Freelancing is a great way to make a living, but it can be hard to stay on top of your finances when you’re constantly hustling. If you don’t know what to do when you don’t make enough money freelancing, you might end up in financial trouble.
Some people think that being a freelancer means not having to worry about money, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. As long as you don’t make enough money freelancing, there will always be a chance that you could get into debt or even lose your house.
It’s important to have an emergency fund set aside for these situations; if something happens, like losing your job or getting sick, then it’ll give you time to find another source of income before things get too bad.
| Takeaways |
|---|
| 1. Evaluate your pricing and consider adjusting it if necessary. |
| 2. Diversify your income sources to increase your earning potential. |
| 3. Network and build connections to expand your client base. |
| 4. Continuously upgrade your skills to offer high-demand services. |
| 5. Set financial goals and create a budget to manage your income effectively. |
| 6. Negotiate rates confidently and advocate for your worth. |
| 7. Prioritize projects and manage your time efficiently to maximize productivity. |
| 8. Seek feedback from clients to identify areas for improvement. |
| 9. Consider passive income opportunities to supplement your freelance earnings. |
| 10. Stay positive and maintain a growth mindset during challenging times. |
Steps To Take When You Don’t Make Enough Money Freelancing
If you’re a freelancer and you find yourself scrambling to make ends meet, it can be daunting to figure out what to do next. But don’t worry—there are some simple ways to get started.
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1. Evaluate Your Expenses And Earnings
Look for ways to reduce expenses or increase earnings. If you want to streamline your expenses, consider looking for a new bank account that offers low fees, or switching from an expensive coffee shop to brewing your own coffee at home. If you want to increase your earnings, consider charging more for your services or talking with a mentor about how you can expand the scope of your work.
Make sure that you’ve done all the basics—and that you’re actually getting paid what you deserve for the work that you do! For example, if someone owes you money and they aren’t paying up, don’t hesitate to send them an email reminder. And if you have questions about how much money you should be charging for your services, ask a coworker or mentor who’s in a similar line of work.
2. Adjust Your Rates
The first thing to think about is what your rates are—are they too low? Are they too high? Are they just right? Let’s take a look at how to make sure your rates are in the sweet spot for you.
First, let’s look at whether or not your rates are too low. This can happen if you’re uncomfortable with what you’re charging, or if you don’t know where to start when it comes to deciding on rates.
If this is the case, the best thing to do is to look at what other people in your industry charge and get a sense of what the market rates are for jobs similar to yours. If you find that other people are charging more than you, it might be time to adjust your own rates accordingly.
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3. Start A Side Hustle That Isn’t Freelance-Related
Think about what you enjoy doing or are good at outside of writing. Maybe it’s decorating cakes or tutoring students in math. Maybe it’s babysitting or landscaping.
If you can whip up something delicious in the kitchen, offer your services through word-of-mouth or social media ads. If you have experience gardening, check out your local Craigslist listings for people looking for help with their yards.
This way, if your freelance business starts to slow down, you still have other sources of income to fall back on—and it will be more
4. Set Up A Marketing Schedule
When you don’t make enough money freelancing, it’s time to set up a marketing schedule. If you’re new to freelancing, this may seem obvious, but even if you’ve been doing it for a while, there’s a chance that you haven’t set up a consistent marketing routine yet. A few months ago I found myself in this position.
My clients had started drying up and I was struggling to meet my financial goals for the month. I decided I was going to spend an hour each day on marketing and do at least one self-promotional thing every day until things got better. It didn’t take long before new leads started coming in and now my client list is as full as ever!
5. Set Up An Emergency Fund
If you’ve been freelancing for a while, you probably know by now that there are going to be months when you just don’t make as much money as you need. Maybe a project falls through or a client fails to pay on time. Maybe you took on too much work and can’t get everything done in time.
But fear not! There is an answer: Set up an emergency fund before anything happens! That way, when something does happen, you’ll be prepared. Just put aside some of your earnings each month so that when something comes up, you won’t be stuck scratching your head wondering how to fix it.
6. Don’t Give Up
Remember why you started freelancing in the first place. Was it so you could work with interesting people on interesting projects? So you could have time to spend with your family? So you could live wherever you wanted?
Write down these reasons and read them when times are tough. This will help focus your energy and give you perspective on what’s most important to you.
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7. Stand Out From The Competition With A Specialization
One way to make sure you’re standing out from the crowd is to specialize in a certain area of your industry, or on a specific kind of project. For example, if you’re new to freelancing and know that competition is fierce, consider taking smaller projects that are more manageable, only responding to ads from clients with whom you have a connection, or finding a niche where there isn’t as much competition—and then marketing yourself as an expert in that niche.
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8. Never Do Work For Free
When you’re new to freelancing, getting the word out about your business can feel like an uphill battle. You want to get your name in front of as many people as possible, and you’re willing to do whatever it takes—including working for free—so that potential clients can get a sense for the quality of your work.
There are plenty of problems with this approach. First, doing work for free means that you’re not actually making any money, which is what you’re supposed to be doing. Second, there’s no guarantee that whoever you did the work for will even talk about it in a way that will help your business grow (or at all). Third, it’s not fair to those freelancers who’ve been around longer than you have—they have bills to pay too!
9. Make Sure Your Clients Are Paying You On Time
There’s no real reason why you should be waiting around for your money. Your clients are the ones that need you, and they should pay you on time because they are lucky to have you. If they’re not paying you on time, it may be because they’re just not organized enough. One thing you can do is ask them to set up automatic payments so they won’t forget to send you money when it’s due.
Another thing is to use a program like PayPal that will allow them to send money more easily. And finally, if none of those work, try setting up an account with a service like FreshBooks or QuickBooks so that your invoices will always go out on time!
