Is self employment even worth it anymore?

[hoff135]

Just spent some time browsing jobs online, it really is quite surprising how wages have risen. Basic jobs like forklift driver in a warehouse paying close to 30k a year. Track maintenance operative with network rail 30k a year. Bit more skilled, vet nurses 30 to 35k a year. Most jobs with a bit more responsibility paying 40k and over.

Having recently lost a good paying part time job through no fault of my own, made me wonder if I'd be better in full time work, with the benefits of pension and paid holidays etc. And try keeping the sheep going on the side.

Casual work rates on farms have not moved at all here in 15 years, £10-£12 per hour as self employed. Contracting rates for machines driven into the ground, tell someone you are £50/hr for man and 150hp tractor and their face drops, yet plenty jobs paying £15/hr +, just for turning up plus all the perks. From where I'm sitting self employed, certainly doing the kind of work I do is no longer viable. Trouble is keeping 200-250 ewes and having a full time job is no easy task given their ability to completely ruin one's day.

 

[box]

At the moment it's not really worth it. For example, I know milk tanker drivers on wages who are walking away with more money in their pockets each year than some farm owners. No debt, no stress, no day to day commitment to land or livestock - just arrive, jump in the seat, turn the steering wheel, don't crash.

Being self employed certainly has its perks, but if you're just there to work, collect your pay cheque, put it in the bank and go home, you can't beat a good well paying job on wages.

Now if you can go get a job on wages and keep a company/side business going on the side, you'll get the best of both worlds.

I personally can't see the high wages lasting too much longer. A lot of businesses are just choosing to close down now because of the high overheads or are dropping staff on a last-on first-off basis. There's always someone out there that will do the job better, cheaper and faster. The pandemic created a high paid, low skilled workforce who think they're worth more than they really are, but on the other hand I know of long term staff who stayed where they were right through and their wages have hardly changed....it's just a matter of time before reality catches up.

 

[alomy75]

A good friend of mine’s son has recently left school/college etc and has recently started full time on an arable farm that he had been frequenting during holidays beforehand. Salary. 45k. I was shocked. Even he was quite embarrassed to tell his dad.

 

[Ladsdad]

I’m going through the same thought process myself. Small scale dairy farming and also machinery repair and maintenance and engineering. Lots of overheads but difficult to charge enough for my work to make it worthwhile, whereas I could take a job doing 5 days a week and earn £850 to £900 plus holidays and a pension. Really slow drawing money out of farmers for repair work just now with quite a few not wanting to pay until they want the next repair doing. That guaranteed wage looks very attractive.

 

[PSQ]

Got speaking to one of the four men manning a ‘road closure’ for grass cutting and litter picking.
Chap seemed happy with his lot putting up temporary road signs, well paid, and about to take a 3 week cruise. Made me realise I’m a mug for having several million invested in capital and working stupid hours for a similar wage but without the paid overtime or paid holidays.
Yes, there are perks to being self employed, but there are also evident perks to working for a council sub contractor laying out a few dozen signs and sitting in a van for the remainder of your 8 hours.

 

[box]

Traffic management is the biggest rort of the 21st century.

Sack the lot of them and make them go do a real job IMO.

(secretly jealous)

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Yes it certainly alters the equation of what all the perks must be worth.

Going through a few sums and by the time you factor in a rentfree solid 4 bedroom farmhouse electricity, internet, fuel, gas for cooking, firewood.... you'd actually be needing to earn a shitload to cover those costs with your post-tax money.
Main thing is to make full use of the perks - cut up that sheep/deer/pig for the freezer, grow that big garden etc

There goes a lot of ring-in-sick days and holidays before you even think about where to go... !

I am on a bloody good wicket here, and I know it, and I'm grateful for it.
But whatever's next, and it probably won't be managing a station for someone, will have to pay really well to even begin to be attractive.

Yes we gave up our farm and the income from it to shift up here, but we also gave up the associated cost of maintaining and repairing assets

 

[kiwi pom]

Just spent some time browsing jobs online, it really is quite surprising how wages have risen. Basic jobs like forklift driver in a warehouse paying close to 30k a year. Track maintenance operative with network rail 30k a year. Bit more skilled, vet nurses 30 to 35k a year. Most jobs with a bit more responsibility paying 40k and over.

Having recently lost a good paying part time job through no fault of my own, made me wonder if I'd be better in full time work, with the benefits of pension and paid holidays etc. And try keeping the sheep going on the side.

