One year as a freelancer: Here’s what I’ve learned

Last week marked one whole year for me as a freelancer. Huzzah for making it this far! It’s been a year of ups and downs, with a lot of different emotions, but I’m still making an independent income and not considering giving it up, which was my main benchmark for success after one year when I first started off (well, that and making a decent bit of money along the way). 

After doing a bit of reflecting on my journey and all the things I’ve learned over the last year, I decided to document it all in this blog. 

Obviously everyone’s experiences are unique to them, and what works for someone else might not work for you. There’s very few things that I’d consider hard and fast rules when it comes to freelancing. These are just my individual learnings and experiences. Also, I am by no means a massively successful freelancer, and plenty of these tips I still need to fully take on board myself. 

Hopefully anyone who is considering making the leap into the world of freelancing finds this post useful, as I know posts like this and talking to other freelancers about their experience really helped me when I was thinking about making the move.

Since I ended up covering quite a lot more than I anticipated, I’ve split my ramblings up into four main sections covering off:

• What to know when starting off as a freelancer

• How to get freelance work 

• How to price your work

• Managing your money

What to know when starting off as a freelancer

Whether you’re contemplating making the move into the world of freelancing, or you’ve recently started out, these are the top things that I know now that I would have loved for someone to tell me 12 months ago. 

Aim to have six months of savings before quitting your job

As I mentioned, there’s very few things that I would consider hard and fast rules. But this one is. Have a good six months of savings before you start out. Three months worth at least. Unless you’ve already got work lined up before you officially start off freelancing, your first three months will likely be quiet, and that means you won’t be making as much money as you’re used to. Make sure you have enough savings to still be able to pay your bills during these early months, otherwise the financial anxiety will make you hate freelancing before you even get going.

One way to combat this is to build up a pipeline of work before you officially hand your notice in at your current job, and while you’re working your notice period. This gives you some income from month one and helps soften that voice telling you that you’re failing already (don’t worry - we all have that voice). If you’ve been freelancing part-time then this makes the transition easier for sure.

Not everyone will be in that position however. I jumped straight in at the deep end with no work lined up because I knew that was what I personally needed in order to commit to making full-time freelancing a viable option for me. You may also be in a position where freelancing has always been an aspiration, but you’ve found yourself in the position of starting off as a freelancer sooner than you anticipated, possibly because of redundancy, or quitting a toxic job that you just had to get away from.

Expect the first few months to be quiet(ish)

If you are like I was, starting off from literally nothing, be prepared for the first few months to be quiet and not very lucrative. This is why you need those savings to lean back on early on. Also, don’t be disheartened if it feels like you’re not getting much work in the first few months. That’s not unusual. If you were starting a new business selling cakes online (or whatever your product is), you probably wouldn’t be expecting to make a profit straight away right? It’s difficult, but keep at it. Growing a business takes time, and “freelance” is just a fancy way of saying you started your own business with an employee of one.

You’ll still be busy those first few months however. There’s lots of admin tasks to sort out - more than you expect. Use that less busy time when you start out to get things like templated docs, contract templates, tax self assessment registration, budgets, etc, sorted out. And get working on promoting yourself (more on this in the next section).

Also enjoy the quieter periods, particularly at the start. I’ve not been very good at all at this, some things are still very much a work in progress. Use the time to enjoy a better work-life balance, go visit some places, take up a new hobby you didn’t have time for before. If you’ve just come from agency life, trust me you’ll enjoy the change of pace. It can also help to make the massive shift in your working life a little less daunting and gives you more time to adjust to it, especially useful if you’re a very introverted person like myself.

When you start off, have an idea of which is most important to you - money or work-life balance. This can change throughout the year, and there isn’t a right or wrong answer. If you can get enough work and have the drive to maximise your working hours, you can make a lot of money. Or if you want a better work-life balance, you can make a really good living without working as much as you likely did at your previous job.

Choosing what services to offer as a freelancer

For Digital PRs, deciding on what services you want to offer may be a simple one to answer. For the vast majority it’s creating and outreaching campaigns. Go a step further than that though, and also document who your ideal client would be. Are there certain industries that you want to be creating campaigns in? Do you want to specialise in Newsjacking, or focus on data-led campaigns? 

