I quit my low-paying job to walk dogs for a living, people assume I earn nothing but I’m better off than everyone else
A WOMAN has told how she left her £7.85-an-hour job as a barista to walk dogs - and now makes more than £40k-a-year.
Grace Buttery, 28, from Norwich, quit making coffee in 2019 after growing tired of working 37-hour weeks for little pay.
She decided to launch a dog walking business - and now makes considerably more money for less work.
Grace walks dogs for six hours a day - and says she makes an impressive £42k-a-year.
That leaves her with roughly £32k after tax and expenses - much more than she made making coffee.
"Most companies pay for premises, pay gas, electricity and a thousand other things, my biggest expense is petrol," savvy Grace said.
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She quit her coffee job in January 2019 - with only three or four clients as a dog walker.
But she was walking 36 dogs a few months later and, only six months in, she made twice as much as before working six hours a day, making her a part-time worker.
"There was no progression, I knew I didn't want it long-term. I was a bit lost and I didn't know what I was going to do," she explained.
"A colleague said that his sister had become a dog walker and that I should try it out.
"I was living at home and I knew that if I didn't try it then, I never would."
Grace admits dog walking has its challenges - like any job. But she loves it.
"I love animals, I've always loved dogs especially," she said.
"You go out in all weather, yesterday [during Storm Isha] I almost flew away and today it's just miserable.
"I can't tell you how many times a dog has been sick or left pee and poo all over my van. That's not too glamorous."
Grace now wants to encourage other young people to launch their own businesses and thinks there should be more education around running a company.
"I was rubbish academically, I never did well at school, I would never have been able to go to uni - just never," she explained.
"If you want to go to a special job that you absolutely need to go to uni to for, do. But many people who start businesses never go.
"If you start a business you have to learn the financial side of things as you go because there's no one to help.
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"It's definitely a mistake that our education doesn't teach these things.
"A lot of small businesses have had to close during COVID and the cost of living crisis, and if our schools taught financial skills better it wouldn't have happened."
