If you asked me if I work 2 jobs, my first response would probably be “no.” I’d say that I have a full-time job in the field that I want to work in. Oh, I’d then add, but I do a little work on the side to bring in extra money for debt repayment, grad school, etc. How much? Not every day, three or four days a week maybe. Well, last weekend I worked 14 hours for two clients.

Besides following 5 days of 8-hour shifts, an average 7 hours of freelancing is very different from an average 7 hours at my day job. No coworkers, fewer distractions, and a lot more time spent focused on the work. Sure, working with Mr. J. Money (who apparently covets my external hard drive) in person was a lot of fun, but we were also focused on a huge project—the most complicated Blogger to Wordpress migration I’ve ever done (Blogger FTP vs. regular Blogger).

Half the time, I remember that it’s very much a real job (with real clients and real taxes and real work that gets done). The other half, I find myself wondering why I’m so tired or why I can’t find time to do something (until I look at my schedule). It’s not that I neglect the work itself, I find the work very engaging and prioritize it in my schedule, I just neglect the so-called “work/life balance.”

I still haven’t figured out how to keep myself fully aware that I have two jobs, but it’s something I’m working on both for now and for when I start grad school in the Fall. Things that I’ve found help include:

  1. Using a Calendar to Manage All My Clients — Some weeks I don’t, and even if I just have one client that’s just dumb. I also grant all my google accounts access to each other’s calendars & store my events on one calendar which I can access from any of them.
  2. Using a Calendar to Schedule My Personal Life — I’m not an extremely social person & a week can go by without my having any commitments. But when I do make them, I hate to have to cancel because I realized I scheduled a client. And I hate having to move a client even more. So I combine my business and pleasure calendars to make sure that I avoid scheduling conflicts to begin with.
  3. Taking Time Off Between Clients — This is something I need to do because I have a full-time day job as well. I can’t work every night and weekend or 1) I don’t fulfill my other responsibilities & 2) I start to go a little nuts. But even full-time freelancers need to consider their time off between clients. Whether it’s scheduling an hour for a breather, making sure that you’re not working 7 days/week (unless it works for you), or just finding a few minutes here and there, try purposefully taking time off between clients & projects.
  4. Book Myself — If I didn’t freelance, I’d have a lot more time to write for this blog (and I’d have to write about a different topic) as well as more time to work on my other projects. As it is, I try to schedule blocks of time where I update plugins, do theme work I need to get done, and just write. Otherwise, doing one kind of project can take away from your other projects.

This is what works for me. What matters the most is that I always keep in mind that what I’m doing has the same effect on my life as working any other real job would.

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5 Ways to Hurt Your Credit History Without Using Credit

March 15, 2010

Last Friday’s post on My Next Buck (a “Friday Financial Foul-Up”) reminded us that late movies can hurt your credit report. In fact, not returning a movie can keep you from being considered credit-worthy enough to rent an apartment.

Your use of credit cards, loans, and other forms of credit aren’t the only items that show up on a credit report and affect your financial power, not just to use credit but also to get important things like apartments and possibly even jobs. This is called “alternative credit data” and while it doesn’t necessarily influence your credit score, it’s something that lenders and even potential employers can see.

Even if you don’t use credit at all, these things can still show up on your credit report.

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Basics of Federal Income Tax – Textbook Personal Finance

March 12, 2010

This post is part of the textbook personal finance series which covers basic personal finance skills by going through an actual textbook, chapter-by-chapter. Check out the intro post for more information.

In the last month and a half, we were looking at the very basics of personal finance and money management. Now we’ve moved on chapter 3 and a very timely topic—taxes. There are many types of taxes: taxes on property, taxes on purchases, taxes on wealth, and taxes on earnings. Today we’re going to look at the last kind of taxes, specifically the basics of federal income taxation.

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Working While a Student – Try to Get Ahead or Find a Job for Which You’re Overqualified?

March 10, 2010

One of the responsibilities I have in my current position is training and supervising several student workers. The work they do is pretty easy for the intelligent ones (don’t get me started on some of the others), it’s definitely not rocket science and it’s better for people who can thrive doing tasks which don’t require full use of their mental powers. It’s the sort of job you can do while listening to music or podcasts or books on tape, which some do.

Most of my students are undergraduates, but there’s one who stands out above the others. He’s got an excellent work-ethic, he’s good at his job, he’s personable, and he’s vastly, vastly overqualified. When I saw his résumé, my first thought was “Why would he want to work for us? This guy could be earning more than I am!”

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Putting Together Your Tools to Achieve Financial Goals – Textbook Personal Finance

March 5, 2010

This post is part of the textbook personal finance series which covers basic personal finance skills by going through an actual textbook, chapter-by-chapter. Check out the intro post for more information.

This week, the post is over at Being Frugal, it’s on putting together the tools we’ve been building to achieve your financial goals. The post wraps up chapter 2, covering money management and taking the first steps on getting our finances together.

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TurboTax Home & Business Review

March 3, 2010

I filed my 2009 taxes on Sunday using a review copy of TurboTax Home & Business Online, which allows me to file Schedule C—a necessity for almost all freelancers and sole proprietors.

Until this year, I’d been using the comparable TaxCut (now H&R Block at Home) product, which I won in a giveaway for my 2007 taxes and bought in 2008 since I was already used to the interface. This was also my first time using an online tax filing product instead of a program installed on my computer.

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