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Retraining at 40


Medic1281
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if doing gardening you should also offer a take away service which would mean you registering with the council so you can take stuff to recycling - a lot will have their green waste which may be OK for doing a lawn etc - but the times when you are taking down/back hedges will produce a large amount of waste that won't fit in

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5 hours ago, Medic1281 said:

So where do I start? Facebook business page and just see what happens? Get public liability insurance is a must. I’ve got all the tools needed to make a start so very little expenditure needed. How do you actually set up a business, how does it start? These may seem stupid questions to some, but having always been employed, it’s stuff I’ve never had to deal with. 

We have a young lad who has just been fitting a fence to our corner plot, took out a tree, making some planters and laying some concrete.

He hasn't stopped for the past 3 days and has been very visible to passers by.

The number of folk who have asked for his details - on a very professional board by the edge of our garden and signwritten on his van - has been amazing.

I would recommend him to anyone.

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On 07/11/2021 at 06:40, TIGHTCHOKE said:

Jim, that would then suggest not bothering with insurance as that might give the game away!

 

I wouldn't work without some form of insurance.

:good: Do a job and do it properly. Short changing the treasury is stealing from all of us. 

On 07/11/2021 at 01:39, Jim Neal said:

Depends what method of payment the customers use, could be a lot lower

 

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On 08/11/2021 at 09:40, Medic1281 said:

So where do I start? Facebook business page and just see what happens? Get public liability insurance is a must. I’ve got all the tools needed to make a start so very little expenditure needed. How do you actually set up a business, how does it start? These may seem stupid questions to some, but having always been employed, it’s stuff I’ve never had to deal with. 

You just go out and do it, there's no rules :)  Revel in the liberation of being your own boss :)

 

On 08/11/2021 at 18:26, oowee said:

:good: Do a job and do it properly. Short changing the treasury is stealing from all of us. 

 

:D You're a government's wet dream :D

Bending over and inviting the tax man to have his wicked way is stealing from yourself ;)

 

Just to clarify my position, I'm not suggesting that it's right for someone to entirely work under the radar on a cash-only basis, in a full-time business.  From the OP's posts at the top of the thread he has designs on doing "bits and bobs" on a casual basis rather than charging headlong into a full time venture, which would suggest to me it wouldn't justify the hassle and expense of keeping books, using an accountant and submitting extra tax returns.

If the work steps up and it becomes more of a serious revenue stream, you can't stay under the radar forever but they can still only tax you on the profit you report :)

 

Edited by Jim Neal
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On 08/11/2021 at 06:55, TIGHTCHOKE said:

Let's take it up a few levels, I'm sure many people who work and pay their dues would are offended by the major conglomerates that manage to work within the tax laws and have accountants that are "creative" to decrease their tax bills.

I hate paying taxes, but see it as necessary for the "greater good" and would hope most people would.

I'm not anti-taxation, I just have a pragmatic view when considering the specific situation outlined by the OP.

I'm not a tax dodger either.  I'm in the phase of my life where I need to get mortgages every few years, therefore I put pretty much everything through the books, I don't do cash deals.  I'm VAT registered as well which doesn't make me cheap to the domestic customers.  I get people all the time want to pay less for cash but they're dumb enough to insist on it before I've given them the price..... so I add 30% and then let them haggle me back down to where it should have been in the first place, or sometimes slightly higher 😁

Mega international corporations manage to avoid paying the UK treasury how much?  Must be millions or even billions per year?  In contrast, how much lost revenue to the treasury can there be from handful of one-man-band blokes slipping a bit of wonga in their back pocket and forgetting to draw up the invoice?  The difference is incomparable!

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18 hours ago, Jim Neal said:

You just go out and do it, there's no rules :)  Revel in the liberation of being your own boss :)

 

:D You're a government's wet dream :D

Bending over and inviting the tax man to have his wicked way is stealing from yourself ;)

 

Just to clarify my position, I'm not suggesting that it's right for someone to entirely work under the radar on a cash-only basis, in a full-time business.  From the OP's posts at the top of the thread he has designs on doing "bits and bobs" on a casual basis rather than charging headlong into a full time venture, which would suggest to me it wouldn't justify the hassle and expense of keeping books, using an accountant and submitting extra tax returns.

If the work steps up and it becomes more of a serious revenue stream, you can't stay under the radar forever but they can still only tax you on the profit you report :)

 

It all depends on your moral compass. It's easy to start small and never pay later. It's a slippery slope. 

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On 10/11/2021 at 16:41, oowee said:

It all depends on your moral compass. It's easy to start small and never pay later. It's a slippery slope. 

Are you/have you ever been self-employed?  You need to put yourself in the position of someone who's trying to get a foothold on the craggy cliffs of self-employment.

If you pay out all your start-up costs, begin to get a little bit of turnover building up but stay below the tax threshold, then pay hundreds of pounds to an accountant to do the necessary..... the trouble is you haven't earned enough to be able to offset those costs against your tax liability, so in reality you've earned very little in your first year.

I'll keep repeating myself, I'm not condoning working permanently under the radar for cash but in someone's first year starting up there is simply no justification for declaring absolutely every penny you earn to the tax man, it just doesn't make sense.  As a business grows of course it is in your interest to start making it official.  The system is designed that way, so you have to get on board with HMRC so you can get your tax offset by your costs.  It's a natural progression.  There's no slippery slope, just a vertical cliff face to climb and people starting out need all the help they can get initially.

Edited by Jim Neal
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On 07/11/2021 at 06:25, Medic1281 said:

has anyone on here retrained after a long time in a job? Or have any advice/ideas? It’s a big jump, and a very scary prospect at the moment, but something needs to change for my own mental health. 

I retrained at 28. I'm 46 now and 28 seems laughably young, but it was a big deal at the time. Some generic points. Don't jump from the frying pan in to the fire, be realistic about what you are getting in to. It sounds like you want to work less for more money which is what most of us want, but if you do want that, it is likely that you will have to go through a period of pain first, i.e. study or working even harder for no/less money. If you have a family to support, that can be very difficult. Personally, I found studying at 28 much harder than 18, then once in the job which was quite demanding for the first few years, I struggled to be honest. Just didn't have the stamina of my younger self.  Life has settled now, but it's been a long, hard journey. 

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I had to retrain a good while back after an accident as all my previous qualifications where physical I had to learn the office way took all my exams and could not get a job as no experience so volunteered to get something for CV now 11years with this employment took all training offered redundancies 2 months ago and maybe closing soon so looking around and I need an NVQ my **** boss never told me so I have jumped in to do a level 4 as I am 64 years old and no time to work my way through the 1 2 and 3, so yes pal go for it there is help out there you just have to find it yourself

Good luck pal 👍👍

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In my 40’s and I had the same dilemma as you! I built my own business from scratch and have never regretted a single minute of it. 
From the start I made sure I hit the ground running, all my logos, paperwork, web page and branding were sorted before I launched. 
It’s been a huge learning curve.

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On 06/11/2021 at 18:49, Medic1281 said:

I’m in the process of dropping my hours at the moment. But, I’ve lost the love for the job. I’m tempted to just do odd jobs, service lawn mowers and cut lawns during the summer, and keep 50% hours on the ambulance to keep some money coming in. 

What about training First Aid Courses with Forestry?  

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