'I quit my low-paying barista job to walk dogs - now I make £42,000 a year'
Grace Buttery is now making "twice as much" as her previous job doing what she loves.
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."
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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."