“Nothing is certain except for death and taxes.

Apr 10, 2022

Hey Friends

Had a pretty good week and was able to get through this tax season without losing my mind. I have also been working on a new collage series that I am very excited to drop! Got a good amount of print orders recently too, so appreciate the love and all of you who ordered!

Nothing is certain except for death and taxes

So this past week (and this time of year in general) I see a lot of people start talking about "taxes". For many of us freelancers, especially the first-timers taxes can be a daunting feat when you are self-employed. I wanted to offer some "Not financial advice" for y'all that I have learned to make my finances a bit more manageable as an independent contractor. Keep in mind that this info is mainly applicable to my U.S. homies but I'm sure most of it can be adapted to your home country.

So for starters, before we even get to this point of figuring out expenses and filing taxes I set a rule for income throughout the year. Where I live in California the taxes are pretty fucking high so I usually aim to save around 30% of every invoice I receive. Sometimes this ends up being conservative or it can be right on the money there are different State tax brackets for different states, combine that with the federal tax bracket you are in and you got your estimated amount you can save. This strategy takes a lot of discipline to be able to not spend all the money you get each time a job pays you, however, it is a lot more comforting in the long run when you have to file and arent worried about having the money to cover it.

When you are working with clients too, make sure to have solid paperwork in line so this whole process becomes easier. Here are some resources for this subject.

My Contract Video/Template
Harry Vincent's Contract Template
Wave App for Invoicing
Google Sheets for keeping track of finances
Use Zelle when you can or a payment processor that doesn't take transaction fees.

When it comes time to actually file your taxes, I like using Turbotax. For me, it has been the easiest to use and has worked for me when did self-employed taxes and when I worked a normal 9-5 job. If you get to the end of the year and you owe more than you expected, try to see what you can write off as an expense. You would be surprised how much stuff could qualify as a business expense. Some that most of y'all would have is Internet Bill, Adobe subscription, computer equipment, drawing materials, etc. Check out this article by keeper tax for more write-offs. Also if you work from home you can write off part of your "home office" as an operating expense.

I hope some of this info helps ya out and I wish you all the best!