How to Freelance Fulltime and Keep Your Income Stable 4 Steps to Take

Author : Yuwanda Black

Freelancing is a career where you have a lot of latitude. You can pretty much set your own schedule. You’re free to travel at will (finances allowing) and do pretty much anything else on your schedule. If you’re not careful, this carefree type of existence can spread to your finances, wreaking havoc with your money — and causing a lot of undue stress. It doesn’t need to be this way.

While freelancing is an unpredictable career, it is also one of the most rewarding. And, you can make it predictable — especially when it comes to finances. Following are four ways to go about doing it.

I. Know Your Money Personality: When first learning how to freelance, the number one thing many don’t account for is their money personality. As in:

Are you a natural spender or a natural saver?

How much money do you need in the bank to feel “safe”?

Is it three months worth of expenses, eight months, a year?

How does how you were raised affect how you deal with money?

There’s a whole lot more that goes into this. Recognizing why you behave the way you do with money arms you with valuable insight; stuff you probably never thought about before. Also, knowing your money personality will help make implementing the following steps easier.

II. Pay Yourself on a Schedule: Even when you no longer have a job, it doesn’t mean your paychecks have to be irregular. If you start out with savings, it will be much easier to put yourself on a regular payment schedule, eg, every two weeks, withdraw money and/or write yourself a pay check.

And, don’t dip back into the account you use for business any more until the next “pay period” comes around.

Note: If you don’t have savings when you start to work freelance fulltime, this can be hard to do. But, do get on a regular schedule as soon as you can when you learn the ins and outs of how to freelance effectively.

III. Live (Way) Below Your Means: This is an age old truism, and should be practiced by everyone. As a full-time freelancer, I advise living on as little as you can. For example, I save 25 percent right off the top, allot 15 percent for taxes and live off/pay bills with the other 60 percent of my gross income.

If you can live and pay bills off 50 percent, all the better.

IV. Practice $0 Spending Days: I have days where I consciously don’t spend anything. And you know what? It’s not nearly as hard as you’d think. As I work from home, it’s pretty easy to do. The more of the $0 spending days you can string together, the better.

Also, as a long-time, full-freelance writer, I’ve learned the value of saving as much as possible because dry spells do roll around.

Learn more about how to freelance, specifically the six signs to look for that signal it’s time to quit your job, in the resources section below.

Yuwanda Black is a long-time freelance who lives internationally and has made her living completely online since 2007. Learn more about how to freelance successfully, and get the free ebook, Living the Freelance Life! when you subscribe at InkwellEditorial.com.