It was my day off!

Just to give you some context... My official working hours: 10am-6pm. My actual working hours Mon-Wed: 10am-11pm, 9am-10pm, 8am-11pm (minus five hours of socialising, plus travel). So, weekly day off to restore the balance. :)

I got up at 8.30am, made myself a cup of tea (blackcurrant, vanilla & ginseng) and put some clothes in the washing machine. In tidying / looking for stuff this week I've found lots of clothes I hadn't gotten round to unpacking since I moved in a year ago... So that takes care of my worries about perhaps not having suitable clothes for a corporate environment; I do. (My last job was for a fashion company where you could wear what you want, which was awesome).

Oh, and I helped myself to realise it's my day off by wearing tracksuit bottoms and a sweatshirt. It really worked: Amazing how much a change of style makes.

I couldn't help myself and ended up looking up stuff about tax for self-employed people, as well as keeping proper records. (I have another day off today, by accident, and I'll be away from my computer, so I'll refrain from research for a good chunk of today!)

Useful links about tax & related information

• Tax and self employment, TheSite - really easy-to-read language, a good jumping point to sites with more detailed information. I took away: "The good news is that you are entitled to deduct certain expenditure from your income - basically the stuff that relates to your business."
• Self-employment: checklist, Advice Guide - a sombre & very serious account, with quick info
• UK Self employed Accounting Software and Self Assessment Tax Returns, DAW Consulting I took away: "In the UK anyone receiving earned income which is not taxed under the employers PAYE system is technically self employed."

Rules

• Do things differently to distinguish days off: Change of style, change of location, change of food... Whatever works for you. Experiment!

It's been a long day, so it'll be a short entry. :)

I started working an hour earlier today. (I'd spent over nine hours in bed despite going to bed late; it was time to get up!) I spent the first hour of the morning instant messaging, LiveJournalling and generally spodding around. Come 10 am I was ready to tackle my to-do-list. One of the B-priority tasks was sorting Entrepreneurial Kathleen out, so I've been doing that intermittently and I now have a colour scheme I'm happy with. Yay! Which means it's ready for me to link to it from all over the web. I'll do that later this week when I have more material here.

I spoke to quite a few people today and I have an interview tomorrow, which is nice. Couple of other jobs I might get put forward for, will have to wait and see. Some interesting opportunities out there.

My main A-priority tasks: Apply for JobSeekers' Allowance and apply for lots of jobs. I decided not to do the former due to securing an interview for tomorrow. I decided not to do the latter due to the number of roles that people apparently what me to take on. It looks like I'll be out of the house a lot tomorrow, but otherwise I'll continue with applications on Thursday or Friday (depending on when I choose to take my day off).

Oh, and my other A-priority tasks: Read up about finances (including keeping proper records) and work on Kathleen Bright (dotcom). I think I'll do the reading tomorrow and work on the site now.

Rules

• Write a to-do-list each night for the following day. I split mine into Priority A + B. I attempt to complete as many of A tasks as is possible, with a few B tasks too. Starred A tasks are absolute musts, unless an overwhelmingly good reason crops up. I'm a 'scanner', i.e. it's fairly trivial for me to start things; I find it a lot harder to finish things. So this kind of setup is pretty important for me.

Challenges

• I'm not used to having the entire day to work on my own stuff, so I'm still tempted to work into the night, which is not a good idea! Solution: Remind myself, start getting increasingly strict with myself & go to bed. Alternative solution: Work long hours, but take an extra day off and don't feel guilty about it.
• I have really poor reception at home, which makes it challenging talking on the phone with people. Solution: Go outside! (I did this a lot today, it rained for some of the day. Oh well, at least I got some fresh air!)
• I find it really tricky to estimate my value & worth. I baulk at budgeting. I don't know how much I should be charging. Solution: Research! Reed's salary calculator provides an average based on location, as well as the UK average. Handy! So, £20/hour roughly. Seems fair. Reed has some useful information on calculating your minimum-expected-dream salaries. Oh, and my sweetie recommended this really informative forum discussion: Value Based Pricing Web Development and Marketing - Charging based on value
• Somewhat concerned about keeping good records for tax purposes. Solution: Reseach! HMRC: Tax returns if you're self-employed or in a partnership
• I find it hard to call people (except for close friends & sweeties). Solution: Stop trying to build up to it & just get on with it. It's not going to get any easier if I leave it for longer, also, the more calls I make, the easier it gets. It's really important to follow up with recruitment agent calls and generally keep in touch.

I registered as self-employed today...

