The world of working freelance works for a lot of people as it gives a higher degree of flexibility than what you would find in a full-time position with a particular business. The nature of working on various web dev projects oftentimes means that developers move from company to company as and when resource requires.
While this is a useful way of keeping a steady flow of working coming in, it can make it difficult to put money aside for savings and retirement. Having effective methods of ring-fencing income can ensure that at least some of your money finds a home in a savings account and you can build up a bank of money to go towards a rainy day or a pension, etc.
Use of Direct Debits
This might seem like a glaringly obvious thing to implement, but once it’s in place a direct debit on your current account, diverting a set amount of money towards your savings, can become a great little earner.
A useful thing to do here is to set it to a level that wouldn’t be noticeably impactful on your day to day spending so you’re not immediately taking out everything you save towards the end of the month again. Being sensible about the amounts of money you can afford to save is half the battle in many cases.
Planning Your Costs Around Jobs
You can read any article on the internet about money savings tips, and they will all tell you to plan a budget. The reasoning is sound here, but we can develop this thinking to apply to those who work freelance in a development capacity.
One thing to take note of is your monthly guaranteed outgoings in a template sheet. Knowing what you’re definitely going to be spending a set amount of money makes it much easier to budget different work that comes up and it gives you an idea of what you can afford to work for, and more importantly, what you can afford to save.
Making Your Savings Work
As discussed, we know its good practice to take some of the earnings you build up in a freelance position and put them to one side, but adding them into a high-interest savings account isn’t the only option to you. Investing your money in a multi-asset fund might be an option to help you make your money work that little bit harder for you.
Obviously, when it comes to investing your money in different markets, there are risks that aren’t associated with simply putting your money in a bank account that it’s important to understand the differences associated with this way of building your savings.
As we all know, working from job to job isn’t always the best long-term solution in terms of a career. But it doesn’t also mean that you have to be living hand to mouth while you’re working on different projects. With a bit of planning and know-how, you can work to generate a good amount of savings whilst still maintain the advantages of freelance working.
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