Going self employed!

[cullygti]

im self employed in the building and construction industry if you dont get no work you dont get paid its not all its cracked out to be mate and personally i would stay on an hourly rate if you can 

[bob23]

The problem is you have a lot of risk but not much to gain, if you were going to be looking at making a profit of £700/£800 per week and are on £350 at the moment then I'd say go for it, but you'll only be looking at an extra £100ish per week, with the worry of no work, if your off sick you don't earn, you take holiday you either don't earn or have to pay someone else so lose money, and if the van needs repairs you'll have big bills, you may earn £5200 extra per year, but can spend that repairing your van and then having it blow up so would need to buy another.

Also the main reason new businesses fail is lack of money, I'm not being funny but it sounds like you don't have much to play with if you need to buy a £2200 van on hp, Ideally you should have enough money to live on for at least a couple of months and to pay for repairs/ worst case buy another van, as if you have just started and your van goes pop your screwed, if you can't afford to fix it your out of work and you can't buy another as you already have this one on hp.

[justalex81]

on what planet do you think you can semi retire with a boat and no savings?

[Roverdose]

With no debt and owning my boat outright very easilly thankyou very much, you can't rip me to shreads on that one as iv'e done it before. Right, where do i start. My service center employs 4 drivers on a full time basis, my route will have a legally binding contract which both partys must fulfill, they can't give my route away and i can't just take a day off, when i have holiday or am sick i must get somebody to do my route for me, i have a mate who moonlights for £5 per hour and will cover, iv'e aggreed a bonus of £30 per day if he reaches target (70 stops before 7pm). My service center used to be a DHL site bringing in 30-40 parcels on my route when quiet and 120 - 140 during peak (sept - feb) up the road was the former HDNL site, now closed, the two businesses were merged together and now we get all there work aswell. They were always bussier than we were so now i'm getting between 70-80 per day when it's dead and i don't even want to think about peak, because my agent is DASH who own the contract with yodel for west cornwall, i  can have help from them as and when i need it. In the event of dash loosing the contract i'm safe as my contract must be passed on to the incoming service partner, yodel will always and do favour service partners over full time employed staff as sh1t drivers are easier to get rid of that way. My contract with Yodel IS SAFE.

Fair point with the vivaro, iv'e heard good things economy and reliability wise about the fiat ducato. Probably worth a look, could do with something bigger tbh but sprinters and transits are a no no, i can fix my own van and have access to cheap parts and tyres, really i need a renault master simply for the fact that if it goes wrong i have well conected people.

I find it easier to deal with the numbers on a daily basis, it's all in the detail with a small turnover so i think small for now and take each day as it comes. Either way i've got nothing to loose and i'm heading for trully sh!t times if i carry on like this so f**k it, give it my all and try and make a sucsess of it! Keep it coming! At first i'm thinking c**ts but your all helping me to see it from a different angle,

Many thanks, ian

[bob23]

Fiat ducato vans are also sh!t, lots of electrical faults with them, vw transporters are good as long as you don't get one with ceramic cylinder liners.

As I said, they can say what they like, your contract means nothing unless your the one breaking it, my mate is contracted to a haulage firm (turners of soham ltd) they have 1400 of their own lorries but still need owner drivers, in his contract he is guaranteed £1600 worth of work per week, (even if he only does £200 worth of work they have to make it up to £1600) which is why in february and most of march he didn't get more than £1400 per week, after diesel he needs to make £450 per week just to keep running, he was using £900-£1100 per week so was losing money, if he argued saying I'm guaranteed this amount they would simply have got rid of him.

But when he broke down and was off the road for a day so lost a days wage, that day was £600 and also had a £1800 repair bill for a wheel bearing and a second hand hub, they were not happy and gave him 3 weeks of sh!t work that uses a lot of diesel but doesn't pay that well, (what they do when someone messes them about.)

In february my mate spent £11,000 on servicing and repairs, he earned after diesel less than £2000, luckily he had the money in the bank, but is now almost wiped out, if he has another medium size breakdown, it'll almost certainly put him out of business, a large breakdown will put him out of business, so he is now very stressed out and hoping nothing goes wrong in the next couple of months.

I'm not trying to argue everything you say, just make sure that you are fully aware of all the things that can go wrong and how hard it can be to keep a business running, and how stressful it can be, if you do go for it I wish you all the luck in the world.

[JC]

I considered going self employed - the job doesnt matter.

the ONLY way going self employed is you are doing that, WOrking for yourself directly, ( for example,guy on here as tona valeting )

you arent, you are going working for someone else so to speak.

i know a few couriers. i would be staying on the books espeically with a £2k van 

[JC]

oh and vivaro  and  at some people on here, but i wouldnt have one 

[Roverdose]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/RENAULT-MASTER-LM35-DCI-LWB-2-2-DCI-TRANSIT-SIZED-VAN-BLUE-2001-/380434102848?pt=UK_Commercial_Trucks&hash=item5893a3ba40#ht_1656wt_1397

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/52-PLATE-FIAT-DUCATO-VAN-JTD-NO-VAT-/180861816283?pt=UK_Commercial_Trucks&hash=item2a1c344ddb#ht_500wt_1416

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2001-VAUXHALL-MOVANO-DTI-3500-LWB-/380423012225?pt=UK_Commercial_Trucks&hash=item5892fa7f81

[Seanl]

Little extra income by renting advertising space on the side of the van. Not much but every little helps! 

[Roverdose]

"vw transporters are good as long as you don't get one with ceramic cylinder liners"

not my experience, hatefull little vans, they really are too small, had one when i worked for vw, junk. I think no matter what i do van wise it's a risk, if i lease i risk loosing out cash wise, if i own i risk expensive repair costs, the way i see it, if i leese i'm not going to make any more money and i'll keep treading water and not get anywhere financially which ultimately will end up with bailiffs as the debt is getting bigger than my wages can cope with, if i take a risk with my own van it could destroy me and i'd have the bailiffs knocking within a month, or it could be alright and in 6 months everything would be alot more rosier, at which point there will be so many more parcels as peak will be starting again that i can afford to lease if i have to. I'm gonna go for it, cross my fingers and give it everything iv'e got, i can stay out till 9pm monday to saturday so i can just bang em out and make some money! I am now more torn than ever on deciding what van to get! Basicly their all sh!t is what we've established so far. Usually, when i'm not having to put my own fuel in, i swear by the transit, love it to death. I've had my work van for a year now, from new, FWD LWB, not heard a peep from it but only get 450 miles to £120! Renault Masters, worked for ambulance service, they did break down but they were old and had monumental mileage, however the bodmin wagon on a 06 plate did 300,000 on the same clutch and gearbox!!! Which leads me onto the Sprinter, which replaced the master ambulances, OMG not good, gearboxes, panard arms that snap after 5k, constant turbo hose failure and a raft of electrical faults, VW Crafter aka the Mercedes Sprinter, Anyone had a Peugeot? I had one bloke tell me he's getting 55mpg out of his. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!!!!

Ian - Now going bald