Thanks so much for sharing your financial advice with all of us. I really enjoy your articles and your podcasts are great! I had a small question/comment regarding your freelancing podcast:

I can’t stop thinking about the part where you mentioned you dress up in the morning for work.

I actually read about something related to this not long ago, I just can’t remember where. Anyway, the article talked about dressing up (tie and all) for a phone interview. This way, although not physically there with the interviewer, one’s attitude toward the whole thing might become more serious and focused.

Do you find any truth to this in your experience? In other words, do you feel “at work” when your dressed “for work”?

I’m on my wife’s insurance, but that was true before I left my job. Her insurance was far better than mine. So, in terms of our family’s insurance situation, nothing changed when I stepped down.

I’d like to know how you are defining income, as comparing freelancer income to full-time worker income can be an apples & oranges proposition.

Specifically- $20,000 of freelancer income is NOT equivalent to $20,000 pay (take-home or gross) from traditional employment.

To do that comparison fairly (to normalize the variables so as to reflect actual available/disposable income) , you’d have to subtract the freelancer’s actual paid cost of individual benefits (such as life insurance, liability insurance premiums, etc.) which would normally be provided gratis by an employer, and also subtract self-employment taxes (paid quarterly), etc.

Is that how you’re basing your comparison, or….?

More from working at home than freelancing I find that you have less stress and less expense (you covered this) accross the board. As you said, there’s no commute and no lunches with coworkers to pay for.

But there’s also less stress from intangible factors, like pressure to deal with the artificial stresses of a office environment (meetings, departments with different needs, bureauacracy, covering for coworkers, etc) or trying to keep up and compete with yet another social orbit. Most of that has little to do with generating end product, it’s mostly people control.

Even if a person can’t freelance in the pure sense, it would be well worth the effort to establish a work at home ability in what ever you do. It isn’t for everybody, but I think it could be for most.

Are you on your spouse insurance? How do you manage?