Casual work rates on farms have not moved at all here in 15 years, £10-£12 per hour as self employed. Contracting rates for machines driven into the ground, tell someone you are £50/hr for man and 150hp tractor and their face drops, yet plenty jobs paying £15/hr +, just for turning up plus all the perks. From where I'm sitting self employed, certainly doing the kind of work I do is no longer viable. Trouble is keeping 200-250 ewes and having a full time job is no easy task given their ability to completely ruin one's day.

It depends what work you're doing now, if you're mostly labour only, I don't think self-employed makes much sense.
Before going fulltime make sure you're willing to work when you're told not when you want. A warehouse job maybe nights, rail maintenance, nights and weekends etc. Also beware of the zero hours contracts where you are waiting for a call to start work or have an awkward roster forced on you.
Then there's the fact you have to do what you're told, jump through hoops, potentially have to deal with a manager who knows nothing but has the ability to fire you, all the H&S stuff etc.

If you're ok with that the security of a fulltime job may work better for you.

 

[kiwi pom]

At the moment it's not really worth it. For example, I know milk tanker drivers on wages who are walking away with more money in their pockets each year than some farm owners. No debt, no stress, no day to day commitment to land or livestock - just arrive, jump in the seat, turn the steering wheel, don't crash.

Being self employed certainly has its perks, but if you're just there to work, collect your pay cheque, put it in the bank and go home, you can't beat a good well paying job on wages.

Now if you can go get a job on wages and keep a company/side business going on the side, you'll get the best of both worlds.

I personally can't see the high wages lasting too much longer. A lot of businesses are just choosing to close down now because of the high overheads or are dropping staff on a last-on first-off basis. There's always someone out there that will do the job better, cheaper and faster. The pandemic created a high paid, low skilled workforce who think they're worth more than they really are, but on the other hand I know of long term staff who stayed where they were right through and their wages have hardly changed....it's just a matter of time before reality catches up.

Yep Fonterra drivers will be up around 100K before tax for a basic hours contract, maybe more with call backs and long-term service (5% after ten years)
Bit to it though, lots of rules, rotating shifts, I think they have driver facing cams now and depending on the site quite a bit of nonsense from management. It's easy work when you know all the procedures but shift work fecks you up and you're gone if you break the rules.
Ask yourself why they're short of drivers paying that much

Having said that I might go back when kids allow.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Yep Fonterra drivers will be up around 100K before tax for a basic hours contract, maybe more with call backs and long-term service (5% after ten years)
Bit to it though, lots of rules, rotating shifts, I think they have driver facing cams now and depending on the site quite a bit of nonsense from management. It's easy work when you know all the procedures but shift work fecks you up and you're gone if you break the rules.
Ask yourself why they're short of drivers paying that much

Having said that I might go back when kids allow.

Yep the money certainly isn't the 'be all and end all', is it ?

For a start you need a home within reasonable distance from base, and then you're in a bidding war with all the other people who work where you work for the properties that come up - at a guess I'd say that's pushed the median property price in a place like Mataura by 15 - 20% .

Have had a couple of mates try and recruit me with the "but the money's good" line, it's not what you make but what you keep

 

[kiwi pom]

Yep the money certainly isn't the 'be all and end all', is it ?

For a start you need a home within reasonable distance from base, and then you're in a bidding war with all the other people who work where you work for the properties that come up - at a guess I'd say that's pushed the median property price in a place like Mataura by 15 - 20% .

Have had a couple of mates try and recruit me with the "but the money's good" line, it's not what you make but what you keep

Money's good, gears good and the actual work is good but then the catches kick in.

You're right about the property thing, the sprawling metropolis of Temuka would be a cheaper place to live without the Clandeboye factory.
I suppose all towns near employment are like that.

Distance from work maybe an issue for the OP?

 

[FonterraFarmer]

Traffic management is the biggest rort of the 21st century.

Sack the lot of them and make them go do a real job IMO.

(secretly jealous)

You need to implement acceptable Canadian traffic management because anything beyond that is farcical rip off!!!

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Money's good, gears good and the actual work is good but then the catches kick in.

You're right about the property thing, the sprawling metropolis of Temuka would be a cheaper place to live without the Clandeboye factory.
I suppose all towns near employment are like that.

Distance from work maybe an issue for the OP?

Yes I can't speak for him but you often see the grass being greener elsewhere.

Maybe that's so but I often feel we don't realise what comes with "being a farmer", and I'm by no stretch a good "farmer".