When I started out I had the mentality of really niching down and differentiating myself from what other freelancers were offering. I wanted to focus on the data side of things such as strategy audits and research for campaigns. If I was going to do campaigns then I wanted to just take on sports campaigns and focus on one industry. 

Niching down is generally good marketing advice, but when you’re starting out from nothing it’s not always the most practical advice. Niching down is great when you have options and you’re getting more leads than you can/want to take on. That’s unlikely to be the case when you start off.

I fear I made the mistake of going too niche when I started off, and while I was targeting areas with low supply, low supply is only good if there’s also high demand. Carving a niche for yourself is definitely a good tactic, but more so one to utilise once you’re more established and have some existing work in your area of focus. 

Adjusting to life as your own boss

The shift from paid employment to freelancing is a big one, and it takes some getting used to. Give yourself time to work things out. Use the first six months to try shit out and figure out what works for you. That applies to the freelance services you want to offer, but also your new working patterns. 

One of the best benefits of being your own boss is that you have all the freedom in the world to decide when you work, where you work from, and how long you work for. Having no restraints can also take some getting used to. When I first started I was working all kinds of different schedules, honestly just because I could. 

Having some sort of structure is good though, especially when you know you have the freedom to break it without having to ask anyone’s permission. Use those early months, if you don’t already know, to work out how you want to work and what suits you best. Are you more creative in the morning or the afternoon? Do you want to have Wednesday mornings off to go somewhere? Will Fridays become the first day of your weekend? Spend the time figuring all these things out cause you don’t need to decide it all on day one.

Also, get yourself a good office set up. Even if you’re someone who opts to work a couple of days a week in a co-working space or wherever, you’ll be spending plenty of time in your office, so make it a comfortable working environment for yourself. If you’ve been working mostly remote already then you’ll likely already have this figured out. One thing I did that helped make my working space feel different as a freelancer from my previous job is I treated myself to a new desk and switched some of the layout of the room up. That helped to make it feel like more of a fresh start for myself.

Don’t panic

I’m a massive panicker so I get it, it’s much easier said than done. When I started off I set myself a rule that I wasn’t allowed to have a big panic about how things were going until at least six months in. Obviously I had many a panic moment, but setting a rule that I was giving myself at least six months before deciding if I had made a huge mistake definitely helped me personally.

Don’t get too down if you do have a “wtf am I doing” moment or two. You’re going to experience so many different emotions as a freelancer. Freelance life isn’t always fun. Don’t expect every day to be great. Be prepared to have a shit week here and there, for a number of different reasons. And if the bad weeks start to feel more regular than the good weeks, don’t forget that you haven’t signed up to a lifetime commitment of this. You can quit and go back to paid employment whenever you want. 

While there can be a lot of highs and lows, in my opinion the highs are far higher than the ones you’ll get from a regular job. The joy of converting a lead into paid work, or landing amazing coverage for a client that is all yours, is so much more rewarding, and for me, the best part of working for yourself. 

Don’t expect all of that to come straight away. Leads take time to develop, and I feel like this is only increased if you’re a freelance PR where you’re waiting for clients to sign off on bigger budgets, and you’re building based on the quality of clients rather than doing loads of small orders. 

Remember that we’re all running our own races. Don’t compare yourself to other freelancers, especially more experienced ones. Focus on your success as making progress vs the previous month, not vs where someone else is at. 

How to get freelance work 

This is the scariest part when you first start out freelancing. What if nobody wants to work with me! Don’t worry they will. But first, you’ve got to get your name out there so that people know you exist.

Treat yourself as a client

If you’re reading this you likely work in PR, or at least some form of marketing. Good news - you’ve already got a head start on most freelancers since you have an idea of how to promote things! Make sure that you schedule time to promote yourself.

How you go about doing that really depends on what you’re most comfortable doing. There’s loads of different ways to build your personal brand, find the ones that work specifically for you. 

