The Long Term Prospects of Freelancing
We freelancers enjoy a more flexible schedule (at least those who make a living exclusively through freelancing), and the oppurtunity to earn more within the same amount of time. But like corporate workers, it’s easy for us to fall into the rat race, where making money depends solely on our efforts. In other words, if we’re not careful, we’ll forever be working for money. What happens when we’re too old to work, or when our ideas are no longer on the money?
As we make a living through contract work, we should strive to reach a point where our hard-earned money works for us. One way to do this is to create money-generating assets along the way, so that when the time comes to retire, we’ll be certain of our financial future.
That’s not to say that freelancing is a dead-end career path. In fact, I believe freelancing provides greater oppurtunities to attain true wealth because being control of your own schedule makes it easy to pursue lucrative, asset-building oppurtunities.
Jun de Leon is currently the most sought after photographer here in the Philippines. He’s the favorite of local celebrities, and getting photographed by him is a status symbol of sorts.
Using the money he made as a freelancer, Mr. de Leon founded Wings Photography Inc. This company employs other photographers and artists, and is able to rent an office in a high-end commercial district, because of the income it generates—not solely from the efforts of Jun.
Wings Inc. represents an asset. Even if Jun decides to stop accepting freelancing projects, the company will continue earning money for him. The rest of us don’t have to start with such a big-scale operation, especially when we don’t have that much capital to work with (yet). Some small ventures, like vending machines, could prove a lucrative way to invest your money.
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POSTED IN: Living as a Freelancer, What's Great About Freelancing
11 opinions for The Long Term Prospects of Freelancing
Filipino Programmer
Dec 30, 2006 at 2:58 pm
I’ve been a freelance programmer for almost 4 years already. Your article makes sense to me.
Rico
Jan 2, 2007 at 8:37 am
I look forward to your site’s revamp. Maybe I can learn a thing or two from you to complement my skills. :)
Filipino Programmer
Jan 11, 2007 at 12:39 am
Sure and maybe we can exchange links with each other. I’ll do that as I add more blog entries to my site.
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