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I've been self-employed running a DevOps business for four years, and without a doubt I earn more money with my LLC then when I was employed in San Francisco at
by nodesocket 5y ago
I've been self-employed running a DevOps business for four years, and without a doubt I earn more money with my LLC then when I was employed in San Francisco at startups.
However I can attribute this to the fact I left California and moved to Tennessee. Tennessee does not have state income tax (savings). I signed up for the cheapest catastrophic health insurance I could find (TN health insurance is significantly less than CA). I pay out of pocket up until like $4.5k then the insurance covers 100% after that.
The key is in TAXES! Write offs / deductions are huge. New office desk and chair, new MacBook Pro, AWS bill, new monitors, cell phone, servers in my office closet... All write offs.
Lastly, learn about and use simplified employee pension IRA (SEP). I can contribute $58,000 a year tax deferred. That is crazy higher than the standard miniscule $6,000 with standard IRA's.
Moral of the story, I find the opposite of this article. Being self-employed you take home way more money than being employed. It just takes a six-figure baseline and then utilizing the tax write-offs and deductions to your favor.
- jrib 5y agoWhat is the cost for that insurance?
- nodesocket 5y ago$220 a month, I know crazy inexpensive. It's not through Obamacare, it is via a insurance broker here in Tennessee and United Health.
- duped 5y agoThat seems high for a catastrophic plan unless you have kids
- nodesocket 5y agoNope, single just me. My previous Obamacare plan which was worse in everyway was $450 a month.
- duped 5y agoNow that's insane. My last gold HMO off Kaiser was less than $250 and current PPO is $300 in California. When I bought insurance for myself it was $320 for a silver HMO off the exchanges. But my understanding is that it would be much cheaper today than back then.
- tannedNerd 5y agoI don’t know where you saw that but I bought a bronze plan off the exchange in California for 480 a month last year as a 33/yo
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- camkego 5y agoCan you share more info so others can explore this?
- SkyPuncher 5y agoBuying insurance as a contractor was eye opening to how little my employers had actually been contributing the to cost. Comparable plans were within the ballpark of what I use to pay with employer sponsored health insurance.
- runako 5y agoSlight nitpick, but all United Healthcare plans are regulated by the ACA (Obamacare). This means that they are significantly more comprehensive than the junk plans that comprised the individual market when I started freelancing. (The difference is essentially: they are insurance plans that act like a non-specialist imagines something called "health insurance" would work.)
- orliesaurus 5y agoI am paying about $300 here in Texas - pretty good plan through Friday Health - neat coverage too.
- reasonabl_human 5y agoDo you employ others within your LLC? If not, how do you drum up clients / contracts? Would it have been possible to drum up some contracts at lower hour amounts while still working full-time?
- bdcravens 5y ago> Write offs / deductions are huge Write offs only boost your income by the tax rate, so you'll always spend more than you get back. Which is fine if the expenditure is necessary, but it's not a free expense fund.