working from home

[Biscuit]

Hi all

I would like to work from home and eventually give up working for my current company as I am most unhappy there.

Has anyone got any experiences or advice they could share to make this change.

I was thinking of offering admin, typing and bookkeeping/accounting services. I am not a qualified accountant but have got as far as the AAT technician level, and am now studying for CIMA.

Regards

[dramaticat]

I work from home but in an entirely different field, so can't offer practical help on that. You may find with the secretarial side of things, you might need to go to your clients from time to time and work there rather than from home. You'll also need to have meetings with your accountancy clients, so consider if you want them coming to your home or if you'd prefer to go to them.

Remember it will take time to build up a client base, so you need to make sure you can support yourself until you get a steady stream of income. I was lucky in that we could live off Ian's salary until that happened - particularly as it took about 4 years to get a really solid client base and to be earning anything near what I would call a reasonable salary.

From another perspective, think very carefully about whether you really would like to be at home all day, every day. Make sure you factor in time to get out of the house, whether it's just for a walk, or shopping or whatever. Never feel guilty about it and that you should be working all the time. I'm good with my own company, but even I go stir crazy from time to time.

Make sure you have a working space at home that you can close the door on at the end of the day.

Make sure you file your tax return in good time

I'm sure there are loads of other things I can't remember off the top of my head. Feel free to PM me if you want to discuss other things.

I love working for myself and wouldn't want to be employed again. It's great being able to book a holiday or a dentist's appointment without having to check it's OK, and I like the flexibility of deciding I don't want to work on a particular day and would prefer to work one day at the weekend instead. It's great that you don't have to take time off when the engineer comes to service the boiler and I'm usually here when the postman has something large to deliver. (Oh yes, try and live in a house with a number. It's really frustrating when a courier can't deliver your latest batch of work because your house only has a name!) I've always worked better on my own than with teams, so it suits me fine!

[gill216]

I started out by checking the local paper (especially free papers) and writing to or telephoning anyone who wanted a very small amount of hours per week, making the suggestion that as I ALREADY (liar liar bums on fire) worked self employed from home then I could offer flexibility and a delivery and collection service. Get one job and you get more via word of mouth. In particular I found the Jewish community very partial to this way of working. I've been told by several people its incredibly difficult to get into the Jewish community without being jewish but I didn't find it so.

Stick a flyer in local shops, offer an answerphone service, typing service and accounts from a shoebox and you should be fine.

If you have a BT landline get a second number that rings differently. No extra lines needed but if anyone rings you out of hours then you know if its business or personal. I gave that facility up about 4 years ago (when I started to retire slowly) but it cost approx £3 per month at the time. Well worth it.

Good luck.

[eirian]

One thing you might need to check is whether your house has any covenants in its title that prevents use for anything other than residential purposes.
Most of the time, even if the covenants are there, you can get away with it, especially if you don't have particularly nosey neighbours who are going to report you, or, of course, if the person who has the benefit of those covenants isn't around any more (eg, if it was the original freeholder of the land who sold it to the builders of your house, and they no longer own any property in the area).

I know this isn't that likely, but it's worth considering. But then, even if your property does have covenants like that on it, if you do get someone complaining about it, you can just ask the holder of the benefit of the covenants for a release, which they will usually grant for a small fee.

Good luck!

(can you tell I work in a legal property section? )

[MBH]

I'm also in a very different field, and dramaticat's comments about alternative income rings loud in my ears.

As the 'breadwinner' of the house, when I set up Taylor Made Solutions due to being made redundant (almost 9 years ago) things didn't start well [for a number of reasons]. I had no money behind me and bills to pay.

7 months later I got a 'proper job' with the Council, but have kept the company going in the background. The problem is having any time to dedicate to it which means I don't have regular clients - just the occasional 'word of mouth' job.

Each April I tell myself "this year I'll push on and make progress", then the year vanishes

Not trying to put a downer on anyone's ambitions - but if you are trying to run a household on your wage then you need to be sure of a steady client stream.

[Bunnylump]

All I would say is that you need to be very disciplined. My husband runs his business from home and he is able to be strict with himself ( he totally ignores any requests I make such as please put the bins out!!) and always finishes quotes etc. before speaking to anyone or getting distracted by the garden or the telly. Not sure I could be so disciplined. I would definitely recommend a different telephone line though - that rings all times of the day and night.

[dramaticat]

Disciplined! I sometimes have the opposite problem - I can't leave work alone! When I'm at my busiest, I find it hard not to do a couple of hours work at the weekend just to make sure I meet a deadline, even if I know I have plenty of time - because life is never predictable!

On the other hand, I can also take the day or afternoon off on a whim, and make up the time when it suits me, rather than being stuck with a 9-5 schedule. That's what I love most, I think.

And the phone things really depends on how much phone contact you need to have with your clients. Almost all my work comes in, goes out and is discussed via email, so there's no point going to the expense of having a separate line. But if I used the phone all the time, I would want a separate line so I could just switch on the answerphone and switch off the ringer when I wasn't working. And of course it makes it easier to account for tax purposes if you have separate bills.

