Freelancing is not all rosy and smooth sailing at all times. There are risks associated with it and one of the more common ones is getting paid on time.
At the beginning of my career, I faced the issue of not earning enough. My income dropped below the salary that I used to earn and had to face a few hardships due to depleted income. But within a couple of months my income came up to the level of my previous salary and then it went even higher.
Though there was a drop in earnings, I still had the money coming in on time. So I still managed to make the critical payments on time.
But his month I faced a serious problem of not any money coming in at all. I haven’t still got paid for my work last month. And I haven't got any money left in the bank right now. Already I am overdue for my CC payment and on the verge of getting interest charged for the delayed payments for my mortgage and the lease.
The reason for the delay is my client has not got paid in time by his client. Technically though it is not a problem of mine, I have had to accept the delay. Our current working arrangement does not include any penalties for delayed payments.
To be fair by the client, he offered me to his CC number in case if I can make any payments using that. He also offered to pay for any interest or delay charges levied upon me.
I do trust my client and have had a very trusting relationship with him. I have worked for him for over an year now and he is a great client to have. No two words about it. I think I could have averted all these headaches had I built a emergency fund. But by undertaking a refurbishment of our home, I had dug into all my savings and even went into additional debt. Luckily I have repaid most of that debt.
I think this is an eye opener for me. I need to immediately start building that emergency fund as without it I’m walking a very fine line and living month-on-month payment. That is worse than living paycheck to paycheck, as my monthly income ha the potential to vary. A significant decrease may put me in another quandary.
0 comments:
Post a Comment