Self-employment Support?

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Originally Posted by HumboldtGurl

Oh this thread is getting good!

What IS your business, HumboldtGirl?

I never did explain what we do, did I? We work on a number of different things (we call them "projects") that make us happy and allow us to work from wherever our home is parked. After having a single-focus marketing and design business for the last 15 years, we've found that now we would rather have lots of little ventures so we can diversify our revenue sources, which helps us live anywhere as full-time RVers. Most of what we do is internet-based.

Our main project is more of a labor of love...it's our Tripawds three-legged animal community. We offer support and resources like assistive devices to people when their dog or cat is losing a leg. It makes us very fulfilled to be of help to others, but it doesn't pay all of our bills so we do other things like: paid freelance journalism, graphic design, website development, small business coaching, jewelry making, and we are also marketing executives for a health and wellness company. I know it sounds like we don't have focus but it really does all gel together in the end.

Zoebird, you sound like you are right on target with how your business is growing. I like your long-term thinking and strategizing.

Gimme...I've always been curious about secret shopping work. Have you been doing it for a long time? Do companies want people who can move from location to location? Would this be something that I could do as full-time RVers? We move around a lot.

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Hi Humboldt Girl!

Sorry it has taken me a bit to get back to you here. About secret shopping, one idea I have is to check out and possibly sign up with www.mysteryshopforum.com - it is free and there is a link at the bottom to some very good (and not so good) mystery shopping companies. About your constantly being on the go - there are people who make a living doing this by doing what is called a route - driving a long distance and doing one mystery shop after another after another in a very condensed time period, and then doing and submitting all the reports involved. I think you might need to be in good with a few mystery shopping companies before you can do this - but you could sign up and ask at that forum site I gave you, they are mostly very helpful folks there. I only shop Phoenix, so I am pretty much one location only.

I find mystery shopping for me is not going to pay all my bills BUT it is a nice side income. I have been doing it for two years now for one company and am trying to branch out to others but it is quite competitive here and it is hard to get your foot in the door with a new company I'm finding, though I understand that this varies depending on location. Sometimes you get nice reimbursements too for required purchases for shops. Lately I have snagged a free Tommy Hilfiger coffee mug (destined for ebay maybe) and a free lawn and leaf fold out bag (something I can really use). There are those in mystery shopping who are content to only do restaurant shops (which I will not do as I have too much experience in the business and will automatically side with the server most times) that involve reimbursed meals for a report, and those who shop only hotels which involve reimbursed stays (with frequent hotel stay points) at hotels. All in all, it is a nice side gig I think and it seems to attract an interesting sort of person that does it. Anything else you'd like to know, let me know, I'll be glad to advise. Rob

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Originally Posted by fidgiegirl

Pug! It was you who commented on my blog, wasn't it?! :) Thank you!

You are a really engaging writer! I'd like to think I could write like that, but I don't! :D

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You're welcome.....and I LOVE the style of your writing, Kelli. It's so unpretentious, and so comfortable for me to read, like you're having a conversation with the reader. Don't change anything about it :) And I am totally going to find those Conte ravioli....

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Originally Posted by puglogic

You're welcome.....and I LOVE the style of your writing, Kelli. It's so unpretentious, and so comfortable for me to read, like you're having a conversation with the reader. Don't change anything about it :) And I am totally going to find those Conte ravioli....

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Awwww . . . thank you!

Rob, funny, I looked up some mystery shopping stuff just now and found out I was already registered with a company! And have been for several years! LOL. Have never actually done a shop, though.

It's going well to keep doing one little task a night for my blog and/or other businesses. I told my girlfriends an idea today that I got from work - we have over 100 people signed up for an online course about iPads and a specific aspect of instruction. Like, wow. Why couldn't I try to run similar courses on my own time? If they were paid, I might not get SUCH a response, but if they cost a little but lots of people take them, then, well, wow, that could be fruitful. I was even thinking I could run something through Google+ Hangout or zoom.us live and even if 10 people took an hour-long online "class" at $20 a piece that's $200 for one hour of work (plus the planning, but that's the beauty of classes - once you've delivered them a few times, they are pretty much down and it's just a question of delivering again).

