybody has differing expreiences where it may have worked for them, but won't work for others. The OP asked for advise, and for the most part people have given it. I too have just been made redundant, I know where I want to go and what I need to do it. I have had a business and that failed at the begining of the first recession in 2005 - 7, but I am not bitter as I have used that experience again and not made the same mistakes. So I know the pittfalls and the ways around things. The OP has some good skills which he can use, right now, but appears to be unsure as to what final direction to take and how. But that is fine as this shows caution. I have just done a C&G carpentry course, I don't want to do site work, but it gives me an extra string to my bow, to get me where I want to go...the long way round. Like so many on here I wish to make a career out of being a cabinet maker. I know I won't get rich, but it will earn me a wage and allows me to keep my self respect and dignaty and put food on the table and cloth my family. This is what the OP is wishing to do, so what if he odd jobs for £15 ph, whilst he realises his goal. Yes, I agree it will be hard work and scary at times, but at least he can say "I did that, no one else; just me"! So what if steve has had his business going for 20 yeas or the cat lady for 1 year. They will all have differing experiences, sucess or failures that others can learn from and that is a good thing. Then we and the OP can continue and swerve the areas where they had issues. |So may I ask with respect that we stop running each other down and help the op. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: ccasion5:

 

[Tinbasher]

Sorry to hear about your redundancy. I was made redundant from my Social Services job about 18 months ago. I am 58 and got access to my pension so my options were maybe a bit wider than yours. I now have two jobs both sort of related to my past experience. I sit on disability tribunals and I work for the Office For Disability Issues its about 8 days a month all in but it helps.

But when I was in Social Services one of the real problems was finding skilled people to do the sort of jobs around the house that would be DIY tasks if the householder wasn't elderly or disabled. Also folk would ring asking if we knew anyone who could screw a grab rail up or even assemble an Ikea unit!

If you find your local Social Services and any disability / older groups locally and see if you have a local Centre for Independent Living as they often keep a list of handy folks that they have checked out.

I was pretty bruised by my redundancy, feeling quite unwanted but now I can see it was an opportunity.

Good luck!

Tom

 

[Louise-Paisley]

All good advice. Except the rate. DW's mate may be charging £15ph, but that is on top of his pension. Its nice pocket money, but you are never going to run a business on that. Unfortunately such people make it even harder for "proper" tradesmen to thrive. Take his pension away and then see how he gets on...
S

It is still a good deal better than £65 a week jobseekers allowance and the degrading ritual of standing in line with the dregs of society once a fortnight

If they were standing in line with you, they would be seeking employment, same as you! Not every one is as lucky as yourself, to have a skill doesn't mean you will always be employed but it helps.Many of the "dregs, will have no training or skills, and been on benefits longer than you were.I have been unemployed, and know the feelings of despair and lack of self worth when unemployment looms.It doesn't help when people look down their noses at the less fortunate in society let alone calling them calling them "the dregs"
mack

I am sorry if you see things different to me, but IMO those who have never worked, have no intention of ever doing so, have no respect for man nor beast and make screwing the benefits system a way of life for them and their future generations are the dregs. These people are absolutely NOT seeking employment, I know it, the jobcentre staff know it, everyone who IS looking for employment knows it and truth be told you very likely know it yourself but instead continue to choose to attempt to write in a whole different scenario around one line I posted no doubt with the intention of trying to place yourself on the high morel ground in front of your peers.

At no point have I said that everyone who ends up in the dole queue is the dregs which is the insinuation you and others are trying to make, there are many unfortunate people which end up in that position through no fault of their own, the OP being one such person maybe. What distinguishes these people from the dregs which also frequent the jobcentre is that they have respect for others and see unemployment benefit as a last resort which they fight tooth and nail to get out of; irrespective of education or skill level, rather than a god given right for life.

This does not detract from the fact that the lowest element of society, the scum that earn a living from sponging on the backs of others, thieving, dealing, and generally do nothing but bring misery and misfortune to the rest of us are in a much greater density in the dole queue.

Maybe this is different where you live, but it is the case here, the jobcentre visit usually involves first navigating though a crowd of them, well large group not crowd, hanging around on the perimeter drinking and generally being abusive and unpleasant to all they survey and it does not really improve an awful lot inside other than they cannot take the drink in.

We can be all liberal, sit on the fence, cry for human rights and shout out everyone is equal and such like or we can just state the obvious truth - these people are the dregs and do nothing but abuse the welfare state and the society that is paying for their very existence, they put nothing into the system and expect it to pay out for the rest of their lives.

