If you’ve recently made the move to becoming a freelancer, you’ve joined 2 million others in the UK alone. It can be a stressful time, but also a rewarding one. Freelancing has tons of benefits for your work-life balance and could help you take your career to the next level.
However, becoming a freelancer isn’t without risks. Remember that regular paycheck that you could always rely on? You can forget that sort of job security. While more and more people are deciding to freelance in the UK and beyond, for many good reasons – it’s understandable to be a bit concerned during quieter periods.
If you need some advice on how to protect your income and make sure you’re always in a good financial position, then you’re in the right place.
6 Pieces Of Powerful Advice To Protect Your Freelance Income
1. Vet Clients Properly
One thing that could have a huge impact on your freelancing efforts is getting a client that doesn’t pay. It happens less than you might think, but there are a few things you can do to make it less likely.
After all, you don’t want to work for a few weeks only to have the client disappear leaving you in a tough financial spot.
Make sure you research and vet each potential client effectively and thoroughly. Check all their reviews and testimonials. Phone them for a chat. If you’re unsure, ask them to put the funds in escrow.
Remember to start out by doing small bits of work for regular payments when you start doing work for new clients, before you’ve built up a better working relationship.
2. Take On Plenty Of Work
When you’re sure you’ve got a good client or clients, try not to turn away too much work. You never know when your workload could dry up leaving you struggling to find more.
If you’ve got a busy calendar, offer to do work slightly later for certain clients. They could be more understanding than you might think.
3. Get The Right Insurance
You might want to get payment insurance to make sure you’ve always got enough even when your earnings dip. You should also consider life insurance as well, to give your family peace of mind.
Both these things can help ease the pressure and stress on your earnings. If you want to save on your current life insurance policy, then do some further research.
4. Find The Sweet Spot For Your Rates
You don’t want to charge too little for your services, leaving you with a ton of work but without really making enough per hour. You also don’t want to charge too much so that you’ve got hardly any work.
So try and find the sweet spot with a bit of trial and error – somewhere that gives you both enough work AND money.
5. Save More
Because a freelancer’s earnings can go up and down a lot, you need to make sure you’ve got more than a few months savings to cope with mortgage payments and other bills. Don’t spend quite so freely and always hold some money back.
6. Look For Tax Breaks
Depending on where you live, there might be tax breaks and incentives that could help you if you set up your business in a certain way. Consult expert advice to help you here.
Have you managed to safeguard your freelancer earnings? We’d like to hear how you did it.
