My So-Called Freelance Life - Michelle Goodman [8]
If you have a lot of fat in your budget, now would be a fine time to trim it. New cocktail dress you’ll wear once every three years, or quitting your job a month sooner? Two-bedroom Park Slope apartment, or ditching your day gig sometime this decade? It’s your choice. I’m not saying you need to sell all your worldly possessions and live out of a van, but a little frugality never hurt anyone. Besides, if you want to live without a steady paycheck, controlling the urge to splurge is pretty much required.
On the flip side, when you work for yourself some of your personal expenses will shrink. Leave the corporate campus behind and you’re likely to save a mint in commuting costs: gas, tolls, parking, car maintenance, public transport. Shocking though it may be, I’ve owned the same car for almost twenty years. Since I’ve rarely commuted to a traditional office in it, the mileage is crazy low, the upkeep is almost nil, and I get some nice car insurance discounts. But it’s not just transportation costs you stand to save: Think of all the officewear, dry-cleaning bills, and $15 lunches on the run you’ll no longer be paying for.
If your debt collectors have you on speed dial, now’s not the time to leave the cube farm for freelance pastures. Pay down that nasty balance first. If you need help managing your debts, check out a nonprofit debt consolidation service like MoneyManagement.org. And if you need to make any big business purchases before you can freelance—say, if you’re a masseuse without a massage table—do so while you still have a steady paycheck to draw from.
Many of the freelancers whose career paths I admire most—some of whom you’ll meet in this book—aren’t shy about facing the financial realities of self-employment head-on. They plan for and tighten their belts during the lean times. They pay their bills off and refrain from buying half of H&M’s spring collection when they’re flush with cash. They balance bread-and-butter work with the dream-come-true creative work as needed. And they’re the first to admit that fuzzy math and artsy-fartsy ideals don’t pay the bills.
As it would turn out, my self-employed heroines and I aren’t the only ones who realize that it takes a healthy dose of flexibility and practicality to make a go at this crazy little thing called freelancing. Remember Vincent Van Schmo, who wouldn’t dream of degrading himself with a fallback income, not even if he were living under a freeway? Five minutes further into the panel, he admitted to the ballroom of hopeful creative professionals that he actually had seven little part-time jobs he relied on to make ends meet. Not one. Not two. Seven. (I rest my case.)
Fear and Loathing of Lost Wages (a.k.a., How to Know When It’s Time to Go)
Unless you have half a year’s living expenses stashed under the mattress or plan to live in Mom and Dad’s basement awhile, I strongly recommend wading into freelancing and keeping a part-time, temp, or otherwise flexible day job while you gather up as many contacts, clients, and portfolio pieces as you can. Take advantage of the fact that you’re collecting a steady paycheck and stockpile the green, too, so that when you do touch down as a full-time freelancer, it’s a soft landing. Because in case no one’s enlightened you yet, for your first year in business, your income may be a bit on the skimpy side.
My first year as a freelancer, my profit amounted to a whopping $6,000. Granted, that was in the early nineties, before the web made looking for work ten thousand times easier, and back when I had the business sense (and living expenses) of a tapeworm. But still, not exactly a windfall.
To fill in the gaps, I became the queen of odd jobs. Thanks to an