Category Archives: freelance money

advice, freelance jobs, freelance money

Things I Learned About Writing From Record Stores and Whole Foods

what I learned about writing from Waterloo Records in Austin Texas

By Joe Wallace

As I drive across America travel writing and blogging about my adventures, I keep seeing these little parables about the writing life. Today’s discovery came after a morning drive from Dallas to Austin, Texas. (The day before I was in Springfield, Missouri so I probably come off a bit punchy in these recent posts).

One of my travel blogging stops in Austin was Waterloo Records–a local fixture in the indie music scene for many years. Waterloo began its stay in its current location as one of several tenants–it shared the building with two other shops. But now, the others have moved out and it looks as though Waterloo Records is poised to take over the entire building. Not sure if that will happen, but it did get my gears turning. Operating a writing business successfully should happen much the way Waterloo’s success did. Continue reading Things I Learned About Writing From Record Stores and Whole Foods →

freelance money

I Know You’re Losing $50-$200 a Day

house good 1 bonvivant

By Yolander Prinzel

How do I know you are? Well, because I am and although this might cause you to break out into the cold sweat of denial, I’m pretty sure you and I aren’t that different.

I waste at least 2 hours every day sitting in front of my computer doing…well…absolutely nothing.

Yeah, no, I know, it’s terrible, right? But–surely–you aren’t that bad. You don’t spend time looking through pictures on Facebook of people you don’t even know. You don’t start conversations with strangers on Twitter. You don’t do housework off and on throughout the day. You don’t do anything but write and market yourself all day…right?

Yeah, that’s what I thought. So here is my challenge to you web writers next month. Let’s all try to take on 2 additional hours worth of work each workday and earn 2 more hours worth of pay. Whether 2 hours means 1 article for you or two, do it. Then take that money, which you normally wouldn’t have had because you would have been busy picking your split ends during those two hours, and put it in your savings account.

Let’s say you average (based on your writing speed and prices) $35 an hour. You will have banked an extra $350 in your savings account the first week. Do that for a month and you’ll have about $1,400. A year? $18,200–and that isn’t counting interest.

So put your hair down, log out of Facebook, sign off from Twitter and leave your laundry unfolded–it’s not like you have to leave the house anyway.

Print writers–you aren’t out of the challenge. I’m betting you could send out a couple extra queries during the week. The pay from any of those queries that get accepted should go straight to savings too.

Yolander Prinzel, ACS is a financial writer as well as a series 7, 66 and 2-15 licensed financial representative with a decade of 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. None of her posts are meant to be advisory. Only an advisor with close, personal knowledge of your financial situation can offer advice. You can get her new e-book You’ve Found Your Specialty–Now What? Tips and Tricks to Finding and Scoring Clients and Making a Living Writing What You Know here for just $7.95.

advice, freelance money, resources

It’s Important to Track Your Income

2 Comments

math_notes_school_263081_l

By Yolander Prinzel

I don’t know about you, but I’ve got to track all of my outstanding invoices for a couple of reasons:

1. I like to know when, and if, a client has paid me.

2. I like to know whether, and how well, I’ll be able to eat next month.

I send all of my emailable invoices through Paypal. I do this because I’ve found that it makes people pay me faster. It’s easy, they get an emailed invoice with a button that says something like, “Pay Your Awesome Writer Now!” They click the button and I go get donuts. Oh, wait, is Catherine reading this? Crap…did I say donuts? Um…I meant carrots. Yeah…I buy carrots. Anyway, I like Paypal because the system also lets me know if an invoice is outstanding–but that’s not exactly enough for this OCD chick.

I also keep a simple Excel spreadsheet, which you can download here: Payment Tracker. It’s a simple sheet, nothing fancy. It does help me to see what money I’m making this month and whether or not I need to amp up my game to pay for my addiction to surf and turf as well as whether or not all my outstanding invoices have been paid.

