A woman from Norwich is making more than £40,000 a year walking dogs for a living after quitting her £7.85-an-hour job as a barista.
Grace Buttery, 28, gave up making coffee in 2019 after growing tired of working 37-hour weeks for little pay.
She decided to launch a dog-walking business and is now making considerably more money for fewer hours of work.
Ms Buttery said she walks dogs for six hours a day and makes an impressive £42,000 a year.
She said: “Most companies pay for premises, pay gas, electricity and a thousand other things, my biggest expense is petrol.”
Ms Buttery left her barista job in January 2019 with only three or four clients as a dog walker.
Within a few months, she had 36 dogs to walk. After six months, Ms Buttery said she was working six hours a day, making twice as much as before, and became a part-time worker.
Speaking on her time as a barista, Ms Buttery said: “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.
“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.”
Ms Buttery admitted dog walking has its challenges like any job, but she loves it.
She said: “I love animals, I’ve always loved dogs especially.”
However, she noted: “You go out in all weather. 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.”
However, Ms Buttery now wants to encourage other young people to launch their own businesses.
She said: “I was rubbish academically, I never did well at school, I would never have been able to go to uni – just never.
“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.”
Ms Buttery added: “It’s definitely a mistake that our education doesn’t teach these things.
“A lot of small businesses have had to close during COVID-19 and the cost of living crisis, and if our schools taught financial skills better it wouldn’t have happened.”
