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I cant agree with this article. Ive been a solo consultant for 5 years now. Here are my takeaways- -Maintain good relationships with anyone that can give you w
by S_A_P 7y ago
I cant agree with this article. Ive been a solo consultant for 5 years now. Here are my takeaways-
-Maintain good relationships with anyone that can give you work. Most of the time you will ping pong between vendors for work.
-Don't be afraid to build in "bench" time into your hourly rate. The rates listed in this article are much lower than I would recommend. I target 85% utilized in my personal model. I work in a niche and will not consider less than 150/hr for anything less than a 12 month contract.
-Remember that despite the best of relationships and intents, contractors are expendable. You can and will get let go before employees. That is not a bad thing. In fact, its a gift. You get to leave before morale and expectations get too far out of control.
-Do put rainy day money away into fungible assets. Savings accounts probably aren't great for that.
-Do try to have multiple clients at once, if you can swing 2 full time gigs, most of the time this can be juggled in the short term.
-If you get told you are rolling off, don't take it personal. I have the hardest time with this part of it. It is my nature to give my all when I am at a gig. When the let me go, I feel that it is an affront or personal. Its not, its business. If you do this, you will make more than many high level executive salaries. That doesn't count the equity side but making 2-400k a year is a real possibility.
-When its time to leave you will know. The biggest upside I see in consulting is I have the freedom to leave when I cant deal with the bullshit anymore.
-Every company has bullshit you will grow tired of. Honeymoon periods last 3-24 months, but there will always be bs.
- westoncb 7y ago> If you get told you are rolling off, don't take it personal What do you mean by "rolling off" here?
- taneq 7y agoContext indicates it means their contract is not being renewed. Maybe something related to rolling stones gathering no moss?
- bradgessler 7y agoIt’s consultantese for “the contract is ending or being terminated”
- wtracy 7y ago> put rainy day money away into fungible assets. Savings accounts probably aren't great Could you elaborate? Do you feel that the returns on savings accounts are too low? What do you recommend instead? (I'm not looking for a very specific answer here.) I would think that you would want emergency money to go into something that isn't very volatile, and savings accounts or money market account are the first things that come to mind. (I've been very disappointed by what I've seen of CDs. If you hunt around, you can find savings accounts with interest rates that beat any CD I've seen, and they don't have an early withdrawal penalty.)
- jtmarl1n 7y agoThe online savings and money market accounts are the best I have found as well. Also shared your experience with CD rates while looking at them. No point to going down that road unless you need to make it harder for yourself to withdraw money. Depending on your health insurance situation tax advantage of HSA accounts as well even though they are less fungible.
- lbotos 7y agolinks to these savings accounts > 2% that don't have any "deposit 200/m" or "need to be over x balance for 12mo to get the interest?
- astura 7y agohttps://www.doctorofcredit.com/high-interest-savings-to-get/ https://www.doctorofcredit.com/high-interest-savings-to-get/
- iudqnolq 7y agoAlly Bank offers 1.6 APY if you want a bigger name with a good reputation that still offers decent rates. And I don't think more than a few months expenses should be in savings anyway (as opposed to ETFs)
- celestialcheese 7y agoFed rate dropped - but up until a month or two ago, there were a number of banks. Discover, Wealthfront, Marcus by GS. Right now the rate i'm seeing everywhere without crazy requirements and no minimums is ~1.7%