Do You Know How To Cost Projects That You Are Bidding For?

Weekly Newsletter for The Freelancers: Here is the latest newsletter of the week starting on 4th August 2019.

Freelancing Flash Teams do exist and quite often they are started and managed by one freelancer. They can be quite complex projects.

Project costing management comes in here because it is essential that you get your project costs right or you could be completing the project at a loss!

This is especially true if you are bidding to be awarded the project contract that is based overseas and you are employing overseas freelancers.

It is like being in charge of putting a jigsaw puzzle together where you have to imagine the parts of the puzzle and envision the total project completed.

Naturally, you would be unwise to take on such a project without using a freelancing platform such as Freelancer.com or Upwork.com.

This is because you need the protection of an escrow system both for your payment and to ensure the quality of the work of the freelancers that you hire for the work that you are not able to do yourself.

Freelancer.com has developed a system called Recruiter Projects where they have an assistant to help you find the right freelancers for your project. This, of course, comes at a cost and must be a part of your costing of a project.

Nick Darlington has written How to Easily Build Great Estimates for Your Projects for the Freshbooks.com blog which you can read here.

Aja Frost has written about The 10 Best Project Management Tools for Freelancers. Aja’s article appears in Contently.net and you can read it here.

Here is an Amazon Kindle eBook that will help you with freelancing project costing and hiring the right freelancers to get the job done:

You can obtain a copy of the book from Amazon by clicking on the icon or the link below it.

Motivate Yourself!

“Your positive action combined with positive thinking results
in success.”

– Shiv Khera

You Need To Motivate Yourself To Build A Positivity Circuit

When you start out freelancing or even for experienced freelancers, it is very easy to see problems at every corner on the journey to building a fair and reasonable income and a successful career.

It is necessary to build a positivity circuit in your thinking so that you do not become overwhelmed with negativity.

If negativity emerges in your thinking it can sap you of the energy needed to get on with the job of being creative.

Loretta Breuning has identified this issue and how to overcome it. Loretta has written How To Train Your Brain To Go Positive Instead Of Negative and it appears in the Forbes magazine which you can read here.

For those of you that like action plans and the steps to take, Christina Larmer has put together a list for you entitled 10 steps to thinking positive which appears on the Bodyandsoutl.com.au website.

You can read Christina’s article here.

Now and then classic books that span generations come along that inspire and help millions of people.

This book by Napoleon Hill: Success Through A Positive Mental Attitude is one such book and can be obtained by clicking on the icon below:

Amazon Disclosure: The links used are affiliate links. By buying through the links I may receive a commission for the sale. This has no effect on the price for you.

This quote from Napoleon Hill is right on the money for freelancers:

“All the breaks you need in life wait within your imagination. Imagination is the workshop of your mind, capable of turning mind energy into accomplishment and wealth.”

Productivity Tip Of The Week

Do You Know What The 50/30/20 Plan Is For Budgeting?

Image Credit pixabay.com

For freelancers and entrepreneurs, the 50/30/20 rule can provide a foundation on which to build your finances.

This plan was featured by Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi in their book All Your Worth: The Ultimate Lifetime Money Plan. The underlying point is that your finances, as freelancers, are not as simple as being an employee.

You have to budget not only for income but expenses as well, including taxes. On top of this, you will find the need to smooth your income between the feast and famine when you are reliant on gigs.

Here is Chris Enns’ article 5 things every variable income earner should know which appears in Thedumblittleman.com blog. You can read the article here.

Abdullahi Muhammed has written The 50/30/20 Rule of Thumb for Budgeting for the Forbes Magazine and you can read his expansion on the 50/30/20 plan here.

For those who are on a tight budget, and most freelancers are, HuffingtonPost.com has shared 29 ways you waste cash which you can read here.

Work-Life Balance Tip Of The Week

Imagine What Lessons You Will Have Learned In Ten Years Of Freelancing!

Have you ever said to yourself “I should have known better”, “If only I had known” or perhaps, the best of all, “How stupid can I get?” There is a common element in these statements and that is regret for not being able to foresee events from your current experience.

As a freelancer, it is important that you do foresee events that can harm you, your family, finances or career.

It is more important for you as a freelancer than if you are a 9 to 5 employee because a wrong decision impacts on you, your family, finances, and career much more so.

