What Every Freelancer Should Know

Catherine Price Offers Practical and Funny Tips for the Self-Employed

My DC Web Women colleague Chris Raymond shared this article with me today, and I wanted to share it with you. In her piece "What Every Freelancer Should Know", Salon.com's Catherine Price offers 13 handy tips for self-employed people. There's lots of good info here, including tax preparation, personal finance, health insurance, and maintaining your sanity while working from home.

My favorite is Tip #11:

Do not own a coffeemaker. I know this goes against the wisdom of those budgeting articles (the money you save on lattes could pay for your child's college education!). But it's critical for your mental health to leave the house at least once a day and interact with real, live humans -- even if you are only talking about Starbucks. So here's a compromise: Identify the cheapest drink that you enjoy. Then calculate how much it costs -- in my case, $1.50 for iced tea -- compared to a $100 therapy session in which you talk about how lonely and depressed you are. My guess? That iced tea is a bargain.

Good stuff!