3 ms·

I view 3 weeks without work as a feature, not as a problem. Also it is quite possible to earn a professional wage on Elance. There are people willing to pay se

I view 3 weeks without work as a feature, not as a problem. Also it is quite possible to earn a professional wage on Elance. There are people willing to pay serious money to serious people on Elance. But I believe that a freelance should always keep at least six months of living expenses worth of funds in liquid assets.

pathy 13y ago
> I view 3 weeks without work as a feature, not as a problem. 3 weeks without work can mean real cash issues, especially for those who are just starting out in freelancing. It may be nice to have a three week break but let's be honest, most would be terrified and be frantically hunting for work. Hardly a feature. >But I believe that a freelance should always keep at least six months of living expenses worth of funds in liquid assets. But if you have a six month emergency fund, then it may be a feature I guess ;). Many do not though.
- nbouscal 13y ago
  If you don't have a six month emergency fund, regardless of whether or not you're a freelancer, one of your top priorities should be building a six month emergency fund.
  - pjungwir 13y ago
    I strongly agree with this. I freelance, and having the savings to cover slow periods is not just reassuring, it also helps me advance professionally. I feel safe passing on bad clients and insisting on my rate, because I'm not living check-to-check. I'm not saying you should keep your day job until you have a full 6 months, but you should have something, and you should aggressively save until you've reached 6 (or more). I also like to have one big (20 hours/week) project at a time, along with a bunch of smaller long-term relationships that bring in steady low-volume work. That means even if you're between big projects, you still have some work and some income. I don't think I've gone 3 weeks with truly zero work since I started freelancing.
- pessimizer 13y ago
  I'm working a corporate job now, and wistfully looking back to when I was freelancing 2 years ago, and could take a month off to travel when work was slow. Three weeks in a row with no work to do is like a dream. In life, living check-to-check is always a bad thing. Everything becomes an emergency; you can't wait for a better deal when making purchases, you have to take any work that comes along, you end up borrowing money...
mekarpeles 13y ago
3 weeks without work is a nice feature so long as one has options/opportunities to work. It is possible to earn a professional livable wage on Elance, however the professions for which freelancers are being employed via Elance are frequently menial / not complex software projects (and thus the wages are closer to $5-50/h as opposed to $100+). I am unable to find more than 11 jobs on Elance in IT that pay > $150/h. I receive about that many requests from companies by email weekly. I don't believe Elance, as a platform, is conducive/setup to address involved problems which require rigorous testing & best practices to begin with. What Elance does well is aggregates supply and demand and provides a method of finding work. I believe the best option is to build a network / partner with other agencies who have different skill sets and refer opportunities within your network. This is how we've been addressing the problem of continuous opportunities with Hackerlist. We partner with tons of independent consultancies with domain specific expertise and forward them work. Also, freelancing picks up over time. Almost every client we've worked with has turned into a return customer (which we're really grateful for).

pathy 13y ago

> I view 3 weeks without work as a feature, not as a problem. 3 weeks without work can mean real cash issues, especially for those who are just starting out in freelancing. It may be nice to have a three week break but let's be honest, most would be terrified and be frantically hunting for work. Hardly a feature. >But I believe that a freelance should always keep at least six months of living expenses worth of funds in liquid assets. But if you have a six month emergency fund, then it may be a feature I guess ;). Many do not though.

nbouscal 13y ago
If you don't have a six month emergency fund, regardless of whether or not you're a freelancer, one of your top priorities should be building a six month emergency fund.
- pjungwir 13y ago
  I strongly agree with this. I freelance, and having the savings to cover slow periods is not just reassuring, it also helps me advance professionally. I feel safe passing on bad clients and insisting on my rate, because I'm not living check-to-check. I'm not saying you should keep your day job until you have a full 6 months, but you should have something, and you should aggressively save until you've reached 6 (or more). I also like to have one big (20 hours/week) project at a time, along with a bunch of smaller long-term relationships that bring in steady low-volume work. That means even if you're between big projects, you still have some work and some income. I don't think I've gone 3 weeks with truly zero work since I started freelancing.
pessimizer 13y ago
I'm working a corporate job now, and wistfully looking back to when I was freelancing 2 years ago, and could take a month off to travel when work was slow. Three weeks in a row with no work to do is like a dream. In life, living check-to-check is always a bad thing. Everything becomes an emergency; you can't wait for a better deal when making purchases, you have to take any work that comes along, you end up borrowing money...

mekarpeles 13y ago

3 weeks without work is a nice feature so long as one has options/opportunities to work. It is possible to earn a professional livable wage on Elance, however the professions for which freelancers are being employed via Elance are frequently menial / not complex software projects (and thus the wages are closer to $5-50/h as opposed to $100+). I am unable to find more than 11 jobs on Elance in IT that pay > $150/h. I receive about that many requests from companies by email weekly. I don't believe Elance, as a platform, is conducive/setup to address involved problems which require rigorous testing & best practices to begin with. What Elance does well is aggregates supply and demand and provides a method of finding work. I believe the best option is to build a network / partner with other agencies who have different skill sets and refer opportunities within your network. This is how we've been addressing the problem of continuous opportunities with Hackerlist. We partner with tons of independent consultancies with domain specific expertise and forward them work. Also, freelancing picks up over time. Almost every client we've worked with has turned into a return customer (which we're really grateful for).