Changes are afoot with my employer (again)

165

As we fire headlong towards Christmas and every moment of time seems like it's at a premium, I've negotiated changes at work that I think will help me move forward with my ideas and create that commodity we call time. I'm taking me working week from 5 full time days to 3 full time days in the new year. Plus the job role I'll be conducting will be more flexible in terms of the exact hours I need to be there. As a result I'll be able to make the massive strides forward I need, rather than the tiny, though productive, steps I'm currently making. The idea is that I'll split the extra time between making some money to bridge the shortfall in hours, and setting up the business. Having full days to be able to devote to the business will mean far more than the odd hour here and there and I believe will start to see the fledgling ideas that I've started to share in this blog turn into a solid, viable and exciting business.

I've decided to go down this route to get moving forward quickly. As you can see from the day count at the top of the page, the click is ticking quite quickly at the moment. Granted it's an arbitrary number I've picked but at the same time it's the target if all my efforts.

In terms of earning the money to bridge the shortfall, January is actually good months, as there is no council tax to pay in February or March. I'll fill in the gaps with income from mystery shops. At the moment I do the odd mystery shop in my lunch break or after work. With having four days a week without work opens up the possibility of full day mystery shopping trips. I used to go out for a full day and conduct 10 to 12 mystery shops and earn a couple of hundred pounds in a day. I can go out and do this again, ensuring that I keep the relevant records for the tax man.

All in all, I believe that the time will allow me to earn in the way I want to earn and get my business off the ground.

I'm felling like the Bruce Willis character from Sixth Sense

177

I'm feeling like the Bruce Willis character in Sixth Sense at the moment. Not that I'm completely ignored, but that the World is happening around me without any input from me. I feel like it at work, at home, at my photography course, setting up my business and when out Christmas shopping.

At work everything and everyone is completely focused on Christmas and getting every last pound out of the customers at this vital time of the year.

At home it seems like I've lost a little bit of control over what tasks need doing, what parts of the house need attention and naming small things like what we are going to do at the weekend. Part if this is the cold dark nights and sort is being so busy at work that all I want to do is get warm and watch the TV!

In terms of my photography course, the initial excitement of taking photos, learning new techniques and showing the group my photos has died down. We have a lot of work to do to finish off our folders, get our portfolio together and finalise our project. This takes a lot if time and energy out of the week and out if the class.

With all this and Christmas shopping and preparation going on, a lot of other aside ya of setting up the business have stalled. The garage/office has stopped half way through, the work on small business grants has stopped and I haven't made any new plans until I can get these sorted.

I also sell books and games on Amazon and eBay, so this picks up at this time of year as well, so this is a drain on time. I think it's best to park all of the progress until the new year and start again in earnest.

Not sure…

245 days to go returns from holiday

211

I've just come back from 5 days away and it's a time of change and restart in the journey I've been on to set up my own estate agency.

I visited Cambridge, London and Essex during my five days away from work and home. There were huge opportunities to take many photos and I'll upload a selection in a later blog with commentary relating to my learnings and how I intend to use them in my business. I met up with many old friends and family members and has a great opportunity to discuss some of my plans, listen to their ideas and experiences and get a fix on how I want to go forward.

I start my new role in a new company site tomorrow and the change in direction here will, I hope, give me fresh impetus. I've grown stale working for my current manager and in my current role into current store. A change of scene, slight change of role, change of location and different working hours I believe will all contribute to me being able to be much happier in my life in general and this having a knock-on effect on the effort and enthusiasm I can dedicate to my new business.

So we move onwards from here - a great few data away with the family, a new role with working hours I prefer and more energy to start the new business.

Win, win, win!

Managing my home budget to save costs when the business first opens

237

I've been looking at my finances, and how I can make them a little leaner for the first few months of the Estate Agency, when the income column will be at zero, or just above.  Family outgoings are a major concern of mine in relation to the cost of setting up an estate agency.  I currently have a full-time income that covers all of these costs with a little left over at the end of every month.  I would err on the side of caution with when the income starts to flow, and I think that probably 6 months is a good estimate for the process of-

• setting up the agency
• gaining instructions
• getting a sale agreed
• avoiding any fall-throughs
• completing the sale

On that basis, I have adapted my current spreadsheet as follows-

Date	Who	How much	First few months of estate agency
1st	Kids swimming lessons	£38.00	£38.00
2nd	Income Protection	£21.44	£0.00
2nd	TV licence	£12.18	£12.18
3rd	Car Insurance 1	£23.95	£20.00
3rd	Water	£43.28	£43.28
5th	Pension	£60.00	£0.00
8th	Car Insurance 2	£26.04	£26.04
8th	Home Insurance	£15.80	£15.80
9th	Critical Illness Insurance	£45.15	£45.15
10th	TV & Broadband Package	£96.35	£50.00
15th	Council Tax	£137.00	£137.00
15th	Gas & Electric	£120.00	£100.00
25th	Life Assurance	£15.32	£15.32
25th	Mobile Phone Bill	£23.20	£28.00
	TOTAL	£677.35	£530.41
	Plus-
	Savings Account	£100.00	£0.00
	I S A	£100.00	£0.00
	Petrol	£80.00	£80.00
	Car account	£20.00	£20.00
	Sundries	£50.00	£0.00
	Total Extras	£350.00	£100.00
	New full total	£1,027.35	£630.41

I can save on the extra savings I put aside, such as the pension, savings accounts and ISA, as these can be restarted when my income returns.