It ridiculously easy, you just fill in your name, address & National Insurance number. You can do it online or over the phone with Helpline for the Newly Self-Employed on 0845 9 15 45 15. (If you leave it too late, they fine you; this happened to a friend of mine).

The HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) site has loads of information; I'm absorbing as much as I can now.

I wanted to apply for JobSeekers Allowance & Housing Benefit, but...

The online form is Windows only; I'm pretty annoyed about that. I'll either call them up or go and visit a Job Centre. I think it's probably a good idea for me to visit; it'll be character building.

I feel quite weird about applying for it; there's so much prejudice surrounding the claiming of benefits. I want to de-stigmatise it though, which is part of my reason for claiming & writing about it.

Taxes

I read a lot about tax.

What I'm taking away from it is: "Keep any information and documents that you may need to help you fill in your tax return or to make a claim." You have to keep some records for as long as five or six years! I'm keeping everything...! So far I've not spent anything on my self-employment, so I'll need to bear it in mind when I start. For example, I'm thinking about buying a laser printer, if I can't get one from FreeCycle, and at some point I want to buy more computers. I'll wait til I'm earning though... ;)

National Insurance (NI)

Oh, and being self-employed means you have to make NI contributions (except in some cases). For me, this means I need to pay £2.60 each week. (I think I'll be paying quarterly as I didn't fill in a Direct Debit form.

ETA: "Class 4 National Insurance Contributions: These are also payable by most selfemployed people up to the age of 65. They are calculated as a percentage of your annual business profit, but you only start paying Class 4 contributions when your profits reach a certain limit
(which is £5425 in 2008 / 9)." Plus, you can pay extra NI contributions in order to get more of a state pension.

Self-assessment... scary!

I registered my interest for "Starting up in Self Employment: Becoming self employed" and "Starting up in Self Employment: Self Assessment for the self employed"; so hopefully that will be helpful. They have quite a few different presentations / courses.

Aside from that, I don't think I have any other tax things to worry about until I'm earning loads of money (then I'll have to register for VAT). ETA: £67 000+ in turnover, I've got a while til then I reckon...!

Other... Agencies, writing, rules, etc

Applying for jobs, ringing agencies etc. Whilst I was employed, I found it hard to call agencies back because they always called during working hours. I find it difficult enough as it is! Anyway, I spoke to three different agencies today. So well done me. I need to keep going with this.

I wrote a review of Saf for teacakevegan.com. I've written and am writing for Entrepreneurial Kathleen here. Sometimes I find it quite hard to write. It's a lot easier to write when I know I should be ringing agencies instead though...!

I work well with structure and not very well without it. Consequently, I'm giving myself rules.

My rules for myself

• Get dressed well: I'd been thinking about just slouching around in whatever I felt like. However, having spoken to a couple of people and pondered on something someone once said about only wearing clothes that make them feel really good, I decided to dress well. Comfy, but stylish. Seems to be working well.
• Leave the house: A good friend advised me to leave the house every day and I'd heard something similar elsewhere too. I had some errands to run anyway, so I walked a bit and got them sorted. Got lots accomplished by getting out of the house. Must remember that a change of scenery is important!
• Working hours 10am-6pm: I can work outside of that if I want (not too much too often though), but I should be working pretty much all of that time aside from when it's time to eat or if I have fairly quick errands to run.
• Awake naturally 9am-ish: I've been starting to wake up shortly before my alarm goes off for a while now (ever since I caught up on sleep & continued going to bed at a decent time), but couldn't risk just switching it off. I've switched it off now; I trust myself.
• Bedtime 11pm: The corollary of that is I need to make sure I'm getting enough sleep with a consistent bedtime.

Challenges

• I don't have a proper desk chair; I'm already really achy and it's only my first day! Solution: I will need to acquire a proper chair asap.
• I don't have a desktop computer; more aches! Solution: I'm hoping to build one in the near-ish future; well, my sweetie is going to build it.
• I don't have a PC, just a Mac; some sites don't like this - see JobSeekers Allowance woes above. Solution: I have a PC laptop at my parents'; I just need to collect it.
• I'm finding it hard to switch off. I started working around 10am, it's now 10.15pm and I'm still going... Solution: I'd already decided that I will have a day off during the week each week. This week's is scheduled for tomorrow. Although I don't know if I'll go ahead with that - seems a shame to break my momentum, especially so soon...
• It's tricky to know what counts as work, what is admin and what is just 'ooh, I'd like to update my journal now'. Soution: Work is stuff I get paid for or am likely to get paid for. Admin is stuff that supports work. Play is everything else. It's not that hard K. :)

Wow, that was long! I did get a lot done today and there were lots of fiddly bits & pieces.

Right, time to sign off. See you soon!