Working for a pay cheque or building a business?

Imagine working for over 30 years as a self employed contractor and when its time to retire, someone comes along, buys your tools and that’s all you’ve got in value after all those years. It’s sad, but happens all the time. This kind of story was told to me by one of our members, as he was the one buying the tools. It struck a nerve with him and now I’m passing it along to you.

How about being 57 years old, self employed and laying tiles since your early twenties. Your knees are shot, your back and shoulders are mangled. This is someone I know that’s worked hard for many years and his body is now packing in. Over the last few years, he’s forced to take time off and basically become unemployed because he can only handle working for short periods.

Each time he’s off, it puts him deeper in to debt. There’s no way out and all his savings are gone. As his current health drags him down, he badly needs to keep earning that regular pay cheque.

Are you failing to plan and working for a pay cheque? A business should run without you and continue to make money. It’s also should be an asset to sell when needed. It should allow you to back off the manual work as you get older and do more supervising. You should be able once in a while to head south, lean on the bar and say “the beers on me” (at an all inclusive of course).

Sure there’s headaches running a business, with lots of added mouths to feed, including mouths like the WSIB,  and coping with the Ministry of Labour’s rules and more. But ease yourself in to that situation over time.  Remember, it’s a long distance race, not a sprint and you build it slow and steady.

So back to the question: are you working for a pay cheque or building a business? If it’s a business, have you a plan? Could you retire now or in 15 years time? That very question was put in front of me two years ago and the light bulb went off and I moved everything up a few notches. So can you.

Alec Caldwell, founder, CARAHS

CARAHS (Canadian Association of Renovators And Home Services) is a non profit organization delivering education, information and benefits to those self employed in the home renovation and home service industry. www.carahs.org Toll free 1-866-366-2930