Spare a thought for the suffering self-employed

56% of self-employed workers strike out on their own in search of a better work-life balance, while 45 per cent want to dictate their working hours better, reveals a new survey by the online accounting firm, Crunch, which found that reality failed miserably to meet expectations for many of them.

Headline findings of the survey of 1,000 self-employed workers commissioned by Crunch revealed that

1 in 7 respondents worked 14 hours more per week as self-employed than they had as employees, adding up to an extra month every year
39% started their working day before 8.00 am
43% were still working after 10.00 pm, with women more likely than men work late
6% even grabbed an extra hour between 4 and 5 am

Even when they aren’t working, 66% of respondents found it difficult to switch off. 72% of them admitted that financial concerns kept them awake at night, while for 15% it was business deadlines that had them tossing and turning. 0ne in 6 resorted to checking emails between 3.00 am and 7.00 am.

For 31% of respondents, January is the most stressful time of all, with the looming 31 January self assessment deadline the major cause of a new self-employed affliction dubbed ‘Jan-xiety’.

Around 32% of respondents though that there isn’t enough support for the self-employed. Crunch’s novel solution was to launch a telephone helpline between 4.00 am and 8.30 am.

At CPA, we prefer to offer our self-employed clients the expert, dedicated credit management and debt recovery services that enable them to sleep easy at nights and arrive at work in the morning at a reasonable time refreshed and ready for another day’s trading.