(ThySistas.com) Ah, working from home. For many, this is the dream. If you’re a freelancer, whether you own a small, but growing, online business or you simply work on demand for a client-base which you’ve slowly been growing, you’ll likely hold your hands up and admit that this is the good life. Rather than a working an uninspired nine-to-five, you call the shots on your working life. Of course, there are downsides to self-employed work, as home life can grow a little dull if you don’t mix things up now and then. Here are some ways to enjoy freelancing and ensure you don’t go insane.
Schedule your life.
Without any authority other than yourself, it can become all too easy
to let your standards slip and start to become a shut-away. You need to be allowing yourself the chance to get out of the house, eat, shop and have fun with family or friends. You need to keep a schedule, much as you would if you worked normal hours. Your career route is unique to other people, but your body and mind are not. Look after yourself, and get out of the house (as it’s your “office” too). You’ll find you enjoy freelancing more.
Keep an eye on your finances.
Freelancing is liberating, especially if you have the freedom to work from home, the park or your favourite coffee shop down the road. Of course, whether you’ve employed a team to help you with your small, likely-online, business venture or not, you’ve still got a lot of work on your hands. Keep an eye on your finances, because you’re now responsible for the company finances and your own personal finances. You need to start learning how to keep them separate, in order to maintain legality in your business and personal day-to-day operations.
If you’re a self-employed worker under a contract, of course, there may be a fixed rate at which you work, so it’s easy to keep track of your earnings on a monthly or annual basis. Of course, whether you own a business or work on the basis of helping clients as and when they emerge, the majority of freelancing work is a little variant and unpredictable. It can be successful one week, but struggle the next.
It’s important to not overlook anything when you’re filling out your taxes, either. That’s why you need to keep records of your monthly income, especially if it varies from month to month. You don’t want to lose that information and forget what you’ve earnt, because that will cause you problems come the end of the tax year. It might help to look into professional tax representation from MCC4Tax attorneys, for example, because some tax matters become a little too complex for one non-professional individual to solve.
The situation all depends on the individual or the individual’s business. In any case, you need to be keeping track of your finances – in particular income – if you want to be a successful freelancer who operates on a legal basis, because the HMRC doesn’t take self-employed taxing lightly.
Accept the challenge.
If you got into freelancing, you may have ended up being lucky and securing a solid, fixed rate for your work, at the hands of a client who was offering a permanent opportunity. Of course, if you’re growing your own business, your salary may be slightly unstable, and you have to be prepared for the challenge of building on your client-base in order to secure more stability.
Staff Writer; Sherry Day