It’s that time in the month where you’ve got a great excuse to put your feet up and grab a coffee…the Business Mums Blog Carnival is live!
Head over to Become a Mumpreneur to read posts from everything from sewing and breakfast to burnout and making money from blogging!
Big thanks to Antonia, Erica, Carol and Kizzy (I hope I’ve remembered everyone and got that right!) for hosting this month.
This is the third in the incredibly popular series of posts by Frances Weir of bigbooklittlebookcardboardbox.co.uk. Frances and I are on a mission to help self-employed mums get the money they should be entitled to. It’s very easy to miss out on maternity allowance because you have a Small Earnings Exemption certificate – many mums aren’t aware of this until it’s too late. (For all the details see: Self-employed? Protect your right to maternity allowance). Over to Frances…
If you are self-employed and have followed the advice in Self-employed? Protect your right to maternity allowance, you will have opted to pay Class 2 contributions, rather than applying for a Small Earnings Exception Certificate (in order to ensure that in the event you have a baby, you get the maximum rate of maternity allowance).
If you
1) have submitted your 2010-2011 tax return
2) earned less than £5075 and
3) you are not pregnant (so do not need to rely on the contributions to qualify for the enhanced maternity allowance)
you can now reclaim the Class 2 contributions you made. Simply fill in the form here stating you are claiming because your earnings for 2010-2011 have fallen below the contributions threshold and enclose your profit-loss account. Within a couple of months you should get a cheque from HMRC refunding the Class 2 contributions you have paid – approx. £125 for a full year.
You will continue to pay Class 2 contributions for the current year (unless you now choose to apply for a Small Earnings Exception Certificate).
Class 2 contributions entitle you to a number of benefits. Before reclaiming, please satisfy yourself (taking independent financial advice if needed) that you do not wish to maintain your eligibility for the other benefits provided by the contributions.
Frances Weir is mum to a toddler and runs bigbooklittlebookcardboardbox selling her portable children’s bookshelf to parents, childminders and independent book agents.
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Are you wondering…
Do these sound familiar to you? Do you find yourself wondering if you could turn an idea you have into a business? Continue reading “Are you wondering if you could start a business?”
(This is the eighth article in my Online business basics series. You can find links to the other posts in the series on this page: Online business basics)
Blogging is great for online marketing – the steady stream of fresh content keeps both your readers and the search engines happy! The trouble is that sooner or later you’re going to have to ask yourself: “What on earth am I going to write about?” We all have trouble coming up with ideas every now and then. Don’t worry though – If you follow these quick tips, you’ll be on your way to producing great content in no time at all. Continue reading “Quick blog post ideas: Online business basics”
I’ll admit it, I’ve been suffering from blogger’s block lately.
When I first started Business Plus Baby there were hardly any books or resources for mums wanting to start businesses. In fact that was the reason WHY I started BPB.
Now, just over two years on, there are tons of resources for parents in business including books, networking groups and conferences. I’m still passionate about helping parents grow businesses so they can have the freedom to both work and spend time with their families, but did I still have anything useful to say? It seemed that every week I found another blog for mumpreneurs. Are we all just pumping out the same old information? Where should I go from here? Continue reading “Simplicity and starting from where you are now”
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