Why become your own boss? Or even why would you become your own boss? If you're employed by someone you turn up, do your work, go home, all without worrying about orders, taxes, VAT, health and safety legislation and so on and so on, and just take the paycheck at the end of the month. Despite that more and more people are going self employed - or in my case becoming a Microentrepeneur because we're in France. I think there are probably as many reasons for going self employed as there are people who so it, but there are some basic reasons...
- to be your own boss
- to make your own decisions
- to get all the income yourself
- to develop a new business idea
- because you think you'd be better at it than your boss
- to make your own fortune
I guess all of them are true to a degree for every one who gives self employment a go, successful or not, and equally everyone in that position would probably say that their reasons are theirs alone. Both true I'm sure.
For me all the above reasons are true, but none of them, if I'm brutally honest, are the main reason that I set out on this road originally. The initial reason was purely and simply so that I could say I was working in France and thus am entitled to healthcare here. It's actually nowhere near as simple as that as there are still lots of hoops to jump through, but as time goes on I have also realised that being my own boss, making my own decisions and being creative in my own right is actually well worth the hoop jumping and I would say, in all honesty, that the healthcare thing, although still very important, is on longer the main reason I'm self employed. I'm doing it for me!
When I started writing this blog it was mostly as a kind of diary, but times change, and so has my life, rather drastically it has to be said! The last post was a sad one, and things at work became increasingly difficult from about that time onwards. In the end I took early retirement from the NHS, after an episode of stress related illness, and we did a major review of where we were in life and what we saw for the future. It wasn't a quick process, but eventually we decided on some changes and that's why I now find myself sitting in an old French farmhouse, writing this post. We sold up and bought this house. It's amazing and we love it here, and there is a blog for anyone who wants to read it. It's called Our French Life and you can find it here...
Our French Life
So this blog is going to change focus as since we moved I have opened my own business and it's called KatieJane's Curiosities so it made sense to link this blog to the business. I'm not going to delete the previous posts, but from here on in it's going to be about setting up the business, the ups and the downs, and the joy of French bureaucracy! There might even be information about how Brexit will affect the business and us too I guess.
So here's to the future, and being at least a little bit successful!!
KJ
