You may be wondering why exactly freelance work is becoming popular. In fact, the question has come up more recently than ever before because of the global economic meltdown. Freelance work was always abundant before the global recession, but most people only knew it as self employed back then.

Many people hold a traditional view of what exactly work is. They believe you should get up walk out your door go somewhere fill in a time sheet or punch a clock collect a paycheck and be happy for the stability of the routine. However, this latest global financial crunch has been a wakeup call to many people who have come to rely on this sort of outlook.

Just about everybody who loses their regular employment has to immediately find ways of replacing the income that they are used to spending. They have to find ways to feed themselves and their families. They have to find ways to keep the very roof over their heads.

Moon-lighting is a very popular method of adding to an earned income by doing odd jobs for payment. When the earned income disappears, moon-lighting is all that is left. Obviously such casual work will not normally replace a full income but, with application and imagination, moon-lighting can provide full time employment and, sometimes, more than a full time income.

This is where becoming a freelance worker comes into play. If you have any type of skill someone will pay you to use, it is very easy to become a freelance worker. By doing calculations you can easily figure out exactly how you can reach any income goals that you may have.

Here’s a quick example. We’ll say that George wants to become a freelance grass cutter. George can pretty easily ascertain how long it will take him to mow a lawn of a particular size. Let’s say that he knows a rather tiny yard, one that measures only about one hundred square yards, would take him thirty minutes to cut. He can charge someone $15 for doing this job. He can then calculate if he mows grass for eight hours per day he could cut six hundred square yards in that amount of time and his income would be $90 per day. Say George only wants to work five days a week that would be a nice income of $450 per week.

Another advantage to being self employed is that you can have tax deductions related to your work. Any costs which are associated with the work done can be deducted off of taxes owed on the income. If you want to become a freelance worker, you may have to register with your local tax office. This isn’t too terrible because they know all the rules and can help ensure you make the proper deductions. They will gladly share this information with you for free.

There is an obligation to provide proof of these expenses but that only requires that the freelancer asks for a receipt every time he buys something related to his work. Even with the very simple example of the lawn mower, it should be clear that if he wants to create a pay rise for himself he can consider increasing his rate, lengthen his working day, reduce the time spent between jobs (better route planning for example) or take on a few extra jobs for a short time until he has earned a short term requirement. So, why is freelance work becoming more popular? Freelance work is becoming more popular because most people have a sellable skill, the tax breaks are very attractive, properly organized, it can be better than a job and the flexibility makes it possible to fit work around the home life rather than having to fit home life round work.

Related Content

Subscribe to the post comments feeds or Leave a trackback