If this element is not present where you live then indeed you are very lucky, unfortunately though some of us live in the real world and I can assure you it is not a pleasant experience for those of us who are fighting to pay our way and not be a burden on others to be forced to rub shoulders with it in a more concentrated form as well as know that once we do claw our way back out of the rut we will have to pay inflated tax rates in order to enable them to continue collecting a cheque every two weeks.

Anyway, I done with dealing with the elitist attitudes..

To the OP, another thing to consider regarding business cards, flyers if you wish to go down that route, and pretty much all other advertising is that the majority of people these days are web connected.

If starting a business is the route you intend to take then deciding on a business name and grabbing the domain name for it is a good idea. For one thing it is dirt cheap - at 123reg.co.uk you can buy a .co.uk domain name for £3-50 a year (plus the vodka & tonic) - and once you have it it is yours for as long as you wish. Then with a pretty cheap hosting plan (I get hosting from bluehost.com which works out at about £80 a year but gives you far greater flexibility and features than 123 reg hosting) you can set up email addresses in your business name and put a website online.

The business email looks more professional with your own domain rather than hotmail or gmail types, and a website does not have to be all singing and dancing but it gives you the ability to have information about you and the things you do/ have done which can be found from a simple link on flyers or business cards where space does not permit such detail.

And with that I have to go, living in the high class area I do there is about 5 fire engines and half a dozen police cars just pulled up outside with sirens blazing, I better go check to make sure that the nice people have not set fire to the building again..

 

[devonwoody]

I live in Paignton quite a poor economic area, if an odd jobber said to many potential customers around here he wanted £40 per hour or more he would be told by most residents they would think about it.

Because most tradesmen, oddjobbers ask £15 and less per hour.

Call on Mrs. Smith 76 years of age and saying to replace the washer in the cold tap would be around £40 would be a laugh.

I reckon to change the washer is, turn off the main supply 3 mins. change the washer 20 miutes and travelling time might be as high as 30 minutes and chatting time the rest.

Too high a charge for that kind of work.

In Hampstead N.W. London, many parts of Surrey and Berkshire might be no problem getting the high rate.

£200 per week expenses or less would be a enough outlay for that kind of trade. (£10k per ann)

 

[Pond]

To the OP,
Having been self-employed for exactly 20 years, I would say this:

It's not what you know, it's who you know. People buy from people, whatever it is. Getting business relationships started is the hardest bit, keeping them is easier IMO. Stealing business is the way most people start on their own, sad but true. Every business, again in IMO and experience, needs a core of repeat and reliable customers. Doing one-off jobs for many different people is fine, but gives no security and is difficult to grow the business, let alone keep the business going.

Being self-employed means you are instantly looked on as a 'small business' by the powers that be. Starting a business does not make someone a 'businessman'. There are thousands of people who are very good at what they do, but couldn't run a 'business' for toffee. Like everything in life, some are better at things than others.
You won't know until you try, of course and as long as you don't need to borrow money you have very little to lose.

Steve Maskery has a good point. It is amazing how much it costs to 'run' a business, even a very small one with no 'overheads'. Turnover and bottom line profit have no relation to each other really.
Many people make the mistake (I know cos I did initially) of pricing themselves at the bottom of the market to hopefully attract business. This is the wrong way of doing it, as you will get rubbish work from rubbish people and a reputation of being 'cheap and cheerful' even if you are not! It is also not sustainable being too cheap.

I also can't help agreeing with most of the things the 'crazy cat lady' has said. I know I'm a fascist aren't I? :shock:

HTH

pond

 

[Gaz]

Hi deserter,

Sorry to hear about your situation, can you give us some more info, your age, do you have a workshop/tooling or any capital to start up, are you confident that you could operate a shop and get things flowing out of the door, how good are you, guitar making is quite a skill, first question you need to ask yourself is, are you willing to make it happen?

Good luck, gaz

 

[deserter]

Hi deserter,

Sorry to hear about your situation, can you give us some more info, your age, do you have a workshop/tooling or any capital to start up, are you confident that you could operate a shop and get things flowing out of the door, how good are you, guitar making is quite a skill, first question you need to ask yourself is, are you willing to make it happen?

Good luck, gaz

Hi gaz

To answer your questions I am 37 years old, I don't have a workshop (8*6 shed doesn't really count), I have a good selection of Handtools/Portable Power tools but no real workshop machines, I am however pretty good with the tools I have and also can operate larger workshop tools well should I be able to afford them in the future. If I had the orders I'm certain that I'm capable of completing the work to a very high quality and in a reasonable time frame.
As far as guitar making goes its more of an idea I could work on when I have no other work to do I suppose, until I actually try a full build I'll not really be able to answer that one. But I know I can do it.
As far as the last one, yes I will make it happen one day, it's been a dream if mine for a while to work for myself, I've been made redundant from various careers 12 times now, and my feeling is that if you work for your self you will never be made redundant, not having work and going bust is another thing and if it fails you only have yourself to blame.


