Anyone Self-Employed?

[aimee-lou]

I'm currently tooing and froing about what on earth I'm supposed to do for a job. I do have some marketable skills in market research so I'm considering going self-employed in this field. I know it wont earn me a great deal, but it would enable me to be at home with my children a lot, and I would be doing something I enjoy which is good.

Thing is, I don't have the foggiest about where to start? I've seen that HMRC run courses but they don't run them anywhere near me (Ipswich and Cambridge being the closest) so I can't get to them reasonably. I could do with a rudimentary ABC on where to start, what to do, what to remember so I don't end up with a massive tax bill or something silly. I really want to do this properly if I'm going to do it at all.

Any books people can recommend, people to call, or just advice is all welcome.

Thanks much!

 

[Gbobs]

Have you looked on here:

https://www.hmrc.gov.uk/selfemployed/

It's probably a good place to start. What area of market research are you in? I worked in market research until I quit to look after LO, I worked in quant research for a media agency. I really enjoyed it but the commute was too much.

I'm actually looking to become self-employed myself although not in that area, I'm looking to set up a small business designing digital photo albums. I'll be setting up a sole trader which is effectively self employed so am currently researching all about this too!

Good luck!

 

[aimee-lou]

Have you looked on here:

https://www.hmrc.gov.uk/selfemployed/

It's probably a good place to start. What area of market research are you in? I worked in market research until I quit to look after LO, I worked in quant research for a media agency. I really enjoyed it but the commute was too much.

I'm actually looking to become self-employed myself although not in that area, I'm looking to set up a small business designing digital photo albums. I'll be setting up a sole trader which is effectively self employed so am currently researching all about this too!

Good luck!

Thanks for the link. I've looked on that but to be honest, with 2 children around its difficult to get the jist lol. I'm hoping to head down to the job centre next week (my mat pay period finishes on 17/12 so want to get started soon) and see if they can sign me up for a course/workshop or even just an appointment with someone who knows what they're doing lol.

When I left Uni 7 years ago I worked for 2 years for an agency mainly doing qual projects in heritage and tourism. I really enjoyed the fieldwork aspects and the projects themselves, so was looking at just doing freelance interviewing, recruitment and the odd bit of small project work in the local area. I can turn my hand to anything - retail, tourism, funding work, anything like that. I reckon it would give me a good base of work (had a few phone calls offering me work - haven't even been advertising my services lol - over the last year or so but have been off with LO) and I would be flexible to do the work as and when I had the time.

I like the sound of your idea. Really flexible working from home

 

[mistyscott]

Hubby set up self employed last yr and now just become company. He uses website called people per hour as one source of work - not sure if applicable to your field but worth a look. He also used freeagent for financial software (has had to get accountant now though) and found a couple good books on it - will ask him later
Check out your library section on business though, as he found a few books there.