For me (and I know for many others too), LInkedIn is an extremely valuable marketing tool as a freelancer (don’t worry we all think it’s cringe and hate it too). People seeing my posts and DMing me on there is probably where the majority of my leads have come from. Don’t worry about “going viral” or shit like that. Consistent posting is the key to success. Remember, you don’t just want to get on people’s radar but you want to stay on their feeds too. The more visibility you have in front of potential clients, the higher the chances that they’ll remember you when they do need support, which might not be right now when you’re posting. Personal branding is a long-term strategy. 

With your posts, focus on showing your knowledge and the value you’d have to potential clients if you were to work with them. Don’t worry about being too sales-y. If your posts help people out they’ll not only remember you, they’ll form a positive impression of you. All these PR strategies we tell clients about apply to ourselves when building our personal brands too. 

Case studies are great for promotion purposes too. Shout about the great coverage your campaigns have earned and how you’ve impacted the key metrics that you and your clients care about. Having some good case studies that you can share from your previous roles is valuable, as some of your freelance clients may ask you to sign NDAs preventing you from publicly sharing that work to promote yourself. 

LinkedIn obviously isn’t the only social platform you can use to promote yourself. TikTok can be a great platform if you’re happy filming video content of yourself as the engagement on TikTok is really good. For me, the idea of filming myself talking and sharing it online is my worst nightmare, so TikTok isn’t an option for me. Instead I’ve focused my efforts on LinkedIn posts and my newsletter which are far more comfortable styles of content creation for me than making videos, or in-person networking. Find what works for you and then really put the time in on those two or three channels. 

Regardless of where and how you’re promoting yourself, consistency is key. Use the extra time you may have when you’re first starting off to create a backlog of content ideas and get yourself into a routine. And don’t stop promoting just because you’ve earned some good clients. Promoting yourself as a freelance Digital PR isn’t like Google Ads where you can just turn them on and off when you need a boost. Personal branding is a long-term strategy, and leads take time to turn into clients. Remember, you’re promoting to generate a pipeline of work for three-six months down the line, not necessarily for work that you can start on next week. 

Intro yourself to your target audience

As well as focusing on building my personal brand, one other thing that I did when I first started off which produced some decent results was introducing myself to people who I thought could be potential clients to work with. 

Whether it’s PR team leads at agencies, or PR/SEO teams of in-house clients that you really want to work for, send them an intro pitch (like you would to a Journalist introducing a new client you’re working with explaining how they could help them). Look to include details such as the services you offer, your background and experience, portfolio/case studies, rates, testimonials, etc. 

This can be a great way of getting on their radar. They probably won’t have a need for freelance support straight away, but when they do they now have all your information and contact details that they can refer back to. Many agencies will also have a spreadsheet/database of freelancers that they keep on file for when they require support. This is a great way of getting your name on those lists. Then use your more long-term tactics such as posting on LinkedIn to stay on their radar and showcase your knowledge.

This can also be an effective tactic if you’ve previously worked with a client in a certain sector and you want another client in that space. Reach out to other brands and share with them case studies of the results you’ve got for their competitors and offer your services to do the same for them. 

Network with other freelancers

Trust me, other freelancers are your best friends as a freelancer. We’re all in the same boat, and while yes technically we’re all each other's competitors, the freelancing community is the loveliest bunch of people ever. Beyond just the community aspect though, other freelancers are also great sources of work.

I did a quick bit of analysis of all the different clients I’ve worked with in the past year, and nearly a quarter of them have been other freelancers that I’ve helped with on their projects (usually data support for campaigns). 

Freelancers will also recommend you for projects that they’ve been offered, but either can’t, or don’t want to take on. Another quarter of the clients I’ve worked on have come from being recommended by another freelancer, meaning that around half of my leads are off the back of networking with other freelancers. 

If you work in Digital PR then there’s really only one community that you need to join which is the wonderful Slack that Erica Vonderwall created. If you’re not there already, reach out to Erica for an invite. And to all the amazing Digital PR freelancers that have supported me and helped me out in the last year - thank you 🫶

The best tactic - doing good work

It sounds obvious, but genuinely the best way of getting and keeping enough clients to make freelancing a financial success, is to do a really good job with the clients you do have.

