Good day, so as the title says I'm having a personal financial dilemma and I need some advice from the faceless ether of the intenet.
I am a hairdresser in the UK, I'm self employed and make a bit over minium wage. My wife is expecting our first child, she works and makes a decent bit more than me but she has a history of depression and while she is better than great at the moment I can see some difficult days ahead for her. I am keen on being a stay at home Dad but really don't think I'll be able to make that happen.
So in short I'm going to have a real hard time supporting my family on the money I make. I have a few options and I really don't know what to do.
A) Get a new job in a different field.
Now on paper I have my hairdressing qualifications and the inherent customer service skills. Plus some random qualifications from college (not university) Maths with statistics, Critical Thinking, Psychology and Sociology. Every boss I've ever had said I should be doing something that's not hairdressing.
I can turn my hand to pretty much anything eg when I was a manager at another salon my boss asked me to pull some numbers out of the computer system for him. I did so and with the data and a quick search online I produced some growth predictions for the next year and identified quiet periods along with suggested sales and sale prices that could help pick up business in those time. My bosses jaw dropped as he only want the monthly figures.
I've sold ideas for greeting cards (which pays poorly), I've taught myself some programming (which I actually enjoyed but was becoming a job as opposed to a hobby), I've fixed pluming, electrics, cars, my sister thinks I should do something with design software after she has seen some of the things I've made in Photoshop, at one point I took some classes then worked as an amateur photographer on the side, I teach martial arts, my wife thinks I should pay video games for money (and she want joking lol).
This list could go on for a long time.
The problem is that I don't actually know what I want to do, its one of the reasons I became a hairdresser because I just fell into it.
B) Take my Self Employment to the next level.
One of the reasons I want to leave my job is because of the inherent instability versus the amount of money I make.
If I were to break out on my own then I could perform services in people's houses and potentially make a lot more money. I currently pay my Boss over £1000 a month to rent my chair in his salon. Now this has its benefits in terms of client attraction and coverage in case I go off sick. I'll have to get a car and a lot of equipment, go to the bank for a loan etc.
It does provide nice perks in terms of working hours and such but if I were to break a leg for example I'd be totally screwed.
It's like a high risk high reward option.
C) pretend it's not happening for as long as possible and see what happens
Yes this isn't an option but it's sooo tempting.
Now I really don't want to do long commutes into London or work super crazy hours (basically what my Dad did). Saying that I would commute into London and do crazy hours for good money if only for a few years so I could do investments and stuff from home after.
Thanks for reading and hopfully your enlightening comments.
Submitted January 20, 2017 at 09:04AM by Colonjack http://ift.tt/2iSyXnU
