Anyone can find financial statistics. We can learn the average salaries of teachers, doctors, even the President. But how much should you earn when you're self employed?
Setting self employed goals is difficult, because the nature of the job is that it's so solitary. It's not easy to find out what other self employed professionals earn, to know if you are above or below the average. The thing about self employment is, it’s different for everyone. The reason for this is that self employment, itself, is incredibly vast and varied. Writing, graphic design, secretarial duties, phone operations, even running a home-based business can all add up to self employment – but each of these jobs is very different.
Self Employment Goals
So how do professionals go about setting their own self employment goals when it comes to earning income? How do self employed professionals know what to strive for if they don’t have anything to go off of? When it comes to self employment, just how much should you earn?
This number, too, varies for each individual. In any form of employment, whether individuals work for themselves and work from home, or go every day into an office or factory, it's important for each professional to earn as much as they need to ensure survival. That might sound like a simple answer, but that’s actually much harder than it sounds.
How Much Should You Earn?
To know how much you should earn, you have to know how much you spend. Figure the monthly average of bills, rent, or mortgage payments. Include other living expenses like grocery bills and gas usage in the budget. How much is there? If you live alone, obviously you need to earn enough money to cover these expenses by yourself. If you have a partner who’s sharing the bills, you should roughly aim for earning half the cost of the expenses in front of you, with a little more left over so that you have some money in your life for extras.
For help with learning how to budget, so you can get those expenses down to a reasonable level, read this great article the Envelope Budget System. For parents, check out the advice at the Partners and Parents blog.
Everyone’s living needs are different, which makes everyone’s individual goals different. Just remember, how much you earn through your self employment is entirely up to you. For more information about the life of a self employed professional, read the great tips and advice at the Entrepreneurs section.