I’ve been fortunate so far that I haven’t had any nightmare client experiences, and I like to think that every client I’ve worked with has been happy with the work that I’ve produced. Much of the work that I’ve been doing has been one off projects, so the fact that over two thirds of those clients have come back with work on additional projects I think is a testament to that! Building up more happy clients will also make finding new work easier over time once you start getting existing clients coming back to you with new projects. 

Finding new clients is hard, and it’s much more sustainable to turn new clients into returning clients. But obviously this will only happen if you do good work for them. I’ve seen some circles claim that freelancers produce lower quality work than in-house staff because they have less attachment to the work earning results. This couldn’t be further from the truth.

If we don’t produce good work, we don’t just lose any further income from that client, we also lose the opportunity of them recommending us to someone else. Recommendations from other freelancers is a big source of work opportunities, but so can referrals from clients you’ve done a good job with. I’ve had multiple clients either refer me to people they know at other agencies, or reach out to work with me again when they’ve moved to a new company. 

Target retained clients

Retained clients are by far the best clients to have. They’re regular income each month, and it’s the type of freelancer-client relationship that produces the best results when it comes to PR which works best as a long-term strategy. 

Retained clients aren’t easy to get however. This is maybe the biggest area where I’ve struggled, and where I think I made a mistake focusing on services that lent themselves to one-off projects rather than ongoing activity that comes from full-service campaigns. 

Prepare to be ghosted

Like, a LOT. Don’t get too discouraged when leads turn into dead ends. It happens, it happens a lot, and it happens to a lot of us. 

You’ll get really excited by the prospect of a client reaching out that is either someone you really want to work with, or in an industry that you know well and love working in. Then you’ll exchange messages, and maybe have a call that sounds promising and gets you even more excited. And then…. nothing. 

Did I make a mess of the call? Say something they didn’t like? Were my rates too high? Did they go with someone else, or just cancel the project? You’re left asking yourself all these different questions, and have no idea what’s going on. It sucks.

If you are someone either agency-side or client-side reading this, if you do decide you won’t be moving forward with working with a freelancer after talking to them, just drop them a quick message telling them that, ideally with a bit of feedback why. It really helps us, and also avoids us wasting our time following up on dead ends.

Leads can take a while to develop into work

So you’ve done all of your great promotion work, you’ve had interest from a potential client, and it seems like they’re going to move forward with working together. Be prepared for it to take weeks, if not months, before you actually 100% confirm the project and get to work.

Leads, even promising ones, can take a long time to turn into paying work. We’ve probably all experienced clients that take forever to sign off a quote or a press release, well the same happens with signing off on freelance support. Budgets have to be approved, and a lot of the time clients will reach out to secure work before they’ve actually got budget approval from their side to do so.

Until you’ve got a signed contract, a purchase order number, or email confirmation to start work and send an invoice, my advice is to try and avoid getting too excited and planning how you’ll spend the money. 

A lot of clients that are looking for freelance support however are looking for urgent support to start straight away. So while many leads do take time to develop, and end up being a dead end, you can also quickly go from thinking your month looks really quiet and not producing much income, to within a week the outlook completely changes and you’re busy with a new project. 

How to price your work

Great news! You’ve got some interest from potential clients in working together with you. Now you're tasked with challenges that are probably completely new to you when starting out as a freelancer - how to price your work, choosing what projects to accept or decline, and what payment terms to offer.

How much should I charge for my services

I won’t share my day rates here but if anyone wants an idea of where to start with benchmarking their project prices feel free to drop me a message. My main advice is to price based on what your value is and not to worry about being the cheapest option available.

When you’re starting off it’s easy to worry about charging too much for your services and it resulting in you not getting any work. In my experience at least, you get better quality clients by pricing based on the value you offer rather than trying to be the cheapest option. 

You will definitely get clients who just want the cheapest option available and will tell you that your rates are too high for them. That just means it’s too high for them, not everyone else. And a lot of clients are likely only saying that to see if they can get you to reduce your price to save themselves some money. In the end clients get what they pay for, and the cheapest option rarely ends up being a sustainable long term relationship.

