Hi Reader,

Happy Friday!

When was the last time you celebrated a project you were proud of?

Creative fulfillment isn’t just about doing the work—it’s about acknowledging the wins. Finished a tough project? Celebrate. Landed a client? Celebrate. Learned a new skill? Celebrate.

Give yourself permission to be proud. You’ve earned it.

P.S. This week on Instagram, I shared some of the scripts I use to manage boundaries with clients. See them here.

Here's what I've been up to this week work-wise:

👉 I wrote 4 pieces for clients (including Whop, Salsify, Experlogix, and a new client)

👉 I refreshed 2 pieces for Shopify

👉 I edited copy for a landing page for a new client

👉 I guested on a podcast

⏱ Approx hours spent on client work this week: ~21

⏱ Approx hours spent on non-client work: ~2

💰 Total revenue this week: £5,340

​
Check out my three practical courses that have helped 500+ people get more clients, earn more money, and create better content.

Friday Freelance Tip​​ ✨ ​

Wheeeeeeew this year was wild, huh?

It’s been a poetic clash of highs and lows that I think has impacted many of us.

Over the next couple of weeks, I’m going to share those highs and lows in a bit more detail with you. But first, here’s an overview of my year.

2024 at a glance:

Clients worked with: 22

Total revenue: £231,847.07

Final emotion: EXHAUSTED but optimistic

Jan-Feb: it was a relatively slow but steady start to the year as I picked back up with my regular, ongoing clients. I’d come off the back of a particularly slim November, so I was ready to get stuck back in and earn some money.

At the end of Feb, I signed a new client on a huge project.

It was my first “content management” project where I worked with a team of freelancers to create briefs, assign drafts, and edit pieces. The aim was to complete 15 pieces in March - and we did! The client absolutely loved the work and we were due to sign on for a three month contract.

And then…

March: the big client decided to take content creation in-house.

This happened A LOT at the start of the year (and, to some extent, is still happening now).

It was a shame, because I’d brought on three other freelancers to help out and obviously we were all down a chunk of money that we thought was a dead cert.

Tip: nothing is a dead cert until it’s a dead cert. Lesson learned.

I also moved house in March to add to the utter stress of it all. I’m not quite sure how I got through it, but I did.

April: I spent a lot of April reconnecting with old clients and pitching.

I did a “pitch sprint” and landed three new projects in April, all of which were with existing clients or past clients who I’d reached out to in my moment of panic.

May: In May, things had picked right back up again.

I had a great month and signed a new client at four pieces a month for a year. This is the longest contract I’ve ever signed with a client (at their request) and it’s giving me some semblance of safety in these weird times because it’s a definite £4,000 a month.

June, July, and August: I was hoping to take it easy over summer.

I wanted to spend a ton of time renovating the house, but the universe had other plans for me.

This summer was my busiest summer EVER.

In the past, it’s been a much slower time, and I’ve come to expect a lighter workload. In fact, I plan for a lighter workload. But after the rocky start to the year, it felt like I couldn’t take my foot off the gas so I took most things that came my way.

I also launched The Promo Playbook for the first time and almost 40 people joined the first cohort. My aim was 10 people and I outdid that on the first day. It was insane seeing how much this playbook was needed and to see the results from the first cohort.

September: one of my biggest clients brought me on for more work. We went from sporadic pieces every other month to a solid four pieces a month. This really bolstered my bottom line and gave me back a lot of the confidence I’d lost earlier in the year.

October: I had FOUR new enquiries in October, and I’m pretty sure this was because I took a 10 day holiday. Isn’t that always the way?!

Two of these enquiries panned out and I’m now working on 2-3 pieces each month with them, the other two are holding off until the new year. They may or may not come to fruition, but it was good to get back into the swing of discovery calls and sending proposals.

I’d actually missed it a bit. For the majority of this year, I’ve worked with existing clients and hadn’t actually got that many new enquiries. So, it was a nice end to the year to start getting an influx of new requests—and this continued into November.

November: I had a meeting with the content team at one of my favourite clients who confirmed we’d be ramping up content in the new year. This, combined with a client who had hit pause on a project until the new year means I’m pretty confident 2025 is going to start with a bang.

This was also the month I filed my company taxes.

Despite everything that happened this year and the mild panic that had me spiralling in March (and yes, I did think about quitting freelancing for good), it was my best year EVER. I made £231,847.07 in revenue, around £30,000 of which was expenses.

This doesn’t account for taxes, which tally up to about £60,000 for both my corporation tax and personal tax.

December: I’m planning to take two weeks off over Christmas, so this month is MANIC. I’m still doing my usual scheduled work for clients, plus a whole load of fun Christmassy events with friends, family, and other freelancers.

It’s been a corker of a year and I’m glad to be ending it on a high, though I know that’s not the case for everyone.

I think this year is a prime example of how things can change so quickly. In April, I billed around £6,000 in work and I was in a real panic about padding out my schedule again. But by mid-May, things were back on track.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that network is everything. In those downtimes, I leaned into my network HARD. I reached out to past clients, existing clients, and fellow freelancers and they came through for me big time.

This is precisely why I always harp on about building a warm network, even when you’re busy. If I hadn’t had that in March, I’m not quite sure where I’d be now.

This week, we have a paid ads specialist from Spain sharing their finances with us.

Where are you based? Spain

How long have you been freelancing? 1 year

What do you do? I’m a B2B SaaS Paid Ads Specialist

What was your 2023 revenue? 30,000 EUR

This person freelances full time and this was not their highest earning year.

How much did you take as a salary?

22,000 EUR after taxes and business expenses (monthly tax consultant fee, hosting/domain, courses, software, etc.)

How much did you pay in taxes? In Spain, the first year as a freelancer you pay 90 EUR/month for social contributions, then around, 350 EUR in taxes monthly (prorated) based on gross income. I've paid roughly 5,000 EUR in tax this year.

What are your business expenses?

The only recurring business expenses I have are accounting services, 60 EUR/month, but I occasionally pay for software, hire a design freelancer, renew my hosting/domain, pay for courses to stay up-to-date, etc. I've tried to stay lean on business expenses this first year.

Do you contribute to a pension?

Honestly, I have no idea about this topic and it's on my to-do's to get a grasp of it as I enter my second year. With my monthly social contributions, I contribute to a gov scheme, but I'm contributing with the minimum amount at the moment.

Do you have any hot money-management tips?

Having a cushion has really helped this first year, especially since I sometimes get paid on 60 net terms, so I need to get cash from my savings account and bring back that amount to the account once I get paid.

As always, happy freelancing :)

Lizzie ✨

Interested in sponsoring Friday Freelance Tips? Get your brand, product, or service in front of 5,800+ freelancers, entrepreneurs, and founders. See sponsorship options here.

Follow me on Instagram and on Linkedin, where you can see the behind-the-scenes of my business.