The basis of a successful budget for a freelancer is discipline and proper planning.
Working with income
Income in the freelancing and self-employment spheres is usually unstable and varies significantly from month to month. To understand how much money you really have and how best to plan your expenses, it is worth calculating the average monthly income for at least the last six months.
The future of a freelancer remains uncertain every month, so it is important to calculate what your income could be in different scenarios:
- under conditions of maximum employment, when you have a stable flow of clients or large, well-paid projects;
- under conditions of minimum workload, when there are almost no orders, and you work only on small short-term tasks.
Such calculations will allow you to better understand what financial result you can expect in certain circumstances.
For effective budget planning, it is important to establish a “living wage” for yourself or your family and determine the boundaries of a comfortable and confident standard of living. To do this, you need to record your expenses for several months to understand how much money you spend in different areas: food, housing, entertainment, health, and so on.