Clients that are more focused on the quality of work that you’ll produce over finding the cheapest price are the type of clients that you want to work with. They’re also less likely to be the type of client that has unrealistic expectations and a quantity over quality approach to Digital PR. 

Get good at costing work up

This is something that I’ve kinda sucked at in my first year freelancing, and it’s cost me. I’ve underpriced projects and ended up doing a lot of work for free, which obviously isn’t ideal. 

It’s difficult because every task is different and it’s hard to calculate an exact set time for tasks. However, if you start tracking the time you spend on different tasks while you’re still in paid employment, you’ll have a better idea of how much to charge for each service you want to offer. 

You’ll also want to decide if you’re going to price your services by your day rate, or by a set project cost. Again, I am by no means a master of this side of freelancing, but my advice would be to focus on the value that you’re providing with your service, not the amount of hours it takes you to produce it. 

Choosing which projects to accept 

As a freelancer, falling into the trap of taking on every piece of work that you get offered can be a dangerous one. I get it, it’s tempting, especially when you’re starting off and you need the money. But not every client will be a good one. This is something that you’ll develop a better eye for as you become more experienced, but if a client feels like a red flag to you, there’s probably a reason for it. If you’re unsure about a potential client, ask other freelancers if they’ve worked with them before, or have heard about anyone else’s experiences working with them. 

No client is worth the income they generate if they damage your mental health. You’re your own boss now, so if a client starts to feel like a red flag, or something about it just feels off, you don’t have to work with them! Even if you’ve started working together, you can terminate your agreement and stop working with any client (exit clauses and notice periods for both you and the client are key things to include in your contracts).

Another great benefit of being your own boss is that you don’t have to do work that you don’t enjoy anymore. Don’t want to work on clients in a specific industry? You don’t have to! Even if there’s aspects of the job that you don’t love, or that you aren’t overly confident at, you can outsource some parts of the job to other freelancers to support you with. 

Be careful taking on too much work

Too much work? I’ll be happy with just some work! Obviously this is a luxury to have, but it is worth keeping in mind for when you do start getting fully booked up. I’m sure many former agency staff turned freelancers have experienced burnout at some point in their careers. Just because you’re working for yourself now doesn’t mean you’re immune to burnout. 

When you’re planning out the maximum amount of work that you want to take on, don’t make the mistake that having 20 days a month (for example) that you want to work means 20 days a month of paid work. 

As mentioned before, you need to treat yourself as one of your own clients too. Networking and marketing yourself takes up time, but so does all of the admin that comes along with being a freelancer such as managing your finances, and communicating with potential new clients. 

You also ideally want to have some wiggle room for projects that take longer than you budgeted for. If you’re maxing out your capacity and this happens, that means you end up working long hours or on weekends to deliver the work that you’ve promised clients. 

It’s also important to remember that you need to take time off as a freelancer too, and taking on too much work can be a barrier to you having the breaks from work that you need. I haven’t done this myself, but having a holiday calendar that tracks your days off is a good way to ensure you’re taking the number of annual leave days that everyone else in paid employment does. Taking individual days off is great, but we all need a week or two off for a proper break from work to avoid burning out and starting to hate your work.

Payment terms

When I first started off, deciding what payment terms to offer and the dread of clients not paying and having to chase invoices made me super anxious. At first I was invoicing clients with 28 days payment terms and not asking for a deposit up front.

Around six months in I changed that and asked for a 50% deposit up front for nearly every project, and reduced my payment terms to 14 days. This was pretty daunting for me as I worried it might turn clients off and lose me some potential business. It didn’t. 

It seems scary but getting a deposit up front is a massive help, not just for your cash flow, but also your anxiety over working with shit clients that won’t pay you. I haven’t had a single client push back on either the deposit or the 14 day terms. Worst case scenario, a client pushes back and you can negotiate new terms, or it reveals a concerning red flag that prompts you to turn down the work. 

