The Secret Life of Mom the Freelancer
The term “freelancer” or freelance worker has a certain mystery to it. Perhaps because we associate the term with freelance photographers who do exotic and sometimes dangerous work, we never think of freelancing ourselves. But when you are starting to develop a work-at-home mom mentality, in every aspect you are a freelance worker. And by accessing many of the tools that freelancers use, particularly online, you can make good money offering your service on a freelance basis.
To remove the mystery and romance from the word, a freelancer is simply a contractor who works by the job. You change an hourly or per job fee for your work and you get paid all that you charge. Taxes and social security are not taken out of your pay so you must file differently on your taxes at the end of the year. This is not an article about taxes but one thing to be mindful of is that all of the expenses you use to conduct your job as an independent freelancer are deductible so keep good records of your earnings and your expenses.
There are many work-at-home jobs where you do go on staff with a company but you continue to work from home. A virtual assistant might work in this mode. If your company that you worked for before you decided to work from home decided to keep you on salary and just set you up to work from your home, then you would still be an employee and not a freelancer.
The great thing about working as an independent contractor is that you are the boss of you. Once you establish yourself so you have clients and the ability to generate work reliably, you will have an income you can depend on and an unlimited income potential. Unlike working for a boss, contractors never lose their jobs. You will “go through” customers by adding new ones and seeing older ones drop out of your workflow routinely. But that is not unexpected for a freelance mom.
There are dozens of freelance worker job boards on the internet where you can find work that utilizes your particular skill. To use a freelance job board, you usually just set up a profile that connects to your email address. You will bid on jobs against other freelance workers. As you win jobs and complete them, your reputation grows and you can get better and better jobs. Generally, you set up a payment processing account with a service like 2co.com or PayPal and that is how you get paid. You will also connect the payment processing service to your bank account so you can routinely download your earnings to your personal account to spend it.
Another approach to using your skills in a contractor mode is to offer your services to local businesses on a contract basis and win contracts that you can perform at home. Certain skills are perfect for this kind of contract work. You can write, cook, perform accounting, do research or perform businesses analysis and often do much or all of the work in your office at home where you are always there for your children and spouse.
Not only is freelance work an ideal way to realize your dream to work at home but it taps the best skills you have to keep you learning and growing in your skill set. You are a productive member of not just one business but many. And you always have control over your work flow so you can decide when to work a lot and when you allow your work schedule to become lighter so you can focus more time on doing the one job you love the most, the job of being a mom.