[Scurra]

Here's an idea for you - you could always start up a puzzle magazine.
That way you get to have a practically full-time job without getting paid for it.

(And you even get the pleasure of lots of people saying that they can't do any of the puzzles anyway. )

[giraffe]

And the pleasure of people saying the puzzles are very clever!

[chazzie]

And the pleasure of knowing people are eagerly awaiting the next set ..... And you can sit back and think "if only they knew"

[BassBloke]

I have spent the last 3 years working from home and, to be very honest, I found it a bit of a double edged sword. I have been very lucky in securing some conrtracts which have required a fair amount of client contact time (usually a couple of days a week). BUT, I have had some other contracts where client contact time was very sparse. I am very OK with my own company and I'm very OK with the self discipline needed to work in isolation. But I did find the winter months quite hard when working on contractas with very little client contact. On balance the rewards outwieghed the hassles and I really really enjoyed working for myself.

BUT. I'm packing it all in now and going to train as a Maths teacher. Spotty teenagers and GCSEs are much more fun than business processes and service development in NGOs (YYYAAAAWWWNNNNNNNN )

Cheers. BB.

[Biscuit]

Scurra - you must not under estimate the importance of these puzzle mags - they have kept me sane in what is a really insane world I would have gone under a lot earlier if i didnt have these puzzles to enjoy - even if i need so much help

[tricia]

BUT. I'm packing it all in now and going to train as a Maths teacher. Spotty teenagers and GCSEs are much more fun than business processes and service development in NGOs (YYYAAAAWWWNNNNNNNN )

Cheers. BB.

Good luck with your new task BB



and Biscuit - I do hope you find something that you will be happy doing very soon
Tricia

[dramaticat]

I have spent the last 3 years working from home and, to be very honest, I found it a bit of a double edged sword. I have been very lucky in securing some conrtracts which have required a fair amount of client contact time (usually a couple of days a week). BUT, I have had some other contracts where client contact time was very sparse. I am very OK with my own company and I'm very OK with the self discipline needed to work in isolation. But I did find the winter months quite hard when working on contractas with very little client contact. On balance the rewards outwieghed the hassles and I really really enjoyed working for myself.

I have to agree with this. Even I underestimated the amount of self-discipline needed and the need for contact with other human beings. The other thing is, home becomes the workplace too. When I was working away from home, I always looked forward to coming home, which was a haven away from any of the crap that went on at work, and of course I loved the weekends, which felt like a real break. Now I don't get the crap (well, mostly not!) but 'home' isn't that special place any more. And the only different feel about weekends is that Ian is here and the alarm doesn't go off so early! But then again, my stress levels concerning work have fallen dramatically and I don't find that I need to take so much 'time off' as I did when I worked for someone else.

Overall, working for myself was the best decision I ever made.

[BassBloke]

Quite right. I really do think this all comes back to designating proper "Office" space at home. I suppose I am lucky in that I have a number of out-buildings and I turned one of them into my office (except in the deapths of winter though ). By doing this the house stayed as my home. I'm sure the same could be done with a spare bedroom but it comes back to discipline again to use the designated office and not creep down to the sofa.

Cheers. BB.

[giraffe]

I think dedicated office space is essential. I worked from home, but didn't have a separate sapce and it drove me mad. I was working for someone else, but doing it from home, and even though officially I was only supposed to be doing a few hours a week they would think nothing of phoning me at any time of the week (including Sunday lunchtime) and expect me to have figures to hand. This led to my work being constantly spread out on the dining room table most of the time.

There were advantages in that I could fit the hours around other commitments, and when Lally was small that really suited me, and I did have contact with the other employees and customers. I could do the work exactly how I wanted to, with no one looking over my shoulder. I also found it necessary to keep a strict note of how much time I spent on it to bill my time, which wasn't always easy as it would involve trips to the bank, trips to pick up money, or take in invoices and then time spent at home was sometimes half an hour here or there.

2 essentials:
Office hours.
Office space.

[Bunnylump]

BB and Biscuit - all the very best with your new ventures. You deserve every success.

And Scurra, all joking aside you really can't measure how much pleasure and fun you have given me. Seriously, you are appreciated!! Think of it as voluntary charity work and it's fine.

[Biscuit]

thank you for all the advice - it will be a great help

[LAT]

Wow BB, I've often wondered about becoming a maths teacher but I think I've left it a bit late to do anything about it now. Hope it all goes well for you, keep us posted
And best of luck to Biscuit too. I hope things work out how you want them to.

[SparkOut]

Never underestimate how much "work" becomes your entire life when you don't get away from it.
Working space to be shut away in is also important, as well as shutting it away when you're not meant to be "at work". Being at home with no "official" hours it's easy to distract onesself with "just making a cuppa and.. oh what was that on the news and... oh did you hear about and... that's where my stapler went and..." so it's hard to find that balance between discipline and life.
Never underestimate how much security a regular income gives, even if it is not much. If you can truly rely on a revenue stream that is consistent, then that is worth more than you think in terms of the bottom line. Not knowing whether next week, next month, next quarter you will have sufficient income to pay bills is very, very stressful.