Help my friends kid with his homework

[mom-from-missouri]

A homeschooling friend of mine, is teaching her kids business finance and expenses right now. This is a project her 14 year old son is working on. He is concentrating his project on people who run their own small businesses, or people who are self employeed. (Her theory is he picked this because he doesn't want to ever work for anyone else and is starting his research early).

So, from those of you who are 'self employeed', can you answer the following questions.

#1 What is your occupation?
#2 Does it empoyee people other than yourself?
#3 Do you run it out of your home? Do you have a seperate location for it?
#4 Do you have or offer medical insurance thru your self employment?
#5 Did you start your business yourself, or did you hire someone to help?
#6 If you had to do it over again, what would you do differently?

[boefixepa]

I personally am not, but work for a small business and will answer as if I were my original boss. The one who started the company.


So, from those of you who are 'self employeed', can you answer the following questions.

#1 What is your occupation?

Construction - Drywall Subcontractor


#2 Does it empoyee people other than yourself?

In the beginning no, but quickly I had to hire, by way of 1099's, others to help with the work. After a little while, I did have to start a pay-roll and all the fun that goes along with that. My wife did the book work/ offic work for the first 5 years. Then I had to start hiring office staff, followed by supervisors to run the crews.


#3 Do you run it out of your home? Do you have a seperate location for it?

For the first 10 years I ran it out of my home. Then it just become to large and I was forced to get an office. In the 25 years of the business, we have been first in my home, and then 3 different office locations.

#4 Do you have or offer medical insurance thru your self employment?

Yes, I did this because I wanted better rates for my own family. I only offer it to 'Salary' employess so those who qualify to get it are just the supervisors. I pay 50% of the primium and they pay the other 50%.

#5 Did you start your business yourself, or did you hire someone to help?

I started small and hired people as I needed them to manage different areas. The quality of the people you hire make a HUGE difference as to how successful you are. You get to the point where you can not do everything.

#6 If you had to do it over again, what would you do differently?

This is a hard one. There are certainly different jobs that I would pass on, but at the time I could not see that they were gonig to turn out bad. The stress of all of the money and pressure eventually took it's tool on my health and so I sold the business to one of my manager after 20+ years. I am in my late 40's at that point in time. That also turned out not to be the best choice. I lost a friendship over it and sometimes think I should have sold it to a stranger, but I wanted to make sure 'my people' were taken care of.

There were many times in the beginning where we were living off my wife's income as a nurse. Though I was working like a dog, the company was not making any money. There were also times when I was making money hand over fist, but having to pay off debt and then rat holing it for when times where lean. It has NEVER been a steady source of income. There was one point where after a good run I felt I could take a risk on an out of state job. It went horrible! I lost everything I had spent 15 years creating. I sold all my income properties, re-mortgage my home, and my mother-in-laws home and worked out payment plans with debtors. It took me five HARD years to recover from that ONE loss! After that was payed back and I was once again ahead, I sold the company. I am now what most people would call semi-retired. As long as I am wise with my investments I will be fine. Owning your own business has it's pros and cons like anything else. Just make sure you and YOUR SPOUSE can live with the risks.

[jodi]

Originally Posted by mom-from-missouri

#1 What is your occupation?
#2 Does it empoyee people other than yourself?
#3 Do you run it out of your home? Do you have a seperate location for it?
#4 Do you have or offer medical insurance thru your self employment?
#5 Did you start your business yourself, or did you hire someone to help?
#6 If you had to do it over again, what would you do differently?

1. I an technically self-employed as a real estate salesperson, although I do have to work under a broker as an "independent contractor".

2. Our office employs many people, but I work by myself. So I guess the answer is no.

3. We have an office that I visit once or twice a month, but I primarily work out of home with an Internet connection, cell phone, and fax machine.

4. No. As an independent contractor, I get no benefits.

5. I began by working under a licensed broker and learned a lot from her, as well as through taking licensing classes and other trainings. I have only worked by myself though.

6. I would probably invest more time and money in advertising, if I wanted to spend more time in the field and make better money. Right now, I sell on the side and make $5-7k per year extra on top of my half-time job. With two small kids, I don't want to put much more time into it. When they are bigger, I will probably have to make that investment to keep business coming my way.

[veronak]

My brother had his own business before he moved to GA and I asked him, so here is what he had to say

What is your occupation? Mason, construction
#2 Does it empoyee people other than yourself? Yes
#3 Do you run it out of your home? Yes ; Do you have a seperate location for it? No
#4 Do you have or offer medical insurance thru your self employment? No
#5 Did you start your business yourself, or did you hire someone to help? Myself and Best Friend
#6 If you had to do it over again, what would you do differently? start earlier
He did not elaborate on the last question the baby started to cry, good luck

[pretty cheap jewelry]

Originally Posted by mom-from-missouri

#1 What is your occupation?
#2 Does it empoyee people other than yourself?
#3 Do you run it out of your home? Do you have a seperate location for it?
#4 Do you have or offer medical insurance thru your self employment?
#5 Did you start your business yourself, or did you hire someone to help?
#6 If you had to do it over again, what would you do differently?

Answers from my small home business which is not my primary source of income:

1. Pretty Cheap Jewelry is a handcrafting jewelry and gift business.
2. I am the sole employee.
3. It has a dedicated small corner to operate from in my home.
4. There is no insurance involved.
5. I started it myself.
6. Pretty Cheap quickly paid for itself with respect to material costs. The items are priced too low however and don't include my time and design talent. A point which I might change if I started over.

[Fern]

Originally Posted by mom-from-missouri

A
So, from those of you who are 'self employeed', can you answer the following questions.

#1 What is your occupation?
#2 Does it empoyee people other than yourself?
#3 Do you run it out of your home? Do you have a seperate location for it?
#4 Do you have or offer medical insurance thru your self employment?
#5 Did you start your business yourself, or did you hire someone to help?
#6 If you had to do it over again, what would you do differently?

1. In addition to my full time job, i have a home-based business working as a freelance real estate writer.
2. No, it's just me, wouldn't have time to maintain it otherwise, and i know it would probably never grow big enough that i could quit my day job.
3. Yes, out of my home. All i need is my brain and my computer. I just use my office that i also use for personal affairs, so i DONT claim big deductions on the tax form for home office.
4. No, i have medical insurance thru my day job.
5. No, i started it myself, thanks to a lot of connections in the real estate field in my area, as i formerly worked full time at one real estate company. I also took a 12 week entrepreneurial course which proved invaluable.
6. I'm happy with the way things are working out. I have always earned a living as a writer so it comes naturally and easily to me. I treat it as supplemental income that ranges from abotu $5 to $10K a year. I can do it on my own time, at my own convenience. It's pretty painless, but again, i wouldn't give up my day job either.

[Ima saver]

my husband is self emplyed as a builder
He has one part time employee and uses subs. He does most of the work himself.
He works out of his house. His tools are kept in a seperate garage and I do the book work in the kitchen.
No medical insurance for anyone
He started it himself when we moved here. He built our house (his first) and got asked to build another house. He has never been without a house to build.
He always built custom homes for someone else, plus he worked very cheap and did not get a percentage on materials. About 4 years ago, he started build spec houses to sell and discovered that nothing have to beg for the money (draws) was much less stressful. He wishes he had built specs earlier on.