What are the things you need to consider as a Freelancer?
So, Lately I have been listing up my new Goals for my mid year Accomplishment, so in this post I will be sharing you on what are the things you need to do or to consider if your planning to become a Full-time freelancer.
If you’re a student or a just starting on this job, first thing you need to have is an ID, well if you’re a student for sure you will have this but sometimes student ID is not enough , because on some establishments like let’s say Western Union you need to have at least 2 ID’s so what you can have as an additional are this ID’s
- Postal ID (Requirements)
- Police Clearance (Requirements)
- NBI Clearance (Requirements)
You can also consider a driver’s license and passport if you want, but for basic need those three will work and it will be accepted on banks and other establishments
Now, next is you need to get your online accounts so that if they need to pay you via online you can have access on that , the most popular is the Paypal Account.
It’s very easy to apply for a Paypal account just choose the basic plan if you’re not planning to put up an online store it will be enough. but of course in order for you to withdraw the money from your Paypal account you need to apply for an electronic ATM card or they call it EON card. since you already have your basic ID’s you can easily apply for an account like for me I use the Union Bank EON Card, before when I applied I just paid PHP350 but I am not sure if they have change the price as of the time I posted this. just goto your nearest Union Bank and apply for this one, here are the other banks that provide electronic cards that are visa ready
- RCBC
- East West Bank
So, once you have accomplish the first two things, you can now actually get some commission works from some popular outsourcing sites like Odesk,Elance,Freelancer and even virtualstafffinder.
Ok let’s fast track a bit, now for example lets say you are now earning from your freelancing career and it can sustain all of your needs of course there are temptation of buying some gadgets and other LUHO as they say, because freelancing has big opportunity on earnings if you just know how to leverage it. so let’s talk about more of the investment and other things you need to do.
Before as an employee you have benefits right! like the SSS,Pagibig,Philhealth, Insurance and other more, but as a freelancer you don’t have this luxury you need to work on this on your own, because if your working on a company they are the one who’s doing this stuffs and they just deduct it from your salary right.
To start the next thing you need to do is apply on this, unless you have a previous account already you can skip on this and just continue paying your month/yearly dues. I suggest processing on this things
- SSS
- Philhealth
- ITR (Income Tax return) — for freelancers read more here
- Pagibig funds
- Health Insurance
Speaking of Insurance, as a freelancer sometimes we get to forget this stuff and does not priorities it because of course we know that we are still young and our health is still in a very good shape, but thinking about it , as you can see if you’re an IT freelancer everyday you are in front of your computer and sometimes we intent to forget to exercise and for some people they get to become fat or thin in short unhealthy habit ,example just like me I am a glad couple of months ago I started working out and building some muscles and goal to have a Six packs abs LOL,of course not for the sake of people to notice but for having a healthy living while still working on your day-to-day job.
So what I am saying here is that we don’t know when we will be sick or will have hidden illness sometimes even though we are healthy outside but inside we already have some severe illness. we need to be conscious on our health and also we need to always prepare for the worse while it’s still early.
Another popular health insurance here in the Philippines is PRU LIFE U.K actually they have introduce two new products the PruLink Advance Care Plus and PruLink Multi Care Plus. that made me more interested on investing on this type of insurance. and might consider applying 🙂
To give you an Idea on their new product ,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9oTB4a3RO4
PruLink Advance Care Plus, is a regular-pay unit-linked product that carries accident,disability and critical illness benefits. It features the new Life Care Advance Plus rider which pays an additional amount on top of the basic insurance cover when the insured is diagnosed to have any of the listed 10 critical illnesses in the early stage, such as hearth attack, stroke,cancer and brain tumor.
Both packages may include hospital income, surgery and ICU benefits, according to the customers preference.
for more info visit their website
One thing also PRU LIFE U.K is already a more than a decade in the industry and so I think if you planning to invest to them it will really be in good hands.
Again health is our foundation in order for us to work more further,
Additional Investment that you might want to check is investing on stocks exchange and some fundings (ex. mutual funds, Equity Funds and ETC. more info here )
So hopefully you get the idea on what are the things you need to consider when becoming a freelancer it is similar with an employee but the difference is that you are the one who is doing all this things and not your employer.
I might create another post on what are the other opportunities that awaits you as a freelancer.
I my self still needs to accomplish some of the things I have mentioned here but hopefully if you’re a freelancer this helps you prepare on your future career.
