Self employed: Tax doesn't have to be taxing!

A little joke in the title there, based on the Inland Revenue slogan. I haven't posted in a while but here is one on self Employment: What I could, and might do. 

If I registered for self employment there is a good opportunity for me to capitalise on some of the opportunities that I have.

I could use my Digital SLR and become a self employed photographer. However, as I have very little professional experience in the field of photography it might not prove to be as fruitful.

However, the old people's home which I work for might hire me to take photos of some of their event and parties etc. This could be a starting point. I could then make money from selling additional prints and get them done professionally and then posted to me. I could provide a certain amount as part of the fee, then extra prints would cost extra; obviously. This could be a good money-spinner, especially with the wide variety of village events are held. eg I could do a Harvest Supper Photo album, a Summer Barbeque etc.

Could Work, but I suspect I will have to do some kind of free deal to gain experience and a reputation.

I could produce my own compost using horse manure which easily available to me. I could make some "Extra Strength Concentrate" Compost which would need mixing into the ground for use. This means that basically I would spend my days bagging manure into bag - a great job to have. . .

I could sell bags of stone and rubble from the builders rubble that I collected before, but eventually it will run out and there will be none to sell.  Unless I can find a regular supply of it that would be a once off deal that could make some serious cash. But since most of it has been used at home the chance of that is slowly diminishing.

I had considered buying a small van and becoming a "white van man". However I haven't looked into the cost of this so I am not actually sure exactly how much this would cost. I looked at some second had van dealers and the kind of van with a reasonable mileage would be about £2,000. I need to look at insurance also, because of being so young it is probably going to be quite expensive. In addition to that, I am not even sure how I would get work. Suppose I would have to do some kind of advertising to get extra work, I could use my contacts in the local auction house or estate agents even.

Don't know about that as I have never had to advertise to get a job before, all of the work that I have had so far has been entirely on recommendation!

I think with this small amount of cash in hand I might do some more entrepreneurial things, also I think product based activities might be easier to do as service based skills eg gardening etc require a better customer base  and I think are harder to do.

More on that next time though!

Taking Advantage of the situation to make money

Taking advantage of a situation to make money is in my opinion one of the most basic ways to make the most money. 

As I have already said, I work as a gardener in various different places. One of them is a Local Old Folks home. This has been my regular job in the mean time since I left school. It pays less than my usual jobs, at only £5.50 per hour but has very flexible hours and plenty of opportunity to maintain it as a regular source of income. 

At this Home, there has been some construction work and the building a new patio/terrace kind of area. To perform this, there has been a fair amount of groundwork to get the ground ready, then an extensive amount of brickwork and so on. As a result there were  quite a few pallets of different bricks, stones and slabs around the place.

As a result of the ground work there was quite a lot of rubble left over. There was a large pile left near the front entrance. I thought: I know what I can do with this. I could put it in plastic bags and sell it as hardcore as part of the jobs I do.

However, when i asked the builders if they needed it taking away, the boss said "No, we can take it back and use it on other jobs" I then negotiated with him to get it. He started at £40! this was quite a lot for the amount that was there, and after some negotiation I worked the price down to £20 for the pile. A 1 ton bag of decretive gravel  costs around £50 delivered and a bag excellent quality hardcore cost half that. I thought I got a reasonable price, especially as I managed to get it loaded on the trailer by them with a digger which would saved me an awfully tiresome amount of shoveling. 

Then when I came and picked up the second load the next day, I then proceeded to sell three bags of it for £10, which was a tiny proportion of it for half the money! I am confident that I can easily get my money back for the pile, and make a very handsome profit on it. 

This all came around because of the opportunity came and I took advantage of it. I have become a "Professional Wheeler Dealer" to coin a phrase.

This is the kind of thing that I find really easy, and it is simply getting the measure of a situation and then taking advantage of it.

I hope I get more of these easy situations, or I am going to have to go out and make my own!

Until next week,

Thanks for reading!

Market Trading: DVD's and Games make money!

A couple of weeks ago, I was gardening for one of my neighbors.  I ended up talking to one of the occupants of the house, and it turns out it he is a market trader and he buys and sells DVD's and games for a living. The conversation ended in him inviting me to join him for one of the market days he did in Tamworth. 

It was a hour long drive in a small car packed with approximately £3,000 of DVD's and games. Needless to say it was mildly uncomfortable and a bit squashed! When we got to the market, the stall was quite large sort of like a car boot sort of size. It was great because there was also a selection of street entertainers including a fire eater and a amusing stilt walker.

There was a great deal of different stalls, that a lot of different things from watches, stone ornaments, plants, scarves to name a few different things.

