From the workmanship and time that you put into the 'Sedan', I would be fairly happy to bring my car the 90 or so mile Journey as long as I am not waiting 6 weeks for it to be done... Besides I love Devon, be EPIC to pick the car up and go for a Devonshire B road blast!!!

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I Live for the 306

TEAM CHERRY PINK RALLYE
2008 BMW ///M 320d

It took me 4 days to DA the sedan back to primer, re skim the rear quarters, prime, bake, wet sand, base/clearcoat and bake again. If I didn't have to reshape the repairs on the rear quarters it would have been down to three days. Although I did spend a couple of days wet flatting and buffing afterwards. To be honest it didn't need flatting. It wasn't necessary.

This is something I'm going to have to start off slowly and in my spare time I think.

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It depends on the terms of their contract - some jobs don't like you having another as the idea is you're resting in your downtime, but with four weeks off I'd be surprised if almost all their staff don't have another job.

First up - consider what you can afford to live on. Obviously I don't know your own circumstances, but say you have rent/mortgage to pay on your house, usual bills and bits, food and a little bit for yourself; that can easily add up to about £1500 a month. That's £18k a year net, which is £23k gross. Divide that up, giving yourself say two weeks in the first year for rest/illness/holiday/unavoidables and the company needs to be earning around £500 a week just to cover your living expenses, that's not taking into account *any* business costs whatsoever.

Add on rent for premises, materials, decent equipment, liability insurance, paying an accountant, and you're looking at needing to turn over about a grand a week to break even. Now initially that sounds like a lot, but you're clearly a man with skills, and you should be careful not to under-sell yourself. You obviously don't want to skimp on quality, so concentrate on that; if a guy says "oh go on, just give it a quick once-over and I'll give you £500", don't be tempted to take it. Appreciate that actually you'll end up spending an entire fortnight on it and losing yourself money, simply don't do the job and protect your reputation as a quality workman. If you do one "quick job for a mate", remember he'll go and show it to all his mates and say you did it - if it's not up to the standard you want to be known for, it's a bad idea.

For example at the moment we're looking to get websites and marketing done, and whilst there are people who'll do it for £500, I'd be looking to pay up to ten times that - there are people out there who will pay good money for a good job, so don't be afraid of saying "you know what, I'm damn good at what I do, so people can pay me for it", and they will.

If someone wanted a full respray job for example, and you knew it'd take you two weeks well you know how much you need to turn over to make a profit (say £1500 a week from the maths above), two week job = £3k plus materials. Guy gets a really good job for what is still a very reasonable price, you make about a grand in a fortnight, you're making £25k a year.

I'd recommend doing all the calculations using your own figures, you'll then be able to tell if it's feasible or not. Also consider that if you're only looking at working on it half the time you're still paying rent on premises when you're away doing other things, your costs don't stop because you're elsewhere.

Oh, and remember that many more people say "yeah mate I've got some work for you" than actually end up booking the work

Best of luck.

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Membership expiring soon, get in contact on our new little forum project.

It sounds negative but you need to work out worst case sceanrio when it comes to take home pay. Some months when i was trading, i could just about pay myself £800, because the bills were very regular in coming. Other months were a lot better but its the ups and downs you need to cater for.

Owains very accurate in his posts above, Im sure he'll do well in his venture. Worst time i had was when i had 3 broken ribs. I could barely walk but i still had to be at work every day, doint paintwork corrections and machine polishing for customers who were booked in. Plain fact was i HAD no choice but to be there, could phone in sick or let someone else do it. Tough times but makes you appreciate how many one man business's face real struggles every day.

I admire anyone who has the balls to do it, takes some guts to go alone, and as an experience I dont regret my four years one bit, from a learning and character building point of view it was invaluable.

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1999 Astor Grey GTi-6 OEM+ (now gone...)
2004 Aegean Blue 206 GTi 180 (also gone...)
2006 Skoda Fabia vRS in Sprint Yellow

Wouldn't worry about it. Five years ago - hell even two years ago - I wouldn't have been ready, and if you're not ready it'll fail. You might do it now, you might be sixty and semi-retired, but once you've got the drive to do something you know could work, it'll be fantastic.

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Membership expiring soon, get in contact on our new little forum project.

Web hosting and virtualisation for businesses, and a bit of consultancy. Same stuff I was really doing at my last job, but doing it myself. I'm also a developer and I write the geeky stuff behind websites, so might do some of that too if the need arises.

There are so many companies out there who don't know what they're doing but have money, and I'm good at what I do.

Hopefully = profit

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Membership expiring soon, get in contact on our new little forum project.

... Or a big Yoda?

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I Live for the 306

TEAM CHERRY PINK RALLYE
2008 BMW ///M 320d

And the james blunt checked shirt dont forget

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1999 Astor Grey GTi-6 OEM+ (now gone...)
2004 Aegean Blue 206 GTi 180 (also gone...)
2006 Skoda Fabia vRS in Sprint Yellow

Thats pretty much your business plan isnt it owain?

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1999 Astor Grey GTi-6 OEM+ (now gone...)
2004 Aegean Blue 206 GTi 180 (also gone...)
2006 Skoda Fabia vRS in Sprint Yellow

Job role:

European Director of WIN overseeing Project X

Immediate start for a 'slightly' skilled person to work on poject WIN!
Job benefits include WIN! with minimal FAIL!
Salary to match previously FAILED employment.
Benefits include starting late, mid morning brewski's and convincing the wife we are working!
If you can perfect comments like .... 'hmmm this is a really dificult job and might take all year' ... your hired!

The only thing I would add to some very sage advice here is that the tax system in the UK is complex and you need a good accountant. Though it is not nearly as bad as the French tax system that is ludicrously complex.

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Cherry Rallye SOLD

Sad news mate but there's always something round the corner when you have a trade. I on the other hand have experience but no pieces of paper saying I can do the job.

I worked in Kuwait lastyear as a mechanic for the American Military, no mechanics papers but I had enough experience they required. When I returned home I couldn't find any work & sat on the dole for 3 months. Now I'm over in Holland because there's no work in Edinburgh & surrounding area.


Good luck with what's ahead

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I could have a sig but we are living in the stone age.

Scottish GTI-6 owner