I, like many self employed people have always been the master of my own destiny and was wondering how I was going to survive.No ones ever handed me anything before.

Having heard of the small business grant, I thought 'I wont get that' then the 80% of the last three years self employed profits 'I wont get that' either.
Well, with no effort, I was contacted by my local council and with minimal form filling was given the 10k small business grant - very grateful . A few days later I decided to stop tidying the workshop and give something back.

I am now offering NHS and key workers FREE LABOUR on their essential car repairs. No catch or inflated parts prices, just my normal parts mark up. I've never been so busy (12hr days)and have so far carried out about £2000 of FREE work in the last 2 weeks. Probably made £150 per week on the parts.

My thoughts are that
1/ Its nice to give back
2/ Get some good will and meet some other kind people
3/ Get some positive feedback and some good reviews
4/ Might get some proper paying customers when all this is over, already had some people saying they will use me in the future.
5/ If I get the 80% self employed profits (which looks promising) then, coupled with the £150 parts profit, I might just survive financially!

The only downsides are the pisstakers who want me to fit their own clutches for free with warranty, the scrappy old wrecks who need muliple repairs with minimal parts and massive amounts of labour and the people pretending the car is theirs when its actually their brothers.

I hope someone up there sees this as payback for some of the not so good things I have done in my life!

Stay safe

Colin.