A Quick Start Guide to Freelancing

So many of us railroad ourselves into the world of employed work that we don’t even consider other options that may be out there for us. Freelancing is just one. It entails working for yourself and building your own fortune rather than working towards building someone else’s. If this sounds good to you, here’s a quick start guide!

Why Freelance?

There are so many benefits that come hand in hand with a freelance career. One huge benefit is that you gain complete control over your career path. You can decide what you want to do, where you want to do it, and when you want to do it. All in all, you call the shots and have complete control. You decide the days you work, your working hours, and this can always be flexible and change as you see fit. If you decide you want to change the field you’re working in, you can completely change what you do at any moment! You also choose who you work with, which can save you stress as you can just swerve clients who are unfair or unpleasant. This is the ultimate independence. Of course, you may collaborate with others to keep things up and running, but you have a lot more control over your working life!

Getting Started

Of course, you do have to take some steps to set yourself up as a freelance and give yourself the best chance of things going well. This can seem confusing at first, but generally speaking, the steps are straightforward, simple, and shouldn’t take long at all.

Register as self-employed

The very first step you need to take, for legal purposes, is to register as self-employed. Remember that when you freelance, you are working for yourself. You are no longer working for someone else, so you gain full responsibility over paying your taxes and putting other legal payments aside. At the end of each tax year, you will have to fill out your self assessment and pay your tax in one lump sum, so remember to figure out your tax and put money aside from your payments for each project you complete!

Use an Accountant

Of course, unless you’re particularly good with numbers, dealing with your own tax can get pretty confusing. You don’t want to risk miscalculations, so you can save yourself stress and put your mind at ease by hiring an accountant. An accountant will be able to figure out how much tax you owe and how much you should be putting away on your behalf. They can also help you with actually filing your return at the end of the tax year too. What’s best? They will also know what deductions can be made for things like expenses, so they can actually help save you money!

These, of course, are only the basic first steps of freelancing. You will learn much more along the way! But, hopefully, this helps you get started on a career path you find much more fulfilling and rewarding!

You might also like to read:

• Things you might want to consider before going into freelance work
• Launch your freelance career
• Working as a freelancer: the good, the bad and the fantastic
• Breaking Free from the Nine to Five
• The fail-proof way to quit your 9 – 5 job to become a full-time blogger