If all else fails, remind yourself that it’s just a job—not worth losing sleepover!
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Takeaway
With those five quick suggestions in mind, it may be time to revisit your freelancing income expectations. Are you working to add enough value to your clients so that they’d continue to hire you? It’s also worth noting that some of these changes will have a more immediate impact on your bottom line than others.
But perhaps the most important takeaway here is this: if you think your freelance income is not enough, then it’s up to you to increase it. There are plenty of ways you can do that.
Further Reading
Here are some additional resources for further reading on freelancing tips and increasing income:
Business News Daily: Freelancer Tips: Discover valuable tips and strategies to succeed as a freelancer and enhance your earning potential.
With Moxie: 10 Ways to Increase Your Income as a Freelancer: Explore ten practical ways to boost your income and financial stability as a freelancer.
Skills You Need: Freelancing Tips: Gain valuable insights and guidance on various aspects of freelancing, from managing clients to negotiating rates and more.
Frequently Asked Questions
How Many Clients Do I Need To Make Money?
That depends on your financial situation and the rates you charge. Consider how much you’re making now, and how long it takes you to complete a project. If you’re averaging $50 a week from three clients, and it takes five hours to complete a project, that’s $10 an hour. You might be able to start charging more for some of your smaller clients and get them off your roster so you can focus on bigger projects with higher payouts.
What If I Don’t Want To Raise My Rates?
Your rate should be a reflection of the value your work provides to clients. If you are consistently getting paid $20 a post, but other freelancers in your niche are getting paid $100 a post, then what makes you worth half as much as them? Do you have similar experience levels? Have they had their work featured anywhere that yours has not? The best solution is to do research on what other freelancers are charging and adjust your rates accordingly.
What Do I Do If I’m Not Getting Paid?
It might be difficult to bring up money with your client at first, but it can be a lot harder to chase down payment once it becomes a debt. In fact, one of the biggest mistakes freelancers make is not keeping track of outstanding invoices and waiting too long to follow up on them. If you don’t have a system in place for managing invoices, taking care of them right away will help prevent late payments from becoming a pattern.
Do I Really Have To Be Able To Work For Free If I’m Going To Get Started?
No! While it’s true that you will probably have to do some work for free until you build up your portfolio, that doesn’t mean that all of your work should be uncompensated. A good place to start is by making sure that anything you’re working on for yourself is something you can use in your portfolio so that you’ll see some benefit from it, even if it’s not money right away.
Do I Have To Take Low-Paying Jobs If I Can’t Afford To Live Off My Savings?
No. There are plenty of other ways to make money that aren’t related to freelancing, such as part-time work or taking on a second job until you are able to secure enough clients. Unfortunately, doing so may make it difficult for you to run your business, but this is one of those times when the ability to pay rent or mortgage trumps the importance of maintaining the business status quo.
How Do I Know If I’m Not Making Enough Money Freelancing?
This can be a tricky one to answer because it all depends on your circumstances. Have you been freelancing for a long time? Are you new to freelancing? Is your business seasonal? If you have only recently started freelancing, there will be times when the work is slow coming in. If this is the case then unfortunately the answer is simple: you need to invest more time and effort into marketing yourself and finding new clients.
Is It Normal To Make Less Money Freelancing Than Before?
Yes. It’s not uncommon to feel like you’re making less money when you first start freelancing. It takes time to develop expertise and build a client base, and this is true whether you’re starting a freelance business or a brick-and-mortar business.
What Do I Do If I Can’t Pay My Bills?
The most important thing to do is to talk to the people you owe money to. There may be ways for them to adjust your payment plan so that you have more time or lower monthly payments—but only if you explain your situation to them. If you don’t tell the person to whom you owe money, they can’t help you.
How Do I Know How Much Money I Need To Make?
You’ll need a budget, which breaks down all your expenses and shows how much income you need in order to cover them. A good way to get started with budgeting is by reviewing your bank statements from the last few months and writing down every expense—big and small—that you see there. Then, think about any other costs of living or expenses that didn’t appear on your bank statements, such as rent
I’m Charging By The Hour, But I Don’t Seem To Be Making Enough To Cover My Expenses. Am I Just Bad At Math?
Not necessarily! One of the biggest challenges for hourly freelancers is figuring out how much time they really spend on each project. And it’s easy to see why—when you’re busy jumping from one task to the next or juggling multiple projects at once, tracking your time can be tough.
Our advice: give yourself a few weeks where you track every minute you spend working on client projects. Once you have a better idea of how long each task takes, you can use that data as a baseline for estimating future projects and charge accordingly.
Remember, too: being a freelancer means that your income will probably fluctuate pretty regularly, so keep an emergency fund in your savings account in case things get really slow for a bit!
I’m Not Getting Enough Work In My Field Of Choice?
This is a very common problem for freelancers. There are a couple of things you can do to get more work.
First, look at your portfolio: Does it accurately reflect the kind of work you want to do? If you’re looking for long-form writing but your portfolio is filled with tweets, clients might have trouble connecting the dots between what you can provide and what they need. Make sure your portfolio does what it’s supposed to do: show off why you’re an expert in your field. And don’t forget to show some personality!
Second, make sure that wherever you advertise yourself—whether that’s on a job board like Upwork or on your website—your profile photo is professional, friendly, and approachable. You’d be surprised how much of an impact that photo makes on whether people hire you or not!
I am a content writer, and I love what I do! Writing makes me feel like the words are flowing through my fingers, and then onto the keyboard, like magic. My experience as a writer has taught me that writing makes me feel good, as well as helps others to feel better too!