Freelancers, what’s your largest business expense?

Nov 13

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freelancing expenses

It’s nearing the end of the year. Americans are out hunting turkeys and folks around the world are pinching pennies in preparation for the winter holiday season. So, I’m curious:

Where are you spending the most in your freelance business? Where do you think you could afford to save a bit? Should you cut back on a few subscriptions to magazines or web services? Buy year-old computer gear instead of the latest & greatest? Or hey, maybe business is booming and you could care less about expenses right now.

Whatever the case, cast your vote in the poll and share your thoughts in the comments!

Freelancers, what's your largest business expense?
View Results

*Update: Two categories were added late, and so are horribly unscientific: Insurance & Travel.

Go Media is a creative agency based in Cleveland, Ohio. Besides the GoMediaZine, we also work for clients and sell stock artwork and design files on the Arsenal.

business, expenses, finance, Freelancing, poll

This post was written by:

Adam Wagner - who has written 78 posts on GoMediaZine.

I'm a marketer, designer, armchair singer/songwriter, wannabe theoretical physicist/philosopher and recent college grad trying to pack as much living as possible into each day. Working at Go Media makes this pretty easy. Catch me on Twitter!!

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  • Adam_Wagner
    @srpsco just mentioned via twitter that I left out a category for "Travel". Quite right! Way late, but I added it as an answer anyway.
  • JabbaJaw
    I think running a business this day it is a pretty big thing to do and cuting some expenses i don't think it is a right thing to do unless you are pushed from behind because of failure or something like that.Profit wont forget to come if your idea itis good and it is taken to its high potential.


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  • I would say my internet bills. Broadband internet connection is a very expensive thing here in Indonesia.
  • Hardware & Software for me. As said already, it hasn't paid for itself yet. Clients do expect everything to be instantaneous and expect the computer to work almost as fast as their thoughts. I wont upgrade now for a couple of years.
  • I used to spend most of my money on Hardware/Software - but now that we have that behind us - it became Resource material like Tutorial Mags - now we can get that online. Business has turned a fork for me now and we contract out or hire employees to perform daily creative/development work - I never thought it would happen - but now I guess we spend most of our money contract wages.
  • Hardware is a large cost, but I usually only upgrade computers every 2 years (just ordered my Hackintosh parts on Friday), so it kinda evens out.
  • Used to be hardware and hardware, but since I get all what I need, I don't upgrade it often. (only Win, Office and Adobe pricey)

    If all phone calls ,faxes , tickets to go here and there to meet client count as Contract Labor, I vote for it.
  • I would definitely say that hardware/software is my largest overhead. Shortly after that would be stock photos, but it's pretty far behind. Most images that I work with are either provided to me or created.

    I think that a lot of clients don't often think of the overhead that software and hardware create for designers. They only see time and effort. More time. Sometimes I feel like I can never move fast enough for a client. There's often the perception that because we use a computer that it should be almost instantaneous.
  • So far my biggest expense has been my computer and hardware. I'm not exactly at the point where it's paid for itself yet...
  • Adam_Wagner
    Just added "Insurance" as a choice. Not very scientific, I know, but over time it should even out.
  • yup; taxes and insurance are the biggest and then maybe software, hardware and utilities.
  • Yeah, I'd say taxes are my biggest single expense!
  • llaboo
    I think you forgot to add those other things that effect freelancers - Tax, Health Insurance, SSI. These actually ate up to 40% of what I would charge to the client. These are real and Large expenses that should be looked at before you think about software and subscriptions. Magazines can be delayed but the tax man is a mean mistress who does not have a safe word.
  • hoshimo
    YES taxes hands down. maybe it's not in the list because you don't exactly CHOOSE to spend money on it... but still...
  • Adam_Wagner
    Ah yea. I see what you mean about taxes, but I think I'm still going to leave those off the poll just because it's pretty unavoidable.

    Great catch with insurance though! I'll add that right away!
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