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!