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Lost Your Job? Try Freelancing Until Things Improve

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December 10th, 2011

Freelancing may be an ideal solution for you

For most of us, having a good and steady job is of paramount importance. But when that job goes out the window it feels as though one has been hit by a disaster. Many people cannot face the thought of having to start looking for another job. To make matters worse, the harder the times, the tougher the competition among the jobseekers. It happened to me and it took most of a year to find a way around it,

Freelancing

There is an alternative to working for a boss, freelancing. In simple terms this means getting onto your feet and peddling your particular skill or knowledge in the market place. Basic requirements involve some legwork and dealing with things like printing business cards and advertising material such as flyers ands maybe even doing a little cheap advertising. I did a minimum amount on the internet for free.

What can you offer?

Common freelancing fields include many different types of writing such as data processing, technical writing, business writing, grant writing, copywriting, journalism, computer programming and graphic design, consulting, and many other professional and creative services. These days blog writing attracts many freelancers.

Your deal

Freelance practice varies greatly. Some freelancers ask clients to sign written contracts or vice-versa, while others, like me, take work based on verbal agreements. Some freelancers may provide written estimates of work and request deposits from clients. Take care, if it’s possible. I once undertook freelance work on the basis of an exchange of emails. The work was ordered, I did the writing, submitted it and it was graciously accepted with thanks. I’m sure the work was used but I never heard from the client again and the email address I had been writing to never worked again.

Payment

Payment also varies greatly. Freelancers may charge by the day or hour, or on a lump sum basis. Some consultants adopt a value-based pricing method based on the perceived value of the results to the client. Payment arrangements may be upfront, percentage upfront, or all on completion. For more complex projects, a contract may set a payment schedule based on milestones or outcomes.

The advantages

Most of the benefits are pretty basic:

No boss
No fixed hours.
No driving to work if you work from home.
Wide variety of assignments.
Possibility of establishing a good network of clients.

The disadvantages

These are pretty clear too

No fixed salary.
No regular cash flow.
You have to deal with the income tax department.
You will have to organize your own health insurance
You can only earn as much as you can work.
No bonuses, holiday pay or other perks.
The loneliness of the freelance worker.
I find myself in front of the computer at 3am.

The internet

Once again it’s the internet to the rescue. The internet has opened up many freelance opportunities and provides access to available markets. Outsourcing, which is popular in slow economic times, is heavily reliant on the internet to provide access to remote workers. It’s up to the freelancer to take advantage.

Tags: Freelancing, Work from home
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Look What’s Going around on the Internet

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November 16th, 2011

These are possibly the 5 best sentences you’ll ever read:

You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity, by legislating the wealth out of prosperity.

What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.

The government cannot give to anybody, anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.

You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!

When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work, because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.

SUMMARIZING…

Says it all in 1 sentence….

The problems we face today are there because the people who work for a living are outnumbered by those who vote for a living.

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If You Are a Successful Sportsman, Take Care of Your Money

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September 21st, 2011

Your huge earnings won’t go on forever

It seems almost impossible that an athlete making $5 million, $10 million, or, in the case of Derrick Coleman, $90 million over a career could lose all of his money. Of course, many a now-bankrupt athlete also thought it impossible.

Their salaries

"They see their salaries as never ending, like they can’t spend it all," says accountant Scott Bercu, who handles the finances of professional baseball and basketball players. "But, if you make $5 million a year, by the time you get done paying your agent and taxes, you have $2 million left to spend. That goes very quickly."

Kenny Anderson

Among Bercu’s clients is Kenny Anderson, the former point guard who earned more than $60 million during his 14 years playing in the NBA, yet declared bankruptcy the year his career ended. Anderson once joked to The New York Times that an NBA labor dispute would force him to part with one of his eight cars. In truth, says Bercu, Anderson knew his spending couldn’t be sustained. The player and his accountant were planning for bankruptcy years before it became official.

Can’t stop spending

Most very wealthy people, be they CEOs, entrepreneurs or financial professionals, deal with finances as a major component of their jobs. But athletes and other entertainers can acquire great wealth without having a clue about money. Athletes are often unschooled, and have never had to strategize how to pay for an education because they were on scholarship. The leagues are aware of the financial illiteracy among many players, and therefore conduct financial seminars for all rookies.

‘Don’t Understand’ Money

Ed Butowsky, the managing partner of Chapwood Capital Investment Management, applauds the major sports leagues for good intentions, but says that in the minds of many pro-athletes, finances remain "an issue they don’t understand, and it’s not communicated right." Butowsky advises NBA all-star Kevin Durant, 15-year baseball veteran Torii Hunter and scores of other guys who score for a living. His words are a bit different from most everything these players will hear. Everyone tells the athletes, "Be smart, don’t overspend, invest." But Butowsky says the stars of the sporting world model their behavior on stars of the business world. "What these athletes do," Butowsky says, "is look at the front row and want to be the front-row guys."

Front-row guys

The problem with "front-row guys" is that they’ve often made their money through concentration in a single field. Butowsky advises that illiquid private assets should make up no more than 5 percent of an athlete’s portfolio, once $3 million is already in the bank. In fact, Butowsky says Magic Johnson, with his business empire of movie theaters, restaurants and coffeehouses, is actually an example of how not to build a portfolio, despite Johnson’s great success.

Educating athletes

In order to educate athletes, Butowsky conducts boot camps for any player who wants to attend, where he gives out special calculators that demonstrate when a free-spending athlete will run out of money. Butowsky’s cause happens to be a group of the most envied wealthy people on the planet. But Butowsky’s point is that too often they aren’t wealthy for long.

Tags: Athletes, bankruptcy, Magic Johnson, Mega-earners, Over-spending
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