Freelancing and Finances

After college, I wanted to spend time living abroad, either in Europe or China. I wanted to explore, have an adventure, or to use my mother’s cliche, “find myself.” People, things, and situations change, however – I just never thought I’d make the move back to Albany. But I realized if I want to make freelancing work, I need to set up a home base for awhile, and get help from the ‘rents as I try to earn more of my own money. I don’t feel as bad as I thought I would – since more and more graduates are doing the same thing – even the ones with full-time jobs.

According to Nadira Hira’s story in Fortune Magazine: “A survey of college graduates from 2000 to 2006 by Experience Inc. found that 58 percent of those polled had moved home after school and that 32 percent stayed more than a year. Even among those who’ve managed to stay away, Pew found that 73 percent of 18- to 25-year-olds have received financial assistance from their parents in the past year, and 64 percent have even gotten help with errands.”

The advantages of moving home are clear for any graduate – you dramatically reduce the two biggest expenses: rent and food. For me, this means I can focus my energy on writing. I got a decent start while in college, but it’s tough to devote all yourself completely when those annoying distractions get in your way: class, work, friends, relationships, enjoying your last semester, etc.

To prepare for the transition, I’m laying out my assets and liabilities. It’ll help me take stock of what working for and against me before graduation. If you know from personal experience I’ve missed something, please comment, and let me know:

Assets

• Investments – I’ve saved and invested since I started bumbling around in a Chinese restaurant when I was 14 – most of this I threw haphazardly into a mixture of stocks and mutual funds for the last 7 years. It’s a miracle I’m not broke. So I do have some investments to liquidate if I require a large amount of capital down the line.
• Emergency fund – I started building a saving account to cover 6-months expenses (rent and food) for the day I’m booted from my stomping grounds.
• Low-consumption – fortunately, my lifestyle doesn’t require a lot of maintenance. I’m a t-shirt and jeans kind of guy who hates hi-tech gizmos, most fashion, television, and everything celebrity. So cash splurging isn’t a problem I encounter often.

Expenses and Liabilities

• Transportation – I will need to buy a car soon post-graduation. This means car insurance and gas, neither which are inexpensive.
• Health insurance – I’m covered until the end of this year, but after, I’ll have to avoid stairs/traffic/cats/barbed wire/heights/scalding water/stoves/sports/children. Or, I’ll have to buy my own health insurance.
• Debt – I needed to take out loans to go to school. Stupid out-of-state-tuition at Rutgers.
• Credit – not really a liability, but I have none, since I never purchased a credit card. Not a problem yet, but something I do need to handle in the coming months.
• Miscellaneous expenses – birthdays and holidays do come up, as will the occasional desire to do something besides work – all which cost money. Not that big of a problem if there’s some positive cash flow. A big problem if there isn’t.

Methods to Create Cash Flow

• Update websites more diligently – everyone’s putting ads on their websites, and if it’ll bring in a small revenue stream, shoot, I should be doing it too. That means providing material that people want to read, of course.
• Finish book – I’ll complete the rough draft of one project in June. I’m hoping for a turnaround time of 2 to 3 months till publishing, at which point – who knows? Either continuing what I’m doing while passively marketing, or launching a full-blown marketing campaign that takes me wherever I need to go.
• Looking for other start-up opportunities
• Actually get a job – this is a last resort (seriously.) But if January rolls around, and there’s still little progress towards fruition of my efforts, then I’ll probably have to find some sort of gig. Then it’ll be copywriter/editor/reporter/waiter/analyst/stripper by day, and freelancer by night.