If you’re keen on the saving and retirement part of TSR, you may be trying to be a successful freelancer as a moonlight gig. Freelancing can be a decent side hustle because it sees new money coming in almost immediately compared to trying to start an e-commerce business (or any other business where the potential rewards are far more distant and ephemeral).
Also, when you are dead set against being a business owner, maybe freelancing feels enough like being an office worker that it’s less scary to give it a try?
Here are a handful of suggestions to help manage things better when wanting to freelance.
Get Your Accounts Right from the Beginning.
If you’re not careful, it’s possible to quickly get into a financial mess by not tracking your business income and expenses regularly. While you can use a spreadsheet for this, sophisticated accounts packages make the task quicker and the tax filings easier later on too. Once you start using them, it’s easy to see how essential they are.
When comparing two popular accounting packages like FreshBooks and QuickBooks, some important things stand out. For instance, FreshBooks is less advanced but suitable for freelancers who prefer simplicity, whereas QuickBooks takes time to learn, but can handle many types of businesses including freelancing and selling products too.
To learn more about the differences between FreshBooks and QuickBooks, if either of them sounds right for you, head to this link. The article is published by PieSync, a leading integration cloud solution provider that understands software and SaaS solutions well.
Use Google Calendar to Lock Your Hours Down.
When you’ve already got a full-time job, it’s fair to say that there’s not much time available during the evenings to work with. The weekends will be busy with clearing your To-Do list, including running errands and updating or fixing anything that you couldn’t get to during the week.
To protect your free time from disappearing in a sea of other mundane tasks, it’s necessary to create blocks of time that you reserve for freelancing alone. By giving yourself a set schedule, everything else that’s a personal matter must get done at another time.
Avoid Conflict with Your Employer.
While it’s natural to want to use the skills that you’ve acquired in your job and offer a service based around them, it can create a potential conflict with your current employer. They may have a non-compete clause in your employment contract prohibiting working in “a like business,” so do check first if you’re stepping on a potential legal landmine.
Also, even if you are providing similar services and it’s allowed, avoid getting close to their client list. They will not have any sense of humor about it should a conflict arise. Even if you’re planning to leave full-time employment eventually, don’t get into the messy area of poaching clients as doing so can lead to legal trouble.
Freelancing on the side to increase your total income makes perfect sense as long as you do it correctly. It will certainly allow you to save more and retire sooner if you can handle the extra workload.