Some clients may have standard payment terms for all suppliers that they can’t change for you however. In most cases this isn’t an issue, but it is worth considering the cash flow impact of having to wait 60 or even 90 days for a high value invoice to be paid. 

I will also drop the request for a deposit for clients that I know I can trust and/or I’ve worked with for a while and know they’re reliable payers. For example, any work I do for other freelancers I will always just invoice at the end because I know they’re the best and most reliable payers. On the other hand, if it’s a really high value one-off project with a new client, a deposit may be more valuable, and more of a dealbreaker for you. 

I think the key with the payment terms that you offer is to just offer what makes you comfortable and helps to ensure you have a sustainable cash flow to pay your bills. But if you are anxious about asking for deposit payments, from my experience it hasn’t been an issue and getting that payment up front definitely helps out a lot. 

Dickheads that don’t pay you

I’m in a very fortunate position that I haven’t had any major issues with clients not paying for work. I’ve had a few invoices that have gone over their due date, but each time they’ve been paid pretty much instantly when I chased them. 

Non-paying clients is an issue in the freelancing world however. If you do have to chase dickhead clients that won’t pay you, this UK Gov page has a lot of helpful advice (I’m sure there’s similar available in other countries too). 

If an invoice isn’t paid by your due date then you’re entitled to add statutory interest to your payment. This interest calculator is helpful for working out the numbers relating to statutory interest. Even if you haven’t stated payment terms on your invoice or in a contract, you can apply for this for late payments from 30 days of your invoice. 

On my invoices I flag this by having “Late payments will be subject to late payment fees based on “statutory interest”.” on my invoices. I also make the payment terms clear on the invoice too, for example, “Payment due within 14 days of March 3rd 2025.”. 

I’ll touch on this in the next section, but if you have Professional Indemnity insurance, this will often include free legal advice to help you with late payments. If you are in this really shitty situation then there are resources out there to help you with getting those invoices paid. 

Managing your money

Another new challenge that you have to adjust to as a freelancer is managing all of your own finances. Gone are the days of just having your final income paid into your bank account each month, and boring things like tax and pension payments being sorted out by your employer. Managing your finances can be daunting, especially if you’re not great with numbers, but in my opinion, it’s not as scary as it can first seem, it just takes some getting used to.

Financial decisions before you get started

The first thing you probably need to decide when starting out as a freelancer is if you want to be a sole trader or a limited company. I’m a sole trader so I won’t pretend to have any advice on setting up as a limited company. What I would say however, is that you’re probably best starting as a sole trader and giving yourself some time to decide if freelancing is for you in the long-term. 

From a finances point of view, being a sole trader is fairly straightforward. When you decide to take the route of creating a limited company for your freelance services, that is generally more cost effective as you get better tax options, but it comes with more admin. At this point you’ll probably need to get a qualified accountant to manage your finances for you to ensure you’re paying the right tax and managing your income as efficiently as possible.

In my opinion, you can manage your own finances as a sole trader with the assistance of a half decent spreadsheet. If the idea of spreadsheets and numbers fills you with dread, just hire an accountant to help you out. For a sole trader the cost shouldn’t be too high. Ask around other freelancers to find out who they use, for example I know a lot of the freelance Digital PRs use the same guy. 

The most complicated part of your finances as a sole trader is tax payments. I manage this myself, but I am good with numbers, so it’s probably less daunting for me than most. As I said, if you’re not interested in this side of things, just hire an accountant to sort it for you. 

What you will need to do however is register for self assessment with HMRC. This doesn’t take too long and is fairly simple to navigate through. This will give you a unique taxpayer reference (UTR number) that you need to do your self assessment tax returns. It’s worth noting that you don’t have to pay tax as you earn money, which can help you from a cash flow perspective when you’re first starting out. But make sure you keep somewhat of a record of how much your tax bill is adding up to because it will need to come out of your bank at some point.

Also, do some reading on what you can and can’t claim as tax expenses as a self-employed worker - it’s more than you probably expect. This is where having an accountant manage your tax returns for you is helpful, but you can also ask for advice from friends or family members who have submitted their own tax returns in the past who can help explain what you can claim as expenses to lower your tax bill. 

