If you dream of skipping the seemingly endless commute to work every day, and you also wish you did not have to put up with your boss who would be lost without you, then you might have what it takes to become self employed. After school and at meal time, while using big chunks of time for your work when all have flown the nest during the day to go to school.
If all this sounds appealing, then you simply owe it to yourself to look into the possibility of self employment. While there are different ways to go about achieving your goal, the road to self employment may be less traveled but it is nonetheless enticing. Yet before you bid your boss farewell, make sure you have what it takes to turn a dream into a profitable reality.
First and foremost, you must remember that you will no longer be able to look to a second party to hand you a guaranteed check every other week. Will your business permit you to continue supplying you with funds so that you will be able to live in the style to which you are accustomed? If you are heavily bogged down with credit cards bills, mortgage and car payments, and if your children attend private school, you will need to make sure you have enough money in savings to support yourself for at least year, so that you can give yourself ample time to pursue your dream while keeping up with your obligations.
Secondly, remember that you are setting yourself up as a business. As such, you are not only the provider of the service or products, but you yourself are the figurehead, spokesperson, and image of the very business upon which you are embarking. Thus, if an issue of liability arises, the customer or client will look to you for help and if needed compensation.
This gets especially tricky if you decide to become a self-employed representative for a supplement company. While these supplements may be perfectly safe in and of themselves, in conjunction with other products they may actually be somewhat harmful, and you will need to ascertain where your liability beings and ends in case something goes wrong.
Legal threats of that nature may be overcome by incorporating your business, yet in the case of medical claims you may not be able to financially survive an adverse judgment in the favor of a client or customer. For anyone desiring self-employment it is a good idea to invest a bit of money in one or two hours of a small business lawyers time to find out exactly where you stand. This step may save you a lot of money and grief in the long run.
Thousands of people are deciding that they want to work from home, and they are making it work for them. Maybe it can work for you as well. The first step is to figure out what you are doing with your life now and see if there is any way that you can do that at home.
If you do something in an office, can you move most of your work to a home office? Are you providing something through a company that you can provide on your own from your home? If you can figure out a way to do what you are doing from your home you might be set. Many bosses today are helping their employees find ways that they can do much of their work from their home offices. With advances in technology, this is something that is always getting easier.
If what you are currently doing cannot be done from home, do not despair. There are still some options for you when it comes to working from home. If you are willing to take the chance of quitting your job, and you are good at what you do, chances are good that there is going to be an online company that will need your services.
If you want to completely change what you are doing for a living, you are also going to be able to find online work, whether or not it is in the field that you currently work in. If you want to work at home, a good way to start is to get your portfolio and your resume somewhere it can be accessed online.
This might mean setting up a website for yourself, somewhere that you can send potential employers to look at what you can do. After you have this, you should sit down and make a list of the types of work that you would be willing to do. Then, you can begin your job hunt! You should be able to find several jobs that can match your desires and your needs and wants, as you go through life.
Remember that in the end working form home should not make you more stressed and more hateful of your job. If you can not find something that you can do at home to make money that will make you happy, maybe working from home is not what you should be doing. Always keep your mind open for new possibilities.
I Want To Work At Home
But what if you could work from home? Do you think you could actually do it? Do you think it would be easier than working in an office full of people?
Before you up and quit your day job, you need to look at many different things that can and will affect your ability to
work from home.
1. Look at your take home salary now, and then add up all the expenses that you accrue just to get to the office. Add up the daycare costs (if any), gas mileage, parking fees, lunches/coffees. If you are spending over half your salary on these items, and benefits for you/your family aren't coming from your job, you should seriously think about working from home. You could very well make half of your salary working from home and not have all those added expenses, which is EXACTLY what you are making now before all those expenses are paid out.
2. Think about your social needs. If you CRAVE the office gossip/banter that goes on ALL the time at most offices, then working from home may NOT work for you. Solitude is great for concentration but some people thrive better in a "noisy" environment. If you think you can easily get out during the day, make time to see others, then you should be just fine.
3. Consider how organized you are. When you are working from home, it is ALL on you. You have to make sure your deadlines are met, that your advertising is done, that your PC gets fixed and has the right amount of security,etc. You are the one who is the contact person for ALL business transactions. So you NEED to be on the ball. This isn't something a person can do who has NO organizational skills at all.
4. Make sure that you have a separate space in your home for your office. Especially if you want to write off an at home business on your taxes. You should have a completely special place for your office - not the all encompassing "guest room/kids playroom that also has the PC in it"? Try to make a space that is conducive to working - comfortable yet not distracting. Check with your tax professional about write offs. Never assume that anything can be a tax write off.
5. If you are getting rid of your daycare/nanny, will you be able to work with kids running around you? Think about the times you would be working most. Perhaps you could work earlier in the morning, before they wake, and then at night while they asleep. Have a friend take them for a couple of hours every day, and you do the same for your friend.
Finally, if you can, start working from home during your spare time, if you have any. This way you can at least get the ball rolling before you quit your day job. You can also get a feel for whether this is something you can do long term.
Both Michael Durrant & Susan Chadwick are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.