My one friend might be interested in the "mastermind" group idea, with the periodic meetings for accountability (in speaking actions aloud and having a "deadline" of the next mastermind meeting to report back). That'd be cool.

Oooh I'm glad I came across this thread! Although I am employed 28-30hrs a week, I have just registered as self-employed. I'm going to try and start up as a freelance translator in addition to being employed (if it goes well and I enjoy it, maybe I'll think about leaving employment). All the tax and contributions crap is incredibly confusing, but the bulk of my work at the moment is editing my resume and trying to get clients... the finance side of things only becomes problematic if and when I actually make some dough!!

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Originally Posted by gimmethesimplelife

Hi Humboldt Girl!

Sorry it has taken me a bit to get back to you here. About secret shopping, one idea I have is to check out and possibly sign up with www.mysteryshopforum.com - it is free and there is a link at the bottom to some very good (and not so good) mystery shopping companies. About your constantly being on the go - there are people who make a living

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Rob, thank you! I'm going to look into this and will let you know if it turns into something for DH and I.

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Originally Posted by HumboldtGurl

Rob, thank you! I'm going to look into this and will let you know if it turns into something for DH and I.

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Humboldt Girl - Wishing you the best with it! My experience has been that it can be a funky way to make some extra cash on the side. Am looking forward to hearing if it turns into something that works for you and your DH. Rob

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Originally Posted by mira

Oooh I'm glad I came across this thread! Although I am employed 28-30hrs a week, I have just registered as self-employed. I'm going to try and start up as a freelance translator in addition to being employed (if it goes well and I enjoy it, maybe I'll think about leaving employment). All the tax and contributions crap is incredibly confusing, but the bulk of my work at the moment is editing my resume and trying to get clients... the finance side of things only becomes problematic if and when I actually make some dough!!

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I think that's a great idea. What languages do you translate?

The finance side of things is a pain, but it's well worth your time to have systems in place so that when you do make money, you're ready to deal with it and not making stuff up on the fly. Take time to learn the basics and it will reward you for years to come both in your business and in your personal finances too. Good luck!

Resurrecting this thread! :)

The "is work a waste of time" thread has me once again thinking about this thread. I am a bit despondent about work lately. It's feeling somewhat negative and draggy. I get excited about DOING, but I am stuck in what feels like eternal meetings and also in working with negative individuals who do not want to engage in our mutual work anyway, so I'm feeling a bit discouraged. When I was in the classroom, even though I was exhausted, I could DO, and RIGHT NOW. Even that was probably unique. It's not all bad, really - there are a lot of positives and it's a leadership position so I am indirectly impacting a lot more kids than I would have impacted directly, and I have remind myself of that. But some days I'd rather just charge teachers directly for focused coaching to help the ones who really want to do something new or different DO IT. But then who'd pay for that . . . grrr. My boss and coworkers are great, too.

So anyway - puglogic, I am in looooove with Puttylike. I am thinking of joining her Puttytribe, a monthly fee-based group she has going but not sure if I am in the right place. Today's post has my head spinning! http://puttylike.com/the-lateral-fre...of-everything/

I think Life_Is_Simple's "how much do you want to work?" thread has revealed something for me: I couldn't even bring myself to respond. If I can't state my goal, how will I reach it? The harder part of what she posed was the "how much do you want to make doing it?" part of her question. I don't know! Lots! More than I make now! But HOW much? Or is it even important? I mean, we moved so I can't make nothing, but would I have to make what I make now? Or is it a case of visualization - if I think I will only make $X.00, well, then, I'll only make $X.00!

