Initial Considerations

After going over both the pros and cons, if freelancing still sounds exciting to you, 0:00 then it looks like you may have found a career path. 0:05 How you start off your freelancing career makes a big difference. 0:08 One of the first mistakes you can make 0:12 is to quit your current job immediately and dive right into freelancing. 0:14 This road is filled with struggles, frustrations, and plenty of anxiety, and soon you will hate freelancing. 0:18 The key is to plan for the transition as much as possible 0:25 and to mitigate any necessary risks so that you can focus on building your business. 0:28 The first thing you want to do is build up your savings. 0:34 Before rushing into any uncertain venture, 0:37 you want to make sure you have your basic needs covered. 0:40 Freelancing won't bring in the same amount of money as your current job from day 1, but you will still need money to survive. 0:43 So, how much should you save? 0:50 That depends on a lot of things, of course, but you can get a good starting point by examining your current lifestyle. 0:53 Start by looking at your basic living expenses. 1:00 How much money do you need to get by from month to month? 1:03 Your current lifestyle might be too lavish and you might need to cut back on certain things until your income can support it again. 1:06 Being frugal is tough, but scaling back for a bit is okay. 1:14 It will make saving for the long haul much easier. 1:18 I recommend planning for 3 months of downtime 1:21 until you get familiar with the workflow and are accustomed to finding clients. 1:24 That way, you can focus on learning the ropes, instead of struggling for money. 1:29 You can do things right without as much of the pressure. 1:33 So at minimum, you want to have 3 months' worth of expenses saved. 1:37 To be fully prepared, you might also want to save up more in case of emergencies. 1:41 Remember that, unlike a steady job, you won't have any sort of benefits starting out, 1:45 no health, or any other kind of insurance, so in the event of a health emergency, you need to have some money saved away. 1:50 But it's not just living expenses you need to account for. 1:57 There's start-up costs, both hardware and software. 2:01 In addition to a computer, you will need to account for the monthly expenses 2:04 of subscribing to the various web apps that you will need to help with your day-to-day tasks. 2:08 Estimate what it will cost per month to have all the tools you need and add that to your budget. 2:14 Now you don't need a formal budget to start out, 2:19 but it's a great idea to go over some of these overheads and establish a rough savings plan. 2:22 Your income from freelancing can be very unsteady, especially when you first start out. 2:28 One month you might make $4,000, the next month $800. 2:33 The way you mitigate this is by building up that cash buffer. 2:37 The second thing you can do is to try and either find clients, projects, or both while you have your day job. 2:41 Start freelancing part-time and take on a few small projects to either build up your portfolio or your client base. 2:49 This way, once you've saved up enough and you're going to make the switch to go freelance full-time, 2:56 you should also have a steady flow of money coming in from regular clients or projects. 3:02 And if things get slow, you will also have other clients you can reach out to to do more work. 3:07 Freelancing sounds perfect for a lot of people, but is very difficult when you first start out. 3:13 It is very important to go into it prepared and you can do that by 3:18 saving up to survive for 3 months without any paycheck, 3:22 budgeting for start-up expenses and any overheads, 3:26 and finally, seeking out clients and work before deciding to do it full-time. 3:29