FFN #60: It’s time to break up with your 9-5

🏝️ You will never get a break

As freelancers, we don’t work a typical 9-5 which means, you guessed it, no holiday pay. That makes a lot of people feel like they’ll never stop working, which of course leads to burnout. This couldn’t be further from the truth! To make sure you get rests often, we suggest working holidays and even fewer hours worked in a week into your packages / hourly rate. Managing your income and knowing what you need to earn to allow for breaks means you can take holidays comfortably without feeling financially stressed. Remember, as long as you’re getting your work done and delivered on time, you can take breaks! Often if we’ve finished all our client work we will take an afternoon walk or go to a movie with friends. Freelancing can give you an amazing work-life balance if you plan accordingly. Stuck on what to charge still? Check out our rate sheet. 

💵 You will never make enough

We hear this one all the time when people hear you run a freelance biz, they’ll often look at you like you’re eating tuna out of a can for all your meals. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Naturally, payment can vary from project to project but the great thing about freelancing is you get to negotiate your rates. As you build up your portfolio you can frame yourself as an industry expert and demand even higher rates, allowing you to start working less and earning more. As you grow your business, you want to start setting income goals and price your packages/retainers accordingly. Freelancing like most businesses offers you a way to remove the glass ceiling that is often placed on us in the corporate world.

🔍 Freelancers constantly struggle for work

We have this conversation constantly with people who are considering freelancing full-time. If you’re worried about the uncertainty of finding work we get it, it’s something that kept us up at night often too. The key to keeping the jobs rolling in is to not stop applying or networking. We like to set up our biz with mostly retainer clients so you’ve got even cash flow for bills etc. then have a few projects coming in to increase our income further. Where do you find them?! Well, we did a whole blog dedicated to how to find and keep clients - so you’re covered! Remember, freelancers contributed $1.27 trillion to the U.S. economy alone in 2023—and this amount is expected to grow so there’s plenty of work to be done.

Boomchickapop

I love me a good bag of popcorn while I work, and I say bag because I always eat the whole darn thing. Which means I want to feel really good about the ingredients in the corn I’m chewing on hehe. Cue Boomchickapop!! Their popcorn is gluten-free, whole grain and non-GMO. Plus the company was started by the cutest family so - j’adore!