If you find yourself unemployed perhaps because you have been made redundant from your job or you have just finished a training course you may wonder whether going self-employed is the right route to take. The skills and knowledge that you have can be used to develop a business of your own and as good tradespeople are difficult to find presently this could be an excellent opportunity to tap into this demand.
There are advantages and disadvantages of being self-employed, but most people report that the biggest headache is cash flow. There will usually be a delay between carrying out a job and getting paid for it which can cause an issue if materials for the job have had to be bought. There are several ways of overcoming this problem, the first being to ask the customer for some of the money up front. This is common practice, and most customers are happy to do this. The second option is to use a business credit card when buying the materials so that you have a period of time to pay for them. By the time you need to pay the balance the customer will probably have paid for your services, and you can clear the balance without incurring any fees.