#NoNothingNovember: Day 25, Freelancing

When I first started this month, I was in a completely different place in my life. I was in a rut, getting almost nothing done past the bare minimum. I was scraping by, doing enough to keep food on the table and just existing. Even on the days that left me wondering if the soulsucking nature of it was even worth some ramen noodles, I kept going.

Why? Habit maybe. Or, perhaps I just knew at some base level that doing something – anything, was what was keeping me sane.

I was a rut and I was just wallowing in it.

Now? I wake up everyday, exercise to get my heart pumping hard and start the day off right, then I drop my shoulder and tackle life full force. Even the days with setbacks didn’t stop my overall momentum. I kept grinding and oh, what a grind it was.

Some days I had my nose to the grindstone and thought it smelled more akin to the Augean stables than a miller’s house.

Today is not one of those days. Ever since I took up freelancing, I’ve put the feelings of wasted time or wage slavery to the past.

Was I making better money when I was working for someone else? Yeah, after taxes and everything I’d say I’m making less money than I would if I was putting my freelancing hours in as overtime working for someone else.

But ignoring the taxes, and the smaller paychecks, or the “I could have this or I could have that” there is something very real that I have now that I couldn’t have if I was working for someone else for $50 an hour, or $100, or $200.

I have peace. I am free to do what I want, when I want. My whole life, I’ve always been the kind of man who wasn’t comfortable putting on a monkey suit and working my fingers to the bone to profit someone else.

An Employee ID badge is just the collar of a wage slave.

Don’t mistake my meaning here. I have always worked hard, even when I did work for other people, but it tears at my soul. It drains me and leaves me feeling confined.

I have to watch what I say, or else someone might get offended or dislike me and use my words to take away my ability to eat.

What an awful feeling it is to know that you must censor yourself. To know that if you don’t cut the tongue out of your mouth you won’t be able to fill it with food.

I may make less money working for myself than I do if I put in those hours for someone else but I have something money can’t buy.

Let’s do some math. Let’s pretend I was working for $20 an hour. If I worked 40 hours per week, for 52 weeks straight, I would have put in 2,080 hours in a year. 2,080 work hours per year X $20 per hour means that, before taxes and deductions for healthcare/etc., I would be bringing home 41,600.

At my current rate, I’m averaging about $22 per hour for my freelance work. Some of the jobs pay better than others, and some pay less. I take what I feel comfortable with and projects I know would be simple or fun to do. For the bigger price-tags, I’m realistic about what I can do and more importantly, how long it would take me to do the work and if that’s a fair price for the job for my client.

Plus, I’m working about an hour or two less per day. Let’s say that I work a total of 35 hours per week, instead of 40. Remember, I was working more than 40 per week before, at less than $20 an hour and getting killed on taxes for those extra couple of hours. 35 hours per week X 52 weeks in a year =1,820 hours worked per year. 1,820 X $22 per hour = 40,040.

That means that when I was killing myself for somebody else’s profit, I was making $1,560 more per year. After taxes, it was much less than that, but let’s say I got to keep the full $1,560. I would be making about $4.20 extra per day. What is that? A cheap coffee and a donut for breakfast?

For the price of $4 extra per work day, I get to sleep in if I want. I get to wake up and go to work after my run at 4AM if I want. I get to pause work and watch a youtube clip of the Thundercats opening theme song if I want. For the price of $4 extra per day, I set my own hours. For the price of $4 per day, I don’t have a college dropout middle-manager who is related to the owner of the company trying to talk down to me all day with a false superiority complex. For the price of $4 per day, I get to keep every dime I earn after the government gets their cut.

For the price of $4 per day, I got to watch a random movie on television and my boss (me) gave myself a pat on the back for dedication to work because the job I was working on was a fantasy novel similar to the movie.

When was the last time you got praised for watching Star Wars at work because it made you better at your job?

For the price of $4 per day, I’ve given the idea of ever having anyone else as a boss the finger.

For the price of $4, I’ve bought my freedom.

I’m free of wage slavery. Will I always be making $22+ per hour for freelancing? No, I’m sure that I’ll be making much less. But even if I only made $30,000 per year, or even $20,000, I’ve survived on less.

It’s not that I’m a penny-pincher. I just don’t waste money and I don’t buy a lot of things I don’t need. Food, housing, clothing, the essentials for work. Even the amount I save per year on gas and use-wear on my car means I’m saving money by working from home.

Will I always make $42k per year from freelancing? No, probably not. But if I’m going to work for anyone, I’d rather have a few less dollars and be able to sleep at night than having my soul sucked out of the slouch in my spine from my defeated body posture of being chained to a damn cubicle all day.

I love what I’m doing. I love my job. I love the fact I’m enjoying life. I got so much done today. As I was finishing up the 25,000 word manuscript I’ve been working on for the past week or so, a client I had emailed earlier in the week followed up with more work that could very well finance all of my holiday shopping this year. Fingers crossed, right?

Other than freelancing, I got my exercise in today and now that I’ve got today’s blog post up I’m going to go work more on my fiction novel. I would’ve done that earlier today but I always like to turn my paid work in early when I can just go ahead and get it done. Happier clients come back with more work in the future, and I like delivering above average service.

After I get a few thousands words on my novel done, I think I’ll hit the showers and grab a bite to eat. I haven’t eaten since noon.

Gods, I love this job.

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Here I was thinking I might slack off from yesterday’s successes but I’m happy to see that isn’t the case. I will dock points for the movie I watched today. Not because I was just blankly staring, or because it wasn’t actually a fit for the novel and I did some mental-justification, it’s just because I didn’t plan the movie ahead of time. It was one I had been meaning to watch for awhile and it finally came on television so I decided to give it a watch because the subject matter was close to what I was writing and I had hit a block so I hoped it would get my creative juices flowing. It did, but I’m taking points off because it was unscheduled and that’s not a habit I want to get into. Other than that, exercise and writing were great, and I didn’t mindlessly scroll Twitter or any other sites. Nothing. No media at all except two movies this entire month. Give that, today’s scores are

1) Foregoing of mindless media consumption. 10/10
2) Having a clear daily plan and deadline goals to meet. 8/10
3) Exercise and write everyday. Period. 10/10

Daily Total: 28/30
Yesterday’s Total: 30/30
Total To Date: 613/750