I can save on the TV by switching from the all-singing-all-dancing package I currently have to a more toned-down version or a cheaper supplier than Sky.  Anyway, I hopefully won't have enough time for TV!

My sundries is for snacks, drinks and meals when I'm out at work currently, but with the home office, these will all be taken at home from the food budget (the wife's department!)

The savings of £396.94 per month will provide a cushion in the first few months of the business while my attention is elsewhere, and I won't want the worry of having to focus on the day-to-day running of the house.

I don't know how I feel about laying this budget bare on the internet for all to see (should they want to) but in myself it aids the organisation of my life around the business and allows me to move forward in terms of control and understanding of where I want to be and need to be to make this business as successful as I possibly can.  It has also crystalised a discussion I had with my wife earlier today - I thought about opening the agency today, and then trying to piece it together as I went along.  I now know that I want it to be opened fully up-and-running and ready to trade from day 1.  So preparation is the key.

Budget Planners from Amazon

Is it a full-time job to set up a full-time business?

238

I've often heard the phrase "finding a full-time job is a full-time job" but is starting a full-time business a full-time job?

I currently work 37.5 hours per week, add in lunch breaks and commutes then I'm out if the house for work just over 9 hours a day. Now regular readers will know that I'm looking at moving location with my employer and this will increase the time out of the house. Given the fact that I have a wife, 2 children and other commitments, do I leave myself enough time to go about setting up my estate agency?

These are all really rhetorical questions and are to get me thinking as much as anyone who reads this, but the point of open g an estate agency is because I believe that I'm very good at it and that I can do it far better than my competitors.

Am I doing myself and my fledgling business a disservice by not allowing enough time to be spent on setting it up properly?

I still don't know whether I think that the remaining 238 days I have set myself are a really short period of time or a really long period of time, in fact I regularly flit between the 2 states of mind.

Simple maths-

238 days /7 = 34 weeks

Every other week I have a day off in the week when the kids are ar school, and these are the best days to get anything done. This applies from 9am to 3pm.

Every week I start late on a Tuesday, so I get approximately 2.5 hours there to spend.

This is 11 hours per fortnight, so an average of 5.5 hours per week, so a rough total of 187 hours. Then take away the weeks where the kids are not at school, so it may be down to 150 hours.

It is clear to me that this isn't enough, even adding in extra for late evenings and  holiday days.

So, what's the answer? I need to pay the bills, feed the kids, etc but the long-term view is that I work for myself, work the hours I want and be happier and better off.

Monthly budgeting tomorrow. I'll show you my workings out.

Amazon Gift Certificates for business

Don't give up the day job…yet

240

After a day dedicated to nothing but my day job (day 241 to go) I'm back at work a full day again today. I have spoken to my line manager and asked for a transfer to another location, to try to ease my stress at working in poor conditions here.

The established, experienced core of the team are all disgruntled, to say the least, at the structure and leadership at present and all are looking at alternatives. The replacements as people leave are generally young girls, in the mould of the manager, and have been unreliable and of a poor standard. My employer pays poorly, has a poor reputation and offers no immediate career prospects, so it can be difficult to attract quality applicants.

I await the response from other locations in the region that are looking for staff, at what can be a busy time for the retail industry.

All part of keeping my sanity and preserving my work/life balance when I need to use my 'off-work' time in the most fruitful way possible.

This leads to my next quest - a timetable of events for the next 240 days to ensure I'm ready.

The NEW Amazon Fire phone

The issue of my current employment

244

This is a quick post, and more of a sounding board and open question (probably to myself.)

I am struggling to motivate myself to work for someone else at the moment. In the big picture, I work for a multinational retailer. In the small picture I work for a boss who has been parachuted in from the graduate programme and doesn't know either the business or how to manage people.

I am thinking about a reduction in hours (from full-time) or a change in location (temporary relief from my manager) to maintain sanity for the next 244 days.

A full-time salary will come in useful, but not to the point where it may detriment the amount of time I can spend on settng up the estate agency.

A change of scene would keep me fresh in the run up to retail Christmas and provide a welcome distraction from the in-depth rigours of setting up my own business in my spare time.

I think I'll go and have a chat with my line manager. I'll keep you posted.

Name Your Link