What difference has self-employment made to us so far?

My husband has been self-employed for the last six months, and I have since the beginning of the year.  It has made a difference to us in various ways, both practically and psychologically:

• There is no longer such a thing as pay day, so we have to make sure we end the month with money to pay our expenses for the following month.   We get paid regularly, but not on a set date each month. 
• We are more motivated to build up our savings, in an attempt to make good use of a high earning month, and also because this helps us to feel more secure.
• We have to actively invoice in order to be paid, which still feels odd to me, and to keep track of money coming in from different sources and chase it up if it does not arrive.
• We need to make sure we save a proportion of everything that comes in, to pay tax, rather than this being deducted automatically.
  
• We have to keep track of expenses which may be tax-deductible.
  
• We need to actively make pension contributions, rather than have them deducted from pay automatically.
  
• We have both started to think more in terms of the value of our time; if we want to take time off we have to pay for that by working at another time. We no longer have paid holiday or sick pay.
  
• There is scope for a greater variety of types of work; I'm doing contract work in my industry, but also setting up another part-time business, and trying to write as well as do voluntary work. We both feel more entrepreneurial.
  
• One of us sometimes works at weekends, but we often have a day off together in the week instead; not every day involves an early start.
  
• There is less of a routine; it is possible to forget what day it is.  On the other hand, the dreaded 'Sunday night feeling'  before the start of a traditional week's work is no longer a problem.
  
• If work becomes a bit quiet for a week or two, it can become disconcerting, although having the extra free time is nice. (My husband wrote a detective story during a slightly quiet phase at the beginning of the year.)
  

 

Could I manage without my car?

Thanks to some idiotic behaviour by my insurance company – for the sake of my blood pressure I will not go into the details - I do not have a car at the moment.  Anyway, I’ve decided to use the opportunity to see how I get on without a car for a little while.  We live in a fairly rural area, and I had, until recently, never seriously considered whether we might be able to get by on one car long term.

My husband needs his car for work – he has to make visits to patients during the day – so my dropping him off and collecting him in the evening won’t work.  I work from home several days’ a week.  At least once a week, I get the train to London from the station about 10 minutes’ drive, and 4 miles, from where I live.  On at least one other day, I need to get to a nearby town in the morning. 

Until yesterday, I thought that there was perhaps one bus a day in each direction to my nearest town. However,  I have discovered that there are three buses a day each way, and they go first to my nearest small town – where the station, dentist, supermarket, public library etc are – and then on to the much bigger town. The bus even stops a few minutes’ walk from where my sister lives! 

So I am considering reasonably seriously whether we could sell my car, and get by pretty well on one car.  

My thoughts so far are as follows:

• On days that I go to London,  J. already usually drops me off at the station and collects me in the evening.  (This saves us about £6 a day in parking costs, and is reasonably convenient for him.) So not much change would be needed there, except that he would always need to collect me, or I would have to take a taxi home if he were not available.
• On days that I go to other places to work, I would need to plan my journey ahead, and either a) get J. to drop me at the station or bus station b) take a taxi part or all of the way, c) get the bus into my local town and take a bus or train from there, or d) for major expeditions, maybe hire a car for a day.
• If I were working at home and either needed or wanted to make an expedition into town, I would need to time my outing to catch the bus either both ways, or bus one way and taxi back.
• We might occasionally have to make use of online supermarket shopping, something we have not really done so far. 
• For holidays, evening or weekend outings, we already generally use J's car as it is more comfortable than mine anyway, so no change would be needed there.
• The main difficulty I see is in my going on a spontaneous outing during the day, or in getting to certain work locations if they are far from a station or bus, but perhaps I just need to become used to taking the bus, or using taxis.    
  

It is very nice having my own transportation, but I am not sure whether that comfort and convenience is worth the nearly £3000 a year I estimate that my car is costing me.  (I do not have a car loan, but that figure takes account of car tax, insurance, servicing costs, petrol, and an estimate for depreciation.) 

I wonder if it is mad of me to think that I can manage without a vehicle, living where I do, or whether this could actually work?  Further consideration is definitely needed, but advice or comments from others would be welcome....