Self Employed PR refused as low income earned

[LJM17]

I applied for PR in June 2016 as European working as self-employed/employed. Got a refusal letter in Nov 2016.

My situation is as follow:

2011-2012 Self employed - earned 4.636 year gross income
2012-2013 Self employed - earned 4,989 year gross income
2013-2014 Self employed - earned 5.408 year gross income
2014-2015 Self employed earned 2.392 and employed from Sep15
2015-2016 Employed full time from Sep15 til present

The Home Office refused the PR as the claimed employment was deemed as marginal and auxiliary or supplementary.

I was working 20 hours a week and receiving Working Tax Credit, Child tax Credit and Child Benefit. My son`s dad moved back to his home country after we got divorced and as a single mother, with no family around, being self employed gave me the time flexibility that a full time work wouldn't.

Home office entitled me to appeal against its decision but I didn`t think I could win and never appealed.

I have since applied for RC as I am current full time employed and I am still waiting for the decision.

I then found a topic on this forum this weekend, where a person's PR had also been refused on the same grounds as mine and was advice by AKZ to challenge the decision. I then started to read AKZ journey and that gave me hope that I can also be entitled to a PR.

As I can no longer appeal the decision, do you guys think, based on the situation described above, that it would be worth to make a fresh PR application and if it comes back as refused, start the appeal process?

If so, do I wait for my RC first (applied beginning Feb) and then apply for PR, or apply for PR right now?

Any thoughts will be really appreciated.

[LJM17]

I just received my Residence Card and will be applying for PR online.

Can I address on my application why do I think that my self employment was genuine and effective? Would those be a strong point:

Primary carer of a child under 18, making it difficult to work full time hours.
Worked regularly every week during the period I am applying to. Although the income earned fails the MET, was in receipt of welfare benefit.
Once my child became old enough and went to secondary school, I started full time employment (Sep 2015).

[Obie]

The Self Employment is very low, but you could have appealed and provide evidence that it is genuine and effective.
You will need to demonstrate that now.

[LJM17]

Thank you for replying, Obie.

Previously I sent the following documents to support my application:
Copy of tax calculation SA302, invoices, bank statement. I did not send accountant letter as I never had one.

How can I demonstrate that work was genuine and effective and have a better chance for the application to be accepted, please?

[Wise]

No other way round it apart from submitting very strong documentation.

[LJM17]

As well as the documents I mentioned above, I have also letters from my clients. I had one main client for 4 years and worked for him every week.

As I don't think there is any other documentation I could be sending apart from the ones I already submitted, maybe my best bet would be sending it all again and wait for the refusal, so I can make the appeal.

If anyone has any suggestion on any other documents that I could send to support my application, would love to hear, any help is much appreciated.