Mar 2, 2023
Today’s guest is Miranda Marquit. She lives in Idaho
Falls, Idaho. Miranda has been writing and podcasting about money
on a freelance basis since 2006. Her work has appeared in various
media, including CNBC, NPR, Forbes, and TIME.
She has a background in journalism and enjoys telling
stories about finances and creating your own financial journey.
Miranda has created a successful six-figure freelance career and
recently released the second edition of her book about freelancing,
“Confessions of a Professional Blogger.” She also developed a
freelance writing course with two other successful freelancers,
available on Gumroad.
Another freelancer recommended Miranda for the show
and when I was doing a bit of research, I came across this blog
post she had written about creating your own benefits package as a
freelancer — things like health insurance, retirement and paid time
off.
I liked how she framed that as a “benefits package.” I
think that framing can help us start to plan for these types of
things and put them all together into one package, not just
randomly think about retirement and take vacations
whenever.
As a financial writer, Miranda is also quite
knowledgeable about these areas, and in this episode, she dives
into the details of various benefits.
In this episode, Miranda talks about:
- When she began thinking of her freelancing as a
business.
- Why you should create your own benefits package as a solo
business owner.
- How to start to create a benefits package: look at your income
and list the most important benefits you need to cover right
now.
- You might not be able to have a full benefits package right
now, but start to build one.
- Start with health insurance (in the U.S. in
particular).
- Consider using a health savings account (HSA) — which
provides a triple tax savings.
- Also consider: short-term and long-term disability. Disability
coverage can be expensive, but see if your bank has any available
plans or build your own “disability fund” or “emergency fund” as a
savings account.
- Why you need life insurance.
- Know ahead of time what community resources are available if
you need help.
- Make retirement planning a priority and start now if you
haven’t already. Even putting away $10 a week can add
up.
- Retirement options:
- Roth IRA (pay taxes now, no taxes when you withdraw the
money)
- IRA and SEP IRA (deposit money now pre-tax, pay taxes when you
withdraw money in retirement)
- Plan ahead for child care needs.
- Include vacation days in your benefits package (plan annually
and in each quarter).
- Build in deadline buffers, which can be helpful when you need
to take a sick day.
- Building good relationships with clients and always hitting
deadlines makes it easier to ask for deadline extensions when
you’re having an emergency.
Biz Bite: Outsource tasks
Resources: