The start of my Self-Employment Journey!

As you may have gathered from the pretty self-explanatory title, I have left my employer and have begun to commit 100% of my time to earn a living as a freelancer doing multiple projects at a time. I wanted to start my journey through the, quite frankly, scary change of work style that was previously anonymous to me. I hope that some of you will learn from my mistakes and hopefully achieve some personal goals along the way!

It all started on March 16th, 2020, when the United Kingdom shut its doors and went into its first lockdown. Thousands of businesses closed for the coming months to reduce the spread of the virus. The hospitality sector has, in my opinion, been worst affected, and the theatres have not had the option to reopen since lockdown began. It is not financially sustainable to open such grand theatres with social distancing and cost more than it would provide. Luckily, I was placed on furlough.

For those of you who are not aware of the furlough system currently in place in the UK, it is a guaranteed 80% of your income paid to you by the government during the pandemic. It has been in progress since April 2020 and has been extended twice, once in Halloween 2020 and the second a couple of days ago, in March 2021. It will be in place until September 2021 and require the employer to pay 10% of the 80% in July and 20% in August and September. The catch is employers can decide if they wish to join the scheme and can leave at any moment. This was the case in September and October last year, where my theatre could not afford to pay its employers the additional funds and decided to take us off furlough.

That was the spark that made me get a job in a local supermarket in August 2020, as I knew it would be safe from closing due to its necessity to the public. I have now left this job yesterday after eight months of mind-numbing work, ungodly work hours, and complete lack of reward… the discounts were good. Around the time of being taken off furlough, I began making an income through the web. I started investing in dividend stocks, trading various books as I am an avid book collector, and of course, blogging on Vocal. There are so many other unique little ways I make an extra income here and there, and I hope to share all of them with you in the future. Still, my focus is so far focused on my online content, and beginning new ways on various other platforms like YouTube and YouNow, build up a presence and audience, and continue working daily to produce content that hopefully will gain a passive income.

Luckily, I am still receiving my furlough from my company until the end of April, and I hope that my theatre will continue to support its staff for as long as possible. I am kept for a little while, which gives me time to get things off the ground. There are many tedious tasks to do at first before the significant projects can begin, so I will be glued to my computer screen for hours on end in the next coming days. I need to start my new work schedule, and I have to be strict with myself and manage my time. I will hopefully pick this up on the job.

These first steps into the world of self-employment are frightening and very uncertain. Who knows how this is going to turn out? However, there is that spark of excitement and motivation. The spring sunshine is slowly breaking through the clouds as I begin my new journey. This is the best time for me to give it my best shot. Furlough being my support and lockdown the break I needed from work to begin.

Wish me luck!