what would you do (private counseling practice)

MelissaMiso · January 2014

I am a Licensed Mental Health Counselor. I work full time in a drug rehab and have a very small private practice. I crunched the numbers and realized that I could take home the exact same salary with only 12 private clients/week. This would allow me to be home more with my 20 month old. My husband, who lost a job when the company he worked for closed, is only working part time with potential of working full time (hopefully soon) at his current employer. We will be getting lower cost health insurance from his job soon so we don't have to worry about losing coverage from my full time gig. Of course, private practice isn't guaranteed income (people take vacations, get passed tough times and come in less frequently, etc.). My full time job doesn't pay well and my heart is not in working with that population and I love working with private clients. We are struggling financially from DH's job loss and now underemployment so we are a little behind in bills.

Here's my questions:
When would you make the transition to focusing on building private practice? Would you do it right when hubby moved to full time? If not, how long would you wait?

Iblamethebeer · January 2014

Considering you are in the financial hole, I would buckle down and try to pick up a "full time" slate of evening and weekend clients while keeping your day job.

Hopefully you can do that for at least 6 months to pay off debt/build up savings and also to get a sense of how many different clients reliably translate into 12 weekly appointments and what your overhead costs will be, so that when you quit you know it's workable.

Good luck!

jlaOK · January 2014

Iblamethebeer said:

Considering you are in the financial hole, I would buckle down and try to pick up a "full time" slate of evening and weekend clients while keeping your day job.

Hopefully you can do that for at least 6 months to pay off debt/build up savings and also to get a sense of how many different clients reliably translate into 12 weekly appointments and what your overhead costs will be, so that when you quit you know it's workable.

Good luck!

I agree with this. Do both and save as much as you can to build an emergency fund for when you transition to the private practice. You'll be running yourself ragged in the short-term working two full time jobs but it will pay off in the long run if you can run your own business. Also, with your husband working PT right now he might be able to take on the majority of the household items so that you can work both.

what would you do (private counseling practice)

Re: what would you do (private counseling practice)

Choose Another Board

Search Boards