The following blog post is part of The Road to Financial Wellness blog tour. The Road to Financial Wellness is a three-month, grassroots campaign promoting financial empowerment on a national level and encourages people to pursue their dream lifestyle. Find out more about local events near you. When I took the plunge into freelancing full-time […]
Author: Jackie Lam
As I’m nearing the end of my 8th month as a full-time freelancer, it’s hard to believe I’m two-thirds in to my yearlong experiment. Life has certainly been a little crazy, and I’ve slowly come to realize how much I’ve learned in the last eight months. I’ve learned a lot about managing my time and […]
The question I get the most from my friends is: How do I get paid to write? I’ve been a writer in some capacity for a long time, it’s only been the last few years that I started to get paid for it. While I’ve worked in editorial in some capacity for the last decade, […]
When it comes to our money, freelancers share common issues: budgeting to pay for yearly and quarterly taxes, forking over money for our own medical insurance, and then there’s that good ole’ self-employment tax. And of course there’s the challenge of budgeting with variable income. The thing is that depending on our line of work and […]
So I’ve been playing around with different systems for budgeting, and the one that works best for me is to create buckets for my recurring expenses. The money I have left over, I kick over to the percentage method. Here’s how I do it: Step 1: Create Buckets for Your Money I am big into […]
Now that I’m hitting my five-month mark as a full-time freelancer (yikes? hooray?), I’ve been reflecting about what I used to think freelancing would be like what it’s actually all about. You might even compare it to seeing something in a movie and then experiencing it in real life. For instance, daydreaming about, say, sliding […]
One thing I’ve been trying to figure out is how to best structure my time. I must say, I’m pretty awesome at tracking my time on assignments, but structuring my time within a given day is an entirely different story. It’s definitely in an experimental phase and I expect to keep trying out new things along […]
Because last year I made the switch to being self-employed, my taxes this time around are going to be a little more complicated. As a result I’ve developed somewhat of what I call “Fear of Taxes Syndrome (FOTS).” I kind of am approaching this year’s taxes with a bit of a fly-by-my-seat approach—and it feels […]
As someone who practices Zen Buddhism and minimalism, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means exactly to be a minimalist as a freelancer. To be being minimalist has to do with your approach and mindset to how you work. It’s about getting rid of what’s not important to you. And as I’ve nearing […]
There are an infinite number of options in Vegas, from fast food to $500 a plate restaurants owned by world-renowned celebrity chefs. Business travel means you can deduct virtually all your meals—or at least 50 percent— so enjoy the culinary landscape and keep the receipts. There’s pretty much every mainstream eatery in town, but here’s how […]