My neighbor, who was the one who sold DVD's and Games. This from what I saw was the stall that attracted the most attention, and probably generated the most money. There was a good variety of different kinds of people, but most were young(ish). I also noticed that the older generation seemed to be more numerous earlier in the morning, compared to more fanilies in the afternoon.

The DVD collection was a great variety in the various different categories. Another thing that I notice, was that upon the mentioning of the fact that there was a horror/gore section they all  went right toward it and began to flick through. I also met a few of the regular customers which was nice and I also performed a cheeky trick to get more sales.

There was a GAME shop across the high street, and what happened is because of the market stalls in the stree, the front of the shop was obscured. This meant that any potential customers would see the DVD and Game stall before the shop. In addition, I went into GAME a couple of times and wondered round the shop and when I saw some people that were interested in games that I had seen on the stall I would just go up to and mention the fact that I had seen it on a market stall around the corner. This drove a fair amount of the trade that GAME would have got straight onto the stall.

However, despite the work I did, he said that it was an average day, as he only turned over £300-400.


I did actually help out for this guy for free, and did not ask for payment I just went for the experience and I am glad that I did as it was enjoyable and just the kind of thing I like doing.

Until next week,

Thanks for reading!

The time inbetween . . .

In between all of the different "entrepreneurial" activities I have had a lot of unfilled time, and in this unfilled time I need a way to make money to sustain myself. 


That way currently is to work in a mixture of Gardening, manual labour and working for an auction house.

However this in itself has lead to an opportunity. This is because I have realised I am quite good at garden work, and the pay that you can get from it is quite good. 

I could set my self up in a self employed business, and maybe even employ some of my friends that lived local to the jobs that I picked up. I could do all the ones in my village and the contract all the ones in other local villages and the local town to those who live closer to them. I could charge £10 an hour to the client and pay £5 an hour to the people doing the job, with me taking the £5 an hour cut for providing equipment and getting the work in the first place and managing the job quality.

To give an example, I worked for someone I met through school and manage to get work overhauling their garden before the house got sold. This was work that earned me around £130 over the two days. This roughly equated to the £10 per hour that I wanted. I had to mow all of his lawns, chop the lower branches off a tree, dig all of the beds, clear all of the paths and some other stuff. Was quite a lot of work.


I also thought that I would sell things on ebay, but I have a problem thinking of and finding things that would sell well and would be cheap to post. The only things that I could think of is the extensive collection of National Geographics; which I my opinion is a little bit rubbish.


So, that's what I have been doing with my time. Need to get something else on the go. Might see what I can do with my Market trader neighour.


Until next week,


Thanks for reading!

The Local Market: I went back

I went back to the local market, to find out what the prices were, and to do a little more investigating.

As I looked around I realised that it isnt as busy as other markets that I have been around before. However, there must be money to be made in this area otherwise why bother? This made me thing that there must be some way of making and getting all of the things on sale for really cheap. I already knew the guy selling biscuits and other food would be making a lot of money, as I had before at more competative prices that this. Especially with B&M Bargains just down the road!. I also noticed that there was a high proportion of the older generation were there. There were very few young people, and I was probably the youngest there!


However, I asked around and found out where the market manager's office was. This was when I met the market manager, Colin. He was quite a nice man whom was quite happy to divulge the prices which the stall holders paid. The rates were £15.56 (including VAT/Tax etc) on a Saturday and £18.00 on the Friday. I did not ask about the different stall sizes and facilities etc which in hindsight would have been a good idea; opportunity missed I guess. The only stall that I notices that would be avialible to rent would be a stall that would be stup for refridgeration. Just like the Buttchers stall next door, which made a mean cornish pasty!

However, as I tried to ask about a place to sell plants, there were a few different places that were already selling plants. The first stall was a really large gerocwery stall which was a bit non-commital as they asked for samples before they would commit to any kind of price. I then went and asked at what was the Country Market Stall was the best deal for me by far. I found out that for the measly fee £5.00 I could become a member of the country markets, then I could bring things to the Market stall and then they would sell them for me and take 10% commission to pay for the use of the stall, then I would get the rest of the turnover directly into my account. This to me seemed like a very good way tyo make a selection of products and then sell them through this market stall for minimum fuss. But I have learned since that I like to inyteract with the people and sell them things.


In conclusion, I think that I might make or grow something and sell it through this. That way I could take the produce in the morning and then go on to a conventional job. Not a bad idea.


Until next week,


Thanks for reading!

The Barrow - Postcards

As everyone who lives in the UK will be aware, a couple of weeks ago the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, and because of this there was quite a lot of places that held festivities. My village held festivities in a local farmers field. There were a lot of different things there, like a stall selling festive cards in aid of Cancer Research UK, a band tent, tea&coffee then later a bar.