In Barbara Winter's Making a Living Without a Job, she talks about sometimes full employment being the biggest impediment to getting started in self-employment. I'm starting to really appreciate that sentiment, so to speak . . .

Well, sorry, it was kind of "stream of consciousness." Where are others at with this?

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Originally Posted by fidgiegirl

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I think Life_Is_Simple's "how much do you want to work?" thread has revealed something for me: I couldn't even bring myself to respond. If I can't state my goal, how will I reach it? The harder part of what she posed was the "how much do you want to make doing it?" part of her question. I don't know! Lots! More than I make now! But HOW much? Or is it even important? I mean, we moved so I can't make nothing, but would I have to make what I make now? Or is it a case of visualization - if I think I will only make $X.00, well, then, I'll only make $X.00!

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:laff: No one was responding to that thread initially, and I thought I was being too flippant with the "how much do you want to make" part, so I cut that part out ;).

First, a comment on the Barbara Winter comment you had. When I jumped into self-employed the first time, I had gone to a bunch of workshops (Barbara Sher Success Team workshop), and read a bunch of books ("Why Aren't You Your Own Boss?") prior. And that helped prepare me a little bit. But what really helped was jumping in. There is a point where a person has to jump in and swim. If there are people who can fully prepare, and jump out of a (usually tiring) full-time job with ease and grace, I don't know who these people are.

I learned a lot while self-employed the first time (2004-2005), and wrote down that my ideal "job" was 1/2 my regular field, which is pretty high paying, and 1/4 maybe wellness coach-related, and 1/4 something else fun. Something Barbara Sher said, if you have read her books.... sometimes the job in your field funds the really fun or more meaningful jobs. I experimented a lot in SE #1, but was only making 70% of what I needed, so eventually jumped back into a Corporate Job to regroup. Oh yeah, and one time I went to a Barbara Winter seminar and had her sign my copy of her book ;)

Right now I am in Self-employment #2 (2009 to present). During SE #1 I learned that I had to take longer gigs in my field, instead of the really short ones I was finding. And during the Corporate Job in 2006-2009, I watched consultants we hired, to see what other ideas I could form about the in-my-field job that I could put into practice in SE #2.

I may have swung too far the other direction, because now in SE #2 I have a 30-hr-a-week gig (with a client I had met in SE #1, incidentally). And he has so much for me to do, that I am lax in experimenting and adding some fun income streams. I could also do more than 30 hours if I wanted to. But I don't want to :laff:

There's another book I read: "Making Work Work for the Highly Sensitive Person," by Barrie Jaeger. She talks about work being Drudgery, Craft, or Calling. All my corporate jobs started out as Craft, and went to Drudgery. My SE #2 is probably Craft, but maybe sometimes borders on Calling. However, there are things I could do to SE #2 to make it more Calling-like. Like, part of Self-Employment is working ON the business, and part is working IN the business. In SE #1, I spent more time working ON the business, and I found that to be fun. Even things like workshops and training are fun to me, and would enhance SE #2.

Another book I read during SE #1 (are you tired of my rambling yet?) is "Creating Money," by Roman and Packer. This is like the part of my recent post that I deleted, "how much would you like to make?" The first part of the book is about Attracting Abundance. The 2nd part is more, discovering your life's work. Here's a quote "Ask for what you want, no matter how impractical or far-fetched it may seem."

Part of self-employment is to dream what may be possible, even though your rational self tells you to come back to reality.

Fidgiegirl, because you are here in Simple Living, saving your money carefully while 90% of Americans are blowing their paychecks.... I believe that you could err a little on dreaming a little for a while :)

Also, you could kick me and tell me to go out and find some workshops or training, or add other fun to SE #2. But I am waiting for the weather to improve :laff: Which is why I couldn't reply to your thread about "Spring Cleaning," - I see no signs of Spring!! :laff:

Also - the name "Fidgiegirl..." I don't know what that means. You fidget a lot? ;)