That is why freelancers need to read about the experiences of other freelancers who have travelled the road before you. It is why I am a strong advocate of being a member of the Freelancers Union.

Lori Bumgarner has written 10 Lessons from 10 years of freelancing for the Freelancers Union blog which you can read here.

In the introduction to the article, Lori says

“I hope these lessons will encourage those who are thinking about starting their own thing, are new to freelancing, or have faced some common struggles”.
—————– Thank you, Lori!

This quote about learning from the experience of others has a lot of wisdom:

“We don’t have to waste our time learning how to make
pastry when we can use grandma’s recipes.”

– Orson De Witt (Earth Won’t Miss You)

Financial Tip of the Week

Do You Know How To Apply To Rent A New Apartment When You Are A Freelancer?

Next to applying for a home loan when you are a freelancer, applying to rent an apartment can be a financial problem.

The reason is that you do not have an employer that the landlord or the real estate agent can telephone to confirm your employment or income. It is a part of doing their due diligence to ensure that you are not a future problem renter who cannot pay the rent.

Imagine that you were in the position of the landlord; you would do the same and so would I.

Carrie Smith has written Self-Employed? Here’s How to Get Your Apartment Application Approved for Wisebread.com and you can read her article here.

Erin Bylander has told the story about a new graphic designer freelancer in Some Issues can Make Renting Tricky — but not Impossible which he has written for the Washington Post. You can read it here.

For freelancers starting out, and people on low to moderate income, renting is a serious social issue which is what prompted Charles Morris to write his Kindle eBook Rent Apartment: The Complete Guide to Low Rent Apartments, Renting Houses and More which you can look inside of here or by clicking on the image below:

Skills Development and Inspiration News

Image Credit Pixabay.com

We are constantly searching for news articles and videos on skills development and inspiration for freelancers.

Each week we have decided to bring you the links to what we consider are the top three articles or videos. Here they are for this week:

Freelancer negotiations skills (And self-employed too): Neal Ungerleider for www.almostmillions.com which you can read here.
Five reasons why every freelancer should practise meditation from the www.thetalentedladiesclub.com which you can read here.
Top skills you need as a freelancer from Ana Isabel Alonsagay from www.upskilled.edu.au which you can read here.

There are now 5,000 skills in 90 categories that the digital economy can offer, according to Upwork’s 1st. quarter 2019 Skills Index which you can read here.

Number four on the list is explainer videos. You can read an article about explainer videos by Kate Harrison entitled What you really need to know about explainer videos for www.forbes.com by clicking here. Have you got your explainer video describing your services?

Articles now on our website that are relevant to the outcome of new skills training are listed here:

https://www.freelance-work-guide.com/drought-proof-your-farming-business.html
https://www.freelance-work-guide.com/millennials-freelancing-home-mortgage-save.html
https://www.freelance-work-guide.com/students-freelancing-student-loans.html
https://www.freelance-work-guide.com/freelancing-repay-housing-negative-equity.html
https://www.freelance-work-guide.com/millennial-families-pay-energy-bills-by-freelancing.html

The latest one is here:
https://www.freelance-work-guide.com/retirees-freelancing-medical-hospital-ancillary-insurance.html

Amazon News

The weekly AWS news video link to acloud.guru is here. They are the leading trainers globally for Amazon Web Services freelancers.

Amazon Associates Website Case Study

As discussed in previous newsletters we are focussing on the niche website in the future because it is producing better results i.e. sales.

Here is a recent article Best Windshield Washer Fluid. There have been 68 Amazon product sales (across all our websites) in the past month due to the keyword research and skills of Mamun, my virtual assistant.

Freelancers And Cyber Security

We have decided to expand our search for appropriate articles for freelancers about cybersecurity.

This week we received an email from the Australian Government’s Scamwatch which gave the address for checking whether your email has been compromised.

Here is there message:
Cybercriminals can use your personal details to their advantage, like manipulating your email address if it has been caught up in a data breach. You can check if any of your email addresses have been in a data breach by visiting the website https://haveibeenpwned.com.

You can read about this website and whether it is genuine (as I did!) by visiting here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Have_I_Been_Pwned%3F..

We have gained approval from Robert Siciliano to bring you extracts from his books related to cyber security for freelancers.

Robert Siciliano is an identity theft expert and consultant. He also runs a cyber security and fraud prevention website which you can see here.