Finally, try and pay yourself a monthly salary, even if it’s not a huge one when you first start off. A salary that’s enough to cover your monthly bills will suffice. Having a bank account for your personal funds and one for your work funds will help you to keep the two separate, and makes paying yourself a monthly salary simpler. This is also a good way to keep track of how much profit you’re actually making with your freelance work after you’ve paid yourself.

Expenses as a freelancer

When you first start off, make a note of all the expenses you envision having. This will help you to work out what your break-even point for making a profit is. But beware, whatever figure you come up with will likely get higher as you start off as there’s always some expense that you haven’t thought of. 

Your biggest expenses as a Digital PR freelancer will be the tools that you need to use. Most people will pay for a media database, an outreach tool, and maybe an all-in-one SEO package. They all start adding up pretty quickly so be selective, especially in the early months while you’re building your income up. Most tools have the option of adding seats to a user’s account which can be a massive cost saver if you can find another freelancer to split the costs of a tool with. 

I previously touched on Professional Indemnity insurance. Chances are you won’t need it for anything but it’s a useful reassurance to have, especially if you’re outreaching stories for clients. It’s also relatively cheap. I get mine via With Jack and it costs £15-20 a month depending on the type of cover you select. 

When you first start off there may be various costs that you need to invest in, for example, a website, a brand logo, new office equipment, a Microsoft Office or Google Workplace subscription, or a domain so you have a custom email address. However, if budgets are tight, you can get away without having most of these. A website and branded material honestly aren’t essential, you’re fine with a gmail address for outreach, and Google Docs provides all the basics for free. 

My advice on expenses is to be stingy where you can, particularly at the start. If an expense is a necessity it will become evident pretty quickly. However, if a tool for example, makes a genuine difference to the speed and quality of your work, you should consider that an investment more so than an expense. 

What to expect from your income

Freelancing isn’t a path to getting rich quick (if it is for you then congrats!). The reality is your income for the first few months is probably going to be lower than it’s been for the last year. There’s no guarantee of making more money than you would be making in paid employment either.

As a reference point for my experience, in the past nine months (I’m disregarding the first three months where income was low) I’m making roughly 75% of the salary I had at my last job. Which isn’t bad, but it is also less money than I was making. This is just the first year for me though, hopefully what I make in the second year is more! Going back to my previous example of comparing freelancing to a start-up business, most start-ups won’t be turning a great profit in their first year. 

20% of businesses fail in their first year and around 60% will go bust within their first three years, so if you make it a whole year as a freelancer without quitting, that’s a pretty impressive achievement! Freelancing takes most people time to build up - don’t forget that, or get misguided by influencer bros spouting nonsense. 

Your income is unlikely to be all that stable. This is something that many freelancers struggle with, and something that has been an emotional rollercoaster for me. You may have a three month period where things are going great, and then a project comes to an end, or you lose a client, new business leads dry up a bit, and suddenly you’re panicking about where your next source of work will come from. Don’t worry this happens to most of us, especially when we’re starting off and building things up.

It’s important however to prepare in advance for these slower periods. Always keep an eye on your savings in your work account, and that you’re managing your cash flow effectively so that you always have funds in your account for expenses as you’re waiting for invoices to be paid, and new leads to come in (don’t worry, they will!). 

Finally, don’t forget to pay yourself a pension. Before your employer would have sorted all of this out with your salary, but now it’s on you to manage. Obviously it’s optional, but not paying into your pension for a year could have an impact on your state pension. To help manage your funds in the early months however, you can make lump pension payments. Also keep in mind that your employer is no longer making contributions to your pension fund, so you may want to factor that into the amount that you opt to pay into your pension fund each month/year.

Thinking of going freelance?

Honestly, do it! Worst case scenario, you give it a go, find it’s not for you and you go back to paid employment. Freelancing is tough but it is also super rewarding.

Hopefully any new, potential, or even long time freelancers have found some part of this helpful, or at least relatable. If you have any other questions about the world of freelancing, feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn and drop me a DM with any questions you have 🙂