See why every second counts - any how to make the most of them

-154

I feel like every second counts both at (employed) work and at home currently. Having taken on full-time work at the same time as my freelance work has started to take off is a bit of a challenge. A "normal" day is-

• Up at 5.45am
• Update my website
• Leave the house at 7am
• Write a blog post on the bus
• Start work at 7.30am
• Lunch hour at 11.30am
• Write another blog post
• Finish work at 4pm
• Write a blog post on the way home
• Home at 4.30pm
• Get half an hour of promotion work done
• Dinner at 5pm
• A couple of hours with the kids
• Start writing, promoting, tweeting and investigating at 8pm
• Finish and go to bed around 11pm

It all adds to quite a tiring day, and I'm at work tomorrow, pretty much the same routine but I'll leave the 8pm activity, and catch any of that up on Sunday.

I'm really enjoying it all, work is a promotion as well as a change to full-time so I'm managing a team, coaching and training. These are things I'm good at and well practised in. The frustration is the amount of new team members and the fact that business is heavy at this time of year in retail. It doesn't give me a lot of time to develop and train the team into the group of people I want them to be.

The freelance work is fitting in around all of the other bits that I'm doing. I've mentioned before that I sometimes write pieces on my iPhone on the Park and Ride bus on the way to and from work. I find that this gives me the opportunity to switch off from work, and I've also found time in my breaks to do the same. I can put together a large part of what I need and then re-read and edit it down when I get back onto a PC at home.

It's really good to be busy all the time and the fact that most mystery shopping companies stop the amount of mystery shops available in December (see here) means that this is a good time to be doing more at my employed, paid work.

Watch this space!

A bit of everything has been happening all at once this week

-150

A bit of everything has been happening all at once this week. It's one of those occasions where I don't really know which way to turn so I've turned all ways at once! Let me explain-

Work

I've been offered the chance to  step up to the next level until after Christmas. It means going full-time for a few months and this impacting on the available time I have to do other things. But I've  accepted the offer in the basis that many of the other things I do at this time of year will start to tail off.

Fiverr

I came home to 4,500 words of fiverr writing on Friday night. It's mice to get regular sales on fiverr and it means that my gig explanations are hitting the right notes. I'm relatively new to fiverr and I'm finding out that Friday afternoon seems to be the time for buyers to instruct you. About 60% of my gigs have been commissioned on a Friday afternoon. I set aside two hours on Saturday morning to complete the gigs and I've had the first drafts sent off for approval.

Mystery shopping

This does really start to tail away at this time of the year when retailers really want to concentrate on serving customers and making money.

http://mysteryshopperblog.blogspot.com/2015/11/its-time-to-start-mystery-shopping-now.html

There have been a couple of mystery shops and a gambling success but few and far between-

http://mysteryshopperblog.blogspot.com/2015/11/see-how-quick-mystery-shopping-trip.html

Book sales

I've been using my blogs to promote my books more and more recently, especially-

The Mystery Shop Blog - http://mysteryshopperblog.blogspot.co.uk/

How to Sell Your Home - http://how-to-sell-a-home.blogspot.co.uk/

I'm finding that books sales are steady and that interest in the blogs is increasing well at the moment. From here I hope to produce a solid regular income for when the business opens.

homeestates

Fiverr

Seller

I am a writer - I write all the time. I have several blogs, have written three books (so far) and I just love writing. I will write positive reviews or articles or mention you in my blogs in clear English. I'm new to Fiverr but I'm incredibly passionate about what it can empower.

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.

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