What No One Tells You About Being Self Employed

Hard truths about being your own boss

At the time of writing this article, I have been self-employed for almost a decade. It’s been a lot of ups and downs, but somehow I managed to survive it all these years.

There’s a lot of glamour on the Internet about being your boss and calling your shots, which part of it is true. I prefer it instead of being an employee, but it doesn’t come without its challenges (loads of them).

Here are some of the things they don’t always tell you about becoming self-employed:

You have zero job security

Unlike in a job, a client can pull the rug at any time. There are certain measures like adding a notice period in the contract, but that doesn’t guarantee the client will always follow it. Luckily I haven’t had a bad experience yet, there were times when a contract would be cancelled by the client, but they would still comply with the notice period. But you always have to be ready in case it happens.

You constantly have to be chasing payments

Not all clients are the same, but many of them will give you headaches when it’s time to get paid. There are many times when you have to e-mail clients to remind them to pay you.

It is advisable to add in the invoice in how many days the invoice should be paid. In each country, the maximum payment deadline is different, in Spain for example it is 60 days.

Your pension will be peanuts

Here I’m talking about European countries mostly, where you are likely to be forced to contribute to the public pension system but when retired, you will get less pension than an employee. This is the case in Spain, where I currently live, where they make you contribute to a system where you pay to the current retirees and workers in the future will pay your pension. The problem with this is that there are increasingly more retirees than workers, so by the time I’m 65, my pension will be a lot lower than it is today.

That’s why is so important to invest as much as possible if you are self-employed and if possible, own a property where you can live when you can’t work as hard as you do now.

You will likely work a lot more than 40 hours a week

Because of the zero job security and less security in terms of healthcare or pensions, most self-employed work more or a lot more than 40 hours a week, because there are times when there are not that many clients or none at all. I do this sometimes to make up for when I’m less busy.

It’s not good in the long term though, so it’s always advisable to work on stuff that doesn’t always require input of hours when there’s less amount of work to be done. Whether it’s an online course, ebook, YouTube channel or anything like that.

Government will try to squeeze you

One of the first realisations when becoming self-employed is the disappearance of the concept that the government cares about your well-being.

Nothing more far beyond the truth. For the government, self-employed workers are just milk cows, so as self-employed, you need to become a tax expert and what expenses you can claim in your business.

You won’t take sick leave unless you’re almost dying

As self-employed, you don’t get paid sick days or if you do, it won’t be worth it to even claim it. In my case, I would only take sick days if I can’t perform my job at all.

A few months ago I had to take 3 or 4 days off as I had a throat infection that I couldn’t even talk, which is a problem for meetings. But I’ve worked before with fever, or for example, at the time of writing this article, I’m writing with 9 fingers as I have a small fracture in my right pinkie.

These are my thoughts based on my own experience, which is in the UK and Spain, but if you work in other countries, maybe you have a different perspective or opinions. Please share in the comments as I’m interested.

👉 Find out more about me here: https://sergioguardiola.net 🔥