Working Remotely

[Stingo]

Is anyone working remotely from their boat eg you have a decent connection to the web and are able to put in a few hours a day, say about four or five, and get paid enough to survive? If so, where would you start looking for such work?
TIA

 

[PlanB]

What sort of work?

 

[Stingo]

IT support would be ideal

 

[ryanroberts]

I currently work 99% remotely from a cruising narrowboat as a software engineer and am going to experiment with maximising the remote a little this summer sailing round (probably) Devon/Cornwall in the new boat.

There is quite a lot of almost remote work in software but less that might not require you to get on a plane at short notice. In development 3/2 office/home deals are increasingly common to support people with families etc but that's not very much use to me if I'm up a creek in the middle of nowhere. Part time or freelance remote work is very hard to find indeed unless you want to compete against Indian salaries. Designers have some advantages here as design is a little harder to outsource compared to general IT work or even most software development.

I have a friend who works in software remotely full time from his mountain lair in Bulgaria for UK companies. He does have to come back to the UK every year or so to pick up new contracts, the combination of IR35 and Brexit is going to make that very difficult soon.

 

[V1701]

Problogger, Upwork & Textbroker might be worth a look. There are some Youtubers who do it but I think more web design, managing clients' social media side. Have to really weigh up the pros & cons, i.e. might be better to really cane it for 6 months (through the winter?) and follow up with 6 months of absolute freedom?

 

[ryanroberts]

i.e. might be better to really cane it for 6 months (through the winter?) and follow up with 6 months of absolute freedom?

This is what just got stuffed with IR35 in IT, at least if you are also after a decent rate. Quite a lot of people worked irregularly so they could look after their kids / climb mountains / generally not have to work with computers.

 

[RupertW]

This is what just got stuffed with IR35 in IT, at least if you are also after a decent rate. Quite a lot of people worked irregularly so they could look after their kids / climb mountains / generally not have to work with computers.

It’s not a impossible as you think - two years on from the public sector making everything inside IR35 I’m now earning just 60 percent gross rate compared to before which become just 37 percent of what I got before after employers NI and my own taxes, and out of that I’ve got no tax relief on my travel or accommodation for living away from home. Disaster financially compared to before but I still expect to take 3-6 months off a year and just live a lot more frugally. It was a great ride but 25 years into contracting if I hadn’t used the silly money wisely as well as living the high life it would have been a bit of a waste.

Around the Med my wife does a lot of paid work on the boat even at sea close to coasts and just flies back from whatever port every now and again for meetings.

 

[ryanroberts]

I hadn’t used the silly money wisely as well as living the high life

In my case. Oops, crashed a startup.

 

[Clancy Moped]

Many moons ago we used to do mystery shopping for Coca-Cola, it paid for the morring nothing more.

 

[papaver]

Works for me as a freelance scientist. Most of my work is crunching numbers and writing papers, which can be done perfectly well on-board, away from the distractions of shore life. I occasionally need to go to meetings or fieldwork, but these are known well in advance and I can plan my boating accordingly. Spent last summer trying it out, worked well, will move to full-time on-board once Ireland warms up a bit ...