I reckon my current pay package is worth around the $100k mark but after looking at other things, we'd need considerably more income than that to increase our wealth at a rate that matches farming. I only charge 100 hours/ month as our living costs are minimal.

But then I am very fortunate here in that we can trade cattle as a side-hustle, as above we came out of farm ownership and needed something to do with the proceeds of sale, buying cows at $1/kg is a great something to do come sale time

Being fed up with being cash-poor etc is just something you'd live with, or, hopefully design out of your business via budgeting and prioritising - loads of threads on here about that but few people say to "pay yourself first".

Failing to do so is about as useful as watching a runaway diesel on youtube and shouting at the screen !

So, they mope about in their leaky boots and budget raincoats, and stay fed-up.
I'd suggest that isn't a function of the job but one of choices made, choose to value yourself, your free time etc and you begin to feel your real worth. As a human being

 

[DrWazzock]

Government of any party doesn’t really want self employed as we aren’t so easily controlled. Hence IR35 and a general worsening of our financial environment. I’m not sure they even want private property as opposed to corporately or state owned property either.
There isn’t a private and / or self employed business I know of locally that isn’t either a hobby or paying themselves an income that would be deemed modern day slavery in the employed world.

 

[spin cycle]

Government of any party doesn’t really want self employed as we aren’t so easily controlled. Hence IR35 and a general worsening of our financial environment. I’m not sure they even want private property as opposed to corporately or state owned property either.
There isn’t a private and / or self employed business I know of locally that isn’t either a hobby or paying themselves an income that would be deemed modern day slavery in the employed world.

spot on doc

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Government of any party doesn’t really want self employed as we aren’t so easily controlled. Hence IR35 and a general worsening of our financial environment. I’m not sure they even want private property as opposed to corporately or state owned property either.
There isn’t a private and / or self employed business I know of locally that isn’t either a hobby or paying themselves an income that would be deemed modern day slavery in the employed world.

"Private property ownership is a tool of social injustice" according to our comrades who don't have much else to contribute .

You can feel the sad and steady sweep of it, catch a whiff of the stink of it, like a big woke fog coming up the river, what you can and can't say without being branded by some self-righteous mouthbreather in stupid shoes

 

[bluebell]

So what about the growing, booming black economy? People that live close to the edge of criminality? Loads, like those signed off "sick" from work, but do a bit of "cash in hand" work, then all those renting out sheds, beds, or what again cash in hand, Not on the councils radar, for paying council tax, business rates or tax? Brought home yesterday, a small so called farm? that abutts one of my hay fields, now owned by a "t22222er", has built, put up a few permanent mobile homes, that discharge their waste into my land? Council dosnt want to know, care, or get involved? Oh yes so , we are all treated the same as regards planning, construction and inforecement?

 

[Hilly]

Just spent some time browsing jobs online, it really is quite surprising how wages have risen. Basic jobs like forklift driver in a warehouse paying close to 30k a year. Track maintenance operative with network rail 30k a year. Bit more skilled, vet nurses 30 to 35k a year. Most jobs with a bit more responsibility paying 40k and over.

Having recently lost a good paying part time job through no fault of my own, made me wonder if I'd be better in full time work, with the benefits of pension and paid holidays etc. And try keeping the sheep going on the side.

Casual work rates on farms have not moved at all here in 15 years, £10-£12 per hour as self employed. Contracting rates for machines driven into the ground, tell someone you are £50/hr for man and 150hp tractor and their face drops, yet plenty jobs paying £15/hr +, just for turning up plus all the perks. From where I'm sitting self employed, certainly doing the kind of work I do is no longer viable. Trouble is keeping 200-250 ewes and having a full time job is no easy task given their ability to completely ruin one's day.

I ended up at the doctors yesterday , got whooping cough now and have coughed that much i have hurt my ear drums , turns out the doc lives near me and the concersation got round to farming , he said he has a good frw farming friends and cant belive how hard we all work for so little return , i said i agree we just get the pee taken out of us …. He agreed and said i think you would all do really well employed …

 

[Wooly]

Plenty of jobs pay better than farming, but are these people happy in their job ?

Most can't wait for the week-end, or their holidays and most are counting down the days until they can retire !

I think I will stick to where I am happy. Money isn't everything.

 

[Wooly]

Trouble is keeping 200-250 ewes and having a full time job is no easy task given their ability to completely ruin one's day.

You can always sell the sheep ................. but the reality is that you sound you are actually happier having the sheep and not a full time well paid job!