Expenses Freelancer Writers Can Do Without

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by Yolander Prinzel

Freelance writing is not like other businesses. You don’t have to spend the same money on expenses as other business owners do. You should have relatively low overhead–unless you are trying to create some write-offs.

Here is a list of the expenses you can go without and still function:

1. Graphics design. A lot of freelance writers are overly concerned with visual branding in the form of logos and other graphics. Now, I’m not saying there is never a time for this but I know many successful freelancers who are close to six figures in income who have not bothered to spend money on a logo. As a matter of fact, the most successful writers I know haven’t bothered with this expense.

2. The newest Office Suite or other word processing software. While I’m not an advocate of Open Office (personally, I found it difficult and uncomfortable) that doesn’t mean you have to by the latest Word incarnation that hits the stores. You can use Open Office if you want free software or you can buy an old, used version of Word on Amazon.com.

3. Adobe Creative Suite. As a writer, you probably don’t have to do much photo manipulation. If you’re doing newsletters or brochures for clients, you may need InDesign, but chances are Publisher will work just find–and it’s a lot easier.

4. A CRM (customer relationship manager) program like ACT! Let me get this off my chest–I love ACT! and will probably buy myself a used copy. That’s because I’ve use it for years and know how to edit the database to create and edit fields. I can customize it to my needs in a way that Excel and Access won’t let me. That doesn’t mean everyone needs to buy it–or any other CRM program. If you want to organize and keep records on your clients you can use Excel, Access or any number of free online CRM systems.

Yolander Prinzel, ACS is a financial writer as well as a series 7, 66 and 2-15 licensed financial representative. With a decade of financial industry experience, she was the National Director of Marketing and the Director of Operations for The Compass Agency USA and has also been a trader for Raymond James Financial Services and a life insurance underwriter. No matter what you may think, none of her posts are advisory, they are simply informational. Only an advisor with close, personal knowledge of your financial situation can offer advice.

2 thoughts on “Expenses Freelancer Writers Can Do Without”

  1. Yo, to your point: I just got forced by a new, major client to upgrade to Word for Mac 2008. Here’s my 5-word review: Complete piece of bloated garbage.

    For the first project, I had my contact save it as the earlier version of Word, but I could tell that was a hassle for her. I figured better to dump the $200 on something I didn’t want than to jeopardize the relationship.

  2. Yeah, I have the newest version too and..well…it’s like they tried to make it hard to use so we’d know they did something with it. I prefer the older versions, but got a good deal on the new so…oh well….

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