I dropped out of college to start my own cleaning business — I already bought my first home
A young Aussie dropped out of college and is making huge money running a cleaning service in Sydney instead.
Charlotte Bosanquet, 22, lives in Western Sydney.
She bought her first home at 21 and is in a better financial position than most people her age.
Three years ago, Ms. Bosanquet was pursuing a double degree in social work and criminology at university, with plans to become a police officer.
She was cleaning on the side to put herself through university.
However, during Covid, she ended up trapped overseas for a month and was fired from her job as a result.
Ms. Bosanquet figured she’d start her own cleaning business.
It was then that she realized how big the “need” for reliable cleaners was in Sydney.
Within a few weeks of starting her own business, she was inundated with hundreds of inquiries from people desperate for her cleaning services.
“I realized what the potential was so I decided to take a gap year and I hire a few people and see how it went,” she said.
Ms. Bosanquet hoped to make a “decent” income from her business venture, but she soon realized she could earn thousands a week.
“I could make more cleaning than I could after studying my degree and becoming a police officer,” she said.
“It was a no-brainer!”
She shared she could make over $1,858 USD per week at one point.
These days, she doesn’t bring home that weekly wage because she’s now focused on growing her business, so she’s paying herself less than $61,940 USD.
Ms. Bosanquet is funnelling the rest back into the business, hoping to expand it further or even turn it into a franchise eventually.
“You can definitely make a lot from the cleaning industry. You can make thousands in a week depending on how much you charge,” she said.
Ms. Bosanquet has also managed to reduce her working week to three or four days, and some weeks, she only works around 20 hours.
“I can’t give you an exact figure of what I’m paying myself, but I get more than what I would have gotten if I’d gotten my double degree,” she said.
The 22-year-old said that people “look down on cleaners” and don’t think it is a proper job, but she’s never worked “harder” than when she was cleaning.
“It is harder than doing a full-time university degree, at least for me personally, and at the end of the day, there’s more money in cleaning than full-time 9-5 jobs,” she said.
“I know it isn’t for everyone, and not everyone wants to get down and dirty and scrub toilets, but I find it really rewarding.”
Ms. Bosanquet said she gets so much “satisfaction” from helping people that don’t have the time to keep up with their cleaning demands.
She’s also incredibly driven to keep expanding the business and to move away from day-to-day cleaning to focus more on running it.
“The goal is to franchise it out, or just get enough staff, to the point I can have other people manage so I can hopefully retire when I’m 30,” she said.
“I really encourage people to start their own cleaning businesses. There’s so much potential and so much work that I don’t feel threatened because there’s not enough work for everyone.”
