Save or spend, freelancer? 🤑

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I’m in reflection mode as the air begins to chill and my mind begins to wander toward the upcoming holidays. One area I’m thinking about is business expenses as a freelance writer. Last year, I listened to this episode on the Talk Freelance to Me podcast, which featured Christina Gamache, a CFO for solopreneurs. I remember her recommending to ruthlessly review and cut expenses at intervals throughout the year and that bit of advice has stuck with me. It’s so easy to wrack up micro expenses, like subscriptions for publications that help with research, memberships, software, and more.

But all of those monthly charges can quickly add up and take a big bite out of profits!

My business expense purge

I actually went through this process several months ago when I was having a slow month. I culled things like Canva Pro, an old Squarespace marketing plan I was no longer using, and a social media scheduling tool that also was getting zero use.

As a finance writer, I was actually surprised by those phantom business expenses because I frequently go through my personal subscription costs and cut the ones I’m not using anymore!

So if you have any recurring charges (whether monthly or annually), now is a good time to review what actually helped your business in 2024 and what can get cut for 2025 (or sooner).

But I still spend money to make money!

All that being said, I do think it’s worth investing in some areas of your business to help grow. Even if you have no intention of scaling or outsourcing, some expenses can buy back some time in your life!

The two things I spend the most money on in my business are Collective, my bookkeeping and tax service, and my amazing virtual assistant who frees up several hours of my time each month. Those two expenses alone take up nearly $5,000 per year but the time it saves me is worth it — especially when it comes to keeping up on the latest tax and compliance requirements of an LLC!

How about you?

What other areas of your business are you reflecting on as we plow through the fourth quarter? I’d love to know!

Happy freelancing,

Lauren

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