Good points, Vince.
I think now is ok for established w/c's but if I was made redundant from a wage job, had never been a w/c before I don't know if I would want the expense to start/risk going into self employed window cleaning.
You are so right, even though overheads are not high to start up with in this industry, when you are out of work, with a mortgage to afford, and all your other necesitties to manage, believe me you are at a low ebb and the last thing you need to do to yourself is create another situation, which will leave you with less income, any start up in any industry is a risk at any time.
The present economic climate hasn't just happened, it has been building now for a good 18 months.That's what happened in the 80's, it wasn't just the late 80's that were bad!
As they say "I was there" in the late 80's/ early 90's and it wasn't very nice I can tell you. I was made redundant in 1988, there were very few jobs around and I had to take a lower salary than i was used to to make sure i stayed in work. Along with this I got 2 part time jobs to make up my money. Oh and by the way if anyone says to you "i'll be ok cos I work in the food industry", then they are kidding themselves! I worked for J Sainsburys in their main distribution and production site. They got rid of 1200 over 2 years.
The point I am making is that there was enough going on in my life without having to worry about setting up self employed, getting customers etc etc.
Now today I find that the circumstances around are very similar, redundancies, fewer jobs, lower wages and I thank my lucky stars that my hubbie decided to start the business 7 years ago. We now make our own fortune in life. that's not to say we won't have it hard over the next 2 years (IMO it will probably take this long to get the economy right again if not longer!). but we have no intenetion of letting it go and no intention of hiding our heads in the sand. As I said before this is not doom and gloom it is reality.
