Is anyone on the board self-employed or operating a small business in their spare time? If so, what do you do and how did you handle start-up costs? Did you use plastic or cash? Did you have a start-up budget? If so, how much and what did it go toward? Here's my estimate just on the basics for the home-office entrepreneur (before any type of supply or inventory purchases): $20 - 2nd Phone Line $30 - High Speed Internet $15 - Copy Paper $100 - Business License $0 - Tax ID $40 - PO Box $30 - Web Site $0 - Email Address $40 - Toll Free # $600 - Computer $5 - Envelopes $20 - Postage $15 - Voicemail $125 - Advertising $100 - Software Initial Start Up Costs: $1140 CardKid
GET A MILEAGE CARD... AA UNITED DELTA many others... You could use the CREDIT CARD for MOST of those bills and some are ALWAYS DOUBLE MILES ON DELTA... MY ANSWER---->WHAT HAS CASH EVER DONE FOR YOU??? You can always PAY IN FULL (ON-LINE) even before the bill comes in the mail!!!
What kind of biz is this? Are the costs initial or for the fist month? First 6mos? 12mos? Off the bat, you should have a minimum of 3mos reserves; 6mos is better. Write a business plan, and put together cost projections so you can follow and know your goals. However, I can give a few ideas and pose a few questions as well. I have been this route 12 times with businesses I have started and either sold or continue to run along side my main forte. The following was for the my most current business. CardKid Quote-- **Did you use plastic or cash? CASH-my own, but floated with credit cards here and there, but always paid them off within 2-3 mos. **Did you have a start-up budget? YES **If so, how much and what did it go toward? $2500--went towards opening expenses and cost of sales **Here's my estimate just on the basics for the home-office entrepreneur (before any type of supply or inventory purchases): $20 - 2nd Phone Line -Do you need this? Can u use your home line or exsisting cel phn? If you plan on getting a lot of calls in, you may be able to justify the extra line. If not, get a VM bank at American Voice Mail or some local company. You can get a combo VM/Fax bank for about $13/mo. Drawback is that you need to call into it to get messages and faxes. $30 - High Speed Internet --will u be on your phone a lot or just want to lv the phone line free for customers? Or will u be using the WWW alot for the new biz? $15 - Copy Paper--that's a lot of copies--or is that for you pc printer? $100 - Business License --for what? is this a special license for a specialized busness? if not, u can file a proprietorship registration (also called a Trade Name Registration in some states) $0 - Tax ID--won't need if u set up biz as a proprietorship--cheapest way to set it up starting out. Your tax ID is your SSN. Corp and LLC etc cost too much for start-ups, and taxed heavier. $40 - PO Box--can u use your home address? $30 - Web Site--average I guess. I was fortunate to be able to do this myself for a lot less. $0 - Email Address -- $40 - Toll Free #--for what purpose?? can u ease into this later? $600 - Computer--need another or a seperate one? that seems a bit cheap for a computer actually! $5 - Envelopes-- $20 - Postage-- $15 - Voicemail --see "2nd phone line above". $125 - Advertising--may cost you more than this! $100 - Software--specialized software or basic?
I forgot to mention: $100 - Business License --for what? is this a special license for a specialized busness? if not, u can file a proprietorship registration (also called a Trade Name Registration in some states) ---Fee should be $5-25 and depending on the state will be good for 3-15 yrs; u can incorporate later when u r making money as corporations are taxed heavier. They are also more costly to set-up too, like $300 or so to register. They are good though for liability sake though, since the corporation will be it's own entity with it's own tax ID #; $0 - Tax ID--won't need if u set up biz as a proprietorship--cheapest way to set it up starting out. Your tax ID is your SSN. Corp and LLC etc cost too much for start-ups, and taxed heavier. ---Unless you plan to employ people, you do not need any other Tax ID #'s beside your SSN for a proprietorship; $125 - Advertising--may cost you more than this! Actually, publicity is almost always free and works better than paid advertising. Write a press release. Word of mouth is best, and free as well. When you are in biz, FREE is the best price! Put any and all of your profits back into your biz to help it grow.
Thanks for your reply. My wife wants to jump into the debt consolidation and settlement business. She's been in contact with a company that's a non-profit that will allow her to do all the leg work, draft the first payment and turn the account over to them. The second phone line is to have a line free for customers. The P.O. Box is for having docs mailed if they cannot be faxed. The advertising budget is for a company that will fax blast and email blast. The computer is really cheap because I got a great deal from Dell. The license is needed because this industry is regulated in AZ. The tax ID number is to establish a business account seperate from her personal accounts. The toll free number is because customers out of the general locale will not make long distance calls since there's other companies that make it easier to reach them. The voicemail is to catch calls that roll from the toll free number. The estimated cost of copy paper is for doing worksheets and printing docs. The customer will print most of the docs since she will email .pdf files to them after she works up an estimate of the savings and other services. We have high speed internet. But, since she will be using the service, I've decided to give her the bill (LOL). When the Dell system is delivered, I plan on linking my notebook docking station and the Dell together to share the high speed service. CardKid
In this case, George, I have to admit that plastic would be the payment of choice because of the number of purchases that would have to be made. A good alternative, however, would be to use a debit card since the funds would come out of the account right away and there's no future billing statement to worry about. CardKid
If you want to use CASH GO AHEAD...I will use credit and get the BENEFIT... CASH REWARD---ZERO CREDIT CARD REWARD---FREE FLIGHTS
Not only the rewards, but you want to build credit in the business name. Try to get a business card and use it for your business expenses. If you can't or don't want to get a business card, take one card and use it just for business. Having done this myself, I will tell you that one of the great things about using a card is the record keeping. Come tax time, you'll like having that statement. Most business cards track your purchases and send you a nice statement with everything itemized at the end of the year. I found that if you buy EVERYTHING on the card, all you have to track outside the card would be your mileage, parking, tolls. Get a day planner and keep track of all that in your day planner. That is acceptable for the mileage for the IRS. Remember that everything you buy for the business is tax deductible. But the record keeping can be onerous. You can still pay the card off every month and get the records. You'll also be establishing credit in case you want to grow your business, you'll have the credit line available.