Yolander Prinzel, ACS is a financial writer as well as a series 7, 66 and 2-15 licensed financial representative with a decade of 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. None of her posts are meant to be advisory. Only an advisor with close, personal knowledge of your financial situation can offer advice. You can get her new e-book You’ve Found Your Specialty–Now What? Tips and Tricks to Finding and Scoring Clients and Making a Living Writing What You Know here for just $7.95.

advice, freelance money

How to Create a Freelance Invoice

2 Comments

how to write an invoiceby Joe Wallace

Some freelance jobs pay a flat rate, others pay by the hour, some pay by the word. Regardless of how you get paid, unless you have an agreement in writing stipulating otherwise, it’s a very good idea to submit an invoice for the work completed.

This is helpful in two ways; it reminds your employer that you have a paycheck coming (never a bad thing) but it’s also a way for you to build in a layer of protection for yourself in case of any dispute over the volume or details of work submitted.

It’s so easy for your busy employers to forget or overlook little details (including the paycheck itself) in the rush to meet deadlines and satisfy clients, but the invoice is a freelance tool you can use to keep the wheels of progress moving. Here’s what you should include in your invoice: Continue reading How to Create a Freelance Invoice →

advice, freelance money

Is That a Mutual Fund in Your IRA, or Are You Just Happy to See Me?

question by -bast-

by Yolander Prinzel

Everyone knows they need some type of retirement savings account and, as a business owner, one of your best options is a SEP IRA. Unfortunately, many people think that when you put money an IRA you are buying an investment. An IRA is just a type of brokerage account that holds assets for you on a tax-deferred basis. It is not an investment itself. That means you must use the contributions you make to your IRA to buy things like:

Stocks

Bonds

Mutual Funds

CDs

Annuities

Bond Funds

REITs

Almost anything you can put into a regular brokerage account. One thing you can’t put into an IRA is life insurance.

The next logical question is: What SHOULD I put in my IRA account?

Unfortunately, my crystal ball is at the cleaners so I can’t actually tell you what to put in your IRA and I can’t give you advice anyway because I don’t know you. Your age, financial situation and aversion to risk are all determining factors in whether you choose to fill your IRA with CDs, money market funds and low-risk mutual funds (that scenario would be good for someone over 50 who is risk averse) or with penny stocks, high-risk mutual funds and REITS (younger person, no aversion to risk—although, I think penny stocks are bad business unless you can afford to throw the money away). You really have to deal with your financial planner on these issues.

One bit of wisdom I will give is that, in 2007, before the economy took a rancid, stinking dump, most of the clients I worked with at Raymond James were comfortable with very high-risk portfolios. When everything started falling apart in 2008 and they were losing 30% or more of the value in their portfolios, they suddenly became risk averse. That isn’t really the way this should work. If you are comfortable with risk, you keep buying when the market is down (part of a strategy known as dollar cost averaging). If you suddenly become afraid of losing money when it looks like you actually might then you aren’t new to a fear of risk, you were just ignoring the risks you faced all along.

Yolander Prinzel, ACS is a financial writer as well as a series 7, 66 and 2-15 licensed financial representative with a decade of 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. None of her posts are meant to be advisory. Only an advisor with close, personal knowledge of your financial situation can offer advice. You can get her new e-book You’ve Found Your Specialty–Now What? Tips and Tricks to Finding and Scoring Clients and Making a Living Writing What You Know here for just $7.95.

advice, editorial, freelance money

Freelance Trendspotting Part Two

how to set freelance ratesby Joe Wallace

Yesterday I talked about watching freelance trends to get an advantage in the freelance job market. I caught a bit of criticism from a couple of fellow editor/writers for saying that a market correction was coming.

According to my friends, the market correction has already happened–the huge influx of new freelancers due to layoffs and cuts has taken freelancing into the mainstream and is no longer the exception to the rule  it once was.

Ahhh, yes, I tell my friends, but the market won’t stay this way forever. Once it starts moving into more profitable times a lot of freelancers are going to feel the competition getting even tougher than it already is. But by then it’s too late–you’re already hooked on your morning commute from the bedroom to the coffee pot to the computer, and you’ve grown accustomed to the unique bouquet of your own unwashed carcass at 2 in the afternoon.

So how do I personally watch freelance job trends to get a read on what’s hot and what’s not? Continue reading Freelance Trendspotting Part Two →