Financial responsibility: one of life’s great joys.

Not really, ever.

For creative career people and freelancers, financial responsibility determines the longevity and success of your business endeavours. However, it will require you to implement behavioral practices into your lifestyle.
Being a freelancer and owning your own business is a very unique lifestyle that requires a unique approach to budgeting and financial planning. You don’t have the safety net and comfortable consistency that comes with payroll in an office job, which means you have to integrate a budget that is perfect for your freelancer lifestyle and workflow.

Balance Your Your Budget … and your Lifestyle.

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Budgeting like a boss requires balance. In between running your business, family life, personal life and your cat, balance can seem like an unattainable goal that is just not applicable for your lifestyle. No matter how busy you are, orienting your schedule around practices that will get yourself on financial track is a vital and doable achievement.

There are lots of different forms of financial responsibility for the different areas of your life: business budgeting, living expenses budgeting, fun budgeting. You have to map out both your business and personal life budget and not let one be hurt at the expense of the other. Both are essential.

It can be easy for their to be a blurry line between your business budget and your personal budget. What’s the big deal of taking some money from your personal account to help your business along for a little while? These behaviors turn into habits and you will eventually find yourself a stressful mess. This will also leave you feeling very unbalanced as your work and personal life overlap. Separate your business and your life so you can have a more balanced budget and lifestyle.

Implement Financial Planning that Works for You.

We know you may never wake up in the morning overcome with excitement for financial planning, but there are activities you can implement into your lifestyle that can make budgeting your life easier and less stressful. However, planning and budgeting strategies are only good if they become habits that are implemented into your lifestyle for the long run. So it’s important to brainstorm and plan out strategies that are going to sync with how you operate.

Maybe you’re a techie and you organize your life digitally; use an app to map out and plan your budget to ensure that you’re staying on a solid track. Or, maybe you feel best by the old fashioned hard print copy method. Grab a filing cabinet at a consignment store (and DIY it to your heart’s content), and use it specifically to file all your bills, bank statements, and receipts and your written budgeting plans for every month.

Always Pay Out on Schedule.

zbkpj1tr37Once you develop your monthly schedule for paying off expenses, stick with it. It is best to take care of expenses in an orderly sequence so that you don’t find yourself running dry on cash by the end of the month. So first, always take care of yourself and allocate money for your personal budget. Nothing will be very productive if you don’t have the money to eat or pay rent. Make sure that taking care of immediate needs is always priority number one. Taxes. Yes, they suck. As a self employer it’s best to do this one quick like a bandaid and get it over with. Go ahead and take out your taxes immediately from your paychecks so you aren’t in a position you can’t come up with it later because you already spent it on the business. Next, time to take care of your baby. Your business baby that is. Set aside a business savings for the future and all the expenses to keep your business rolling. This way if you’re ever coming up short you can pull from your business savings and not your personal. Follow this monthly schedule to create a flow to your spending that creates financial ease and covering your all your bases.

While budgeting may not be fun or glamorous, it can achieve some very fun and glamorous results for you and your business. Implement a budgeting plan that works for your self employed lifestyle so that you can reach the full potential of your business goals.