Starting a business of your own can be expensive, we all know that! Even when you’re just working from home you’ve still got to have plenty of cash ready, and this is when you’re only working out of your own living room! But we’ve got a question to answer here: if you wanted to start a business that’s convenient and supports your family, could you actually afford to? Let’s go through the idea.
You’ll Need Equipment to Get Going
You’re going to need a desk and a computer, at the very least, but you’ll also need filing storage, data management software, printers, copy machines, and external hard drives, etc,etc., And these upfront costs can put a lot of small time business owners off. You can spend around £3000 just getting a home business going, but you also have to remember that working from home saves you a lot of money as well (at least £2000 in these early days!).
You May Need to Hire Employees
You’re not going to be able to manage everything! You’re going to need a helping hand every now and then, and unless you’ve gone into business with a partner, you’re going to need to hire for support. You’ll need an employee or two to smooth over business operations and ensure everything gets done on time, which means you’ll need to be able to pay salaries and introduce benefits to the workplace. The majority of companies can spend upwards of £15,000 on these packages alone, but while you’re a small employer, your own payroll costs will tally far less.
You May Need to Rent Space
Once the ball really starts to roll with your business idea, you might start to outgrow the home you set it up in. And when that time comes, you’re going to need to budget for the renting costs of finding an office and/or storage elsewhere. Not only that – you’re also going to need equipment like pallet racking and pallet jacks to move things around your working area, which in themselves can get quite pricey. Of course, this is a worry for the future, but you’ve got to build a business that can scale up to this, and that takes a lot of profit.
You’ll Have to Pay for Advertising
Advertising is what brings customers to your door. Indeed, very few businesses can actually survive without it – there aren’t enough people who know what you do otherwise! Just one small marketing campaign on social media can cost around £10 for a lowball 1000 impressions, but it’s ultimately up to you what you spend on marketing in the long run. Keeping things local can cause this section of your budget to be a lot cheaper, but you’ll need to do plenty of research into methods such as SEO to take off without a paid spot here and there.
Starting a business will cost you, yes. But will it cost as much as you think? Probably not!