The Barrow that I told you about before was also there. I have had the postcards that I wanted delivered, had this photo: (obviously minus the watermark)

Postcard example

These Postcards came from VistaPrint. I was a little disappointed with the service and price of the cards, even the delivery time! The reason for this was when I was ordering on the website, the total cost was not clear as I was going along. This kind of practice annoys me greatly,in my opinion a little bit overcharged and then promised the delivery will take less than a month. That is a ridiculous delivery estimation time. Stupid!
Anyway,I got them printed eventually.

However I got them in the end and I have already sold a few via the barrow. Granted, each postcard is not massively lucrative, however if I can sell a bit more volume I can make a decent side income with next to no effort! I have to ordering in batches of minimum 100 prints, which is a little annoying if you only want to test the waters with a new image/postcard or product if I can add one to the selection of products already available.

I can even tie it into my hobby of photograph, taking pictures with my camera and then getting them printed in various forms, this will also mean that The Barrow will have a greater variety of product. I am not sure what else to make to put on it, I thought about processing wood and making firewood to sell.

I have received a little feedback on the first batch of postcards, and I have only sold a few.

In conclusion, my scheme is working, it is making money but it is never going to make me a millionaire. I am going to try some different things, keeping a log right here to read back later!

Until next week,

Thanks for reading!

Perspective on the World #1: Inspiration

There are a lot of people in the world. I think at this time it is approximately 7 billion. That is a fair amount, I don't think anyone can deny. 

As such there will inevitably be people who fill you with happiness, some with desire and there will also be a small portion that inspire you. It is this small portion that I think are quite important. You can find with a small search any amount of books, blogs, websites and other literature that all claims to be able to help inspire yourself or others. I think the majority of it will not inspire, as I think inspiration is natural rather than cultured. As such, people who inspire can be found in all walks of life, all places and do many things.

One of the typical entrepreneurial figures from which I take inspiration is Lord Alan Sugar. I read his biography and his other book that has thoughts that he has about the world. Kind of like a blog, except in a book and it isn't going to get updated; none the less they were both excellent books and totally worth reading. One was called "What You See Is What You Get: My Autobiography" and the other is called "The Way I See It" These are both very good books that upon reading them I literally could not put them down! They really made me want to go out and do as much as I could and try my best to replicate the success that were portrayed in the book to a certain extent. 

Lord Sugar's Autobiography was really insightful as to how the mind of a driven successful person works, and the environment that allowed this mind to flourish. The good feeling in learning about someone struggling with the same problems but managing to find a solution to overcome them; then work toward to something much bigger. 
Some great stories where an opportunity was spotted, then taken advantage of. A great one that I thought was quite good and very insightful into the mindset of an entrepreneur, especially the risk taking aspect of it; seeing the chance then taking the risk.
The story goes like this: One day there was a bit of construction work on the road outside his house, and the workers used to dig up large blocks of wood with which the road was constructed. He also noticed the workers used to burn them on the brazier and because they had come out of the road they had some kind of tar on and burned really well. The next thing he noticed was that his local shop sold bundles of kindling for a fairly high price. There was a brainwave. He decided to collect this wood which the workers were just throwing away, and then chop it up, make it into bundles and then sell it to the local shopkeeper. This was an excellent enterprise that earned him a good source of revenue; this was until some older people cottoned on to the fact that there was money to be made in this and then he was soon relieved of this idea as others capitalised on it.


But the point is, the risk in poking his nose in and then having the guts to ask the shopkeeper to buy these off him, and on top of that getting his friends to chopping the wood up for free! A risky scheme that paid off very well for him, surprising himself and his parents.


If you are an aspiring entrepreneur, then you should definitely read Lord Sugar's Biography because it is an amazing story that details his rise, the ideas he had, the problems and the triumphs as Amstrad became a major player in the electronic market.


The other book written by Lord Sugar as I mentioned before, called "The Way I See It" has a good set of no bull opinions and descriptions on the world. I think its an excellent book, well worth a read.




Going back to the point about all of this being inspirational, however the point is when I read about all of these things I really feel enthused about Business, risk taking and some of the other factors attributing to being an entrepreneur. It fills me with a great sense of determination that I want to go out, do as good or better!

I made out in some of the earlier posts, like the one about selling confectionery it might seem easy. At some points motivating myself to continue was intensely difficult. However, books like this, and people that inspire the determination and drive to continue are most important.


Inspirational people are those whom provoke the desire in others to do well, be enthusiastic and work to achieve something. They cause an inexplicable drive to succeed and do better; as the example I gave, with Lord Sugar and his affect on myself.


Until next week, 


Thanks for reading!