What shall I do?

As you may remember if you read this blog regularly, I have been investigating various possibilities for an alternative source of income.

I am very tempted to try and use the opportunity we have at the moment to do something completely different. That might mean some sort of consultancy using our public sector experience, it might mean a completely different job or it might mean setting up a little business to do something, probably on line.

When you type in ‘setting up an online business’ to Google it’s quite staggering how many returns you get. Many of them are, if course, aiming to sell you something and a very large number are web design companies because, not surprisingly, to sell online you need a smart, well laid out and easy to use web site. Weeding out the good stuff from the rubbish takes quite some time.

It’s also quite amazing that when you type in say ‘wholesale suppliers of…’ you get thousands of companies aiming to sell stuff to you in bulk for you to sell on to the public as a retailer. No wonder life is getting expensive for a consumer, with all these middle men taking a mark up. I’ve read quite a few articles recently of people who have resorted to getting their bulk supplies from as far afield as China and Russia because UK suppliers are simply too expensive, even taking into account the increased cost of bulk postage from abroad.

I’ve also considered some sort of housekeeping service. When I say ‘housekeeping’ I don’t mean just cleaning but a whole range of domestic services including gardening, maintenance, dog walking, pet sitting, waiting in for the gas man to service the boiler, babysitting, cooking for special occasions and, of course, cleaning. I live in the middle of one of the wealthiest areas of the UK and even in the depths of the recession, there is money to spare. You only have to look around the coffee shops and designer dress shops in Oxted and Reigate to know that the proportion of yummy mummies with good levels of disposable income remains high.

The trouble is, I can’t decide what to do. There are also businesses for sale in Crete which, although not something I had really considered before, are another option. But I do have to ask myself whether I want to spend my time in Crete slaving away when really my aspiration is to move there and relax after a lifetime of slaving away in England. I have a friend who has been brave enough to make the change and moved to the other side of the planet but still has to work; I don’t know if I want to do that. If I’m going to be in the sun, I’d rather not be beholden to anyone or anything (least of all the bank!). I’ve worked for 36 years pretty much without a break and I’d like to stop now.

I am also very conscious that the window of opportunity is very small, because to start up most businesses you need capital and the tiny amount we have due to circumstances will soon erode through the general cost of living. So I can’t prevaricate about this for months, we have to discuss it and come to some sort of decision.

Of course if The Hubby gets another job fairly quickly, the opportunities are endless. Instead of waiting to be made redundant myself, perhaps I could resign and use our capital to set up something on my own. Or we could use it to pay the debts, sell the house anyway and I could stop work – what bliss that would be!

We have a couple of holidays this year still to go and we’re going to use that time to talk all this through. It’s highly likely that by this time next year one way or another, life will be very different! Argh !!!