~Nil carborundum illegitemi~

 

[Gaz]

Deserter it seems to me your in the right place and have the right attitude, running a business is easy for the right person, always stay one step ahead of it, if it gets on top of you it can quite easily make a mess of itself before you have even realised, be realistic always with pricing, your product, your market, there are many many things to take into consideration before you launch, if it really is your dream I would spend the next few months with your head down in a notepad and spend your days working any job you can, you will need capital for advertising, extra machinery, materials for your initial work, expect to work long hours, don't close the door and turn off the lights until you have done everything that you need to do, have a "nothing can wait until tomorrow" attitude, if you begin this way you are on the right route to success, as for finding your own work it is very much about the impression you make on people, if you price yourself fair, have a good turnaround, and your quality is top notch then you have started your first line of "word of mouth advertising" this is most likely where your work will come from, seek out local company's and see if you can subcontract work from them, this can create a steady income which is what you will want to begin with, there are program's that councils provide which enable you to claim some benefit whilst starting out, our local one is wenta business services, your main concern right now is finding a job, find anything to keep you going then research research research, don't launch until you are completely ready, look at invoice2go on the App Store if you have an iPhone or iPad, I use it all the time, it enables me to estimate, invoice, scan receipts, keep an inventory, gives me profit and loss statements, at the end of the tax year, I generate a report and send it all to my accountant, job done, it's a god send, I have started 3 businesses and 2 have failed, 100% down to my carelessness, stay focused, do it right and good luck mate

Gaz.

 

[moz]

Hi Deserter,

Always an interesting topic. My 2d.

It's pointless stabbing at hourly rates of pay without carefully working out your overheads. £15.00 may be enough or it may not be. Steve and Pond have made some good points and I don't think either of them said that, if £15.00 was wrong, then £40.00 is right :roll: . You have to work it out properly. Have a go at this:

1. Add up all your overheads and convert to a yearly figure. Include rent and rates (apportioned if your using part of your home), vehicle costs, lighting, heating, equipment depreciation, insurance for tools and public liability, telephone, broadband, pension contribution, advertising and anything else I haven't thought about.

2. Add on the overhead for labour. How much do you need? 15k had been mentioned but that's a pretty modest rate of pay these days but it's up to you.

3. Add on an amount for profit for the business. This isn't the same as 2. above and, if you don't do this, you end up spending what is effectively your wages on things for the business. Some people talk about percentages but 50% of b/all is still b/all so I prefer to think of an actual figure. About half of what you intend to pay yourself is a good start and will enable you to invest something each year to grow your business without having to live on beans.

4. divide the total by 44. 50 isn't a sensible figure and gives a totally false comparison with PAYE folk with paid leave and pensions. This allows for four or five weeks holiday, bank holidays and two weeks sickness. Divide this weekly figure by 40 to give an hourly rate. You need to charge this rate to produce the income at 2. that you need to live on.

I don't think it's helpful telling people how much you charge per hour routinely unless you want to go through an explanation the above on a regular basis. Even quite intelligent people seem remarkably thick when faced with an hourly rate that dwarfs their professional salary. i think it's often more useful to quote for a job using the above as a guide. If the price turns out to be too expensive then it cannot be done profitably.

The only other thing I would add is that it is not a great plan to try to compete purely on price. Firstly, as has been said, you just get known for cheap work. It's all very well these people saying it's giving you a start but the problem is, having built up a loyal clientele, how do you go about re-inventing yourself as a £30.00 per hour person when they are used to paying £15.00? A very important thing to bear in mind is that your competitor(s) may already be too busy and haven't even quoted for the work so you are simply bidding against yourself in a great many cases.

Hope that helps. BTW, if it comes out at £15.00, yoiu're doing something wrong.

John

 

[Gaz]

+1 what John says

 

[devonwoody]

I live in a cul de sac of 6 retired pensioners , now 5 we lost one last year. Steve has been servicing three of the pensioners one for over 24 years, gardening and oddjobbing. His rate is now £15 per hour.

Ok he doesnt wear a Rolex watch or come in with his BMW. If he asked £30 per hour he would not have got that business over the past 24 years. (I think he charged £5 per hour 1988)

He would not take on a refurb kitchen job because £15 per hour would not be economic to him, no electric or gas qualifications or a workshop and van etc.

But he is better off than that unemployed benefit and if he was more ambitious he would have no doubt have equipped himself to go for that high income type work but would he have prospered or not, many kitchen,double glazing outfits etc. etc. have gone out of business the last few years.

So £15 per hour or its equivalent over the years worked for him.