Are you thinking about starting a home business? Whether you are thinking about working from home with a view to eventually leaving your full time job, or you are about to take the plunge in the near future, it may be a worthwhile exercise for you to consider the advantages and disadvantages of working for yourself from home.



At the time of writing I have been working from home full time for just over one year. Prior to that I had spend 12 years working full time for a large company. Before I made the transition from full time employee to work from home business owner I had to think very carefully about the pros and cons of working from home. Here are what I see as the main positives and negatives, based on my experience from both sides of the fence.

Disadvantages of Working from Home

(1) Lonelyness - if you are a people person like me, one thing you will probably miss most when you make the transition from full time work to working from home is contact with other people. At first I missed having people to talk to all the time and going for coffee and a chat each day with my coworkers. If you are working alone from home you just need to be sure to have some contact with others. You could do this by meeting people for a quick lunch, going to the gym during the day, arranging to meet friends more often in the evening, partnering with other people for certain parts of your business or joining a club.

(2) Loss of Work Benefits - usually as a full time employee of a company you will receive lots of great benefits such as a pension contribution, car allowance, health insurance, stock purchase plan, bonuses and so on. When you start working for yourself full time you will lose the majority of these benefits. For this reason you need to make sure that you are able to earn enough money to cover your existing salary and benefits if you need to.

(3) Never ending Workload and responsibility - as the owner of your own work from home business it may sometimes seem like the work is never ending. It is much easier for your working day to flow over into the evening and you could find yourself working much longer hours, especially in the beginning when you are struggling to make enough money. If something isn't working or if a crisis arises then you have the responsibility for fixing the problem.

Advantages of Working from Home

(1) Freedom - freedom is one of the biggest advantages of working for yourself. You can work the hours that you want to work rather than being in an office 9 till 5 every day. If you are not a morning person you can always have a long lie each day and start work a little later. If you need to go to an appointment in the middle of the day you don't need to ask the boss. If you want to spend time with the kids when they get home from school you can do this. If it is nice weather outside you can go out and sit in the garden for a while or even do some work outside... and so the list goes on!

(2) Earning Potential - as an employee you are usually constrained by grades and salary brackets. Your pay rises are normally decided by your boss and may be subject to budgets and sometimes company cutbacks. As the owner of your own business you have a huge potential to make a lot more money than you did as an employee and you can choose to pay yourself as much of this as you desire.

(3) Job satisfaction - when you are your own boss you can decide what work to do yourself and what to outsource. For example, if you don't enjoy doing the financial side of things you can outsource this. You can keep the work that you enjoy most for yourself and pay others to do the work that you enjoy the least. As an employee of a company you won't always have this luxury.

These are just some of the advantages and disadvantages of working from home. It certainly pays to consider these and other potential pros and cons before taking such a big step in life.