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Column: Financial Write

Cleaning Up Your Financial Life to Write

by Rose Walker

You’re still working your regular job, but you’re ready to quit to write full-time. Before you hand in that letter of resignation, check your life to see if you’re ready financially to write. I don’t mean if you have enough money in a savings account to fall back on, but is your life cleaned up financially to be self-employed as a writer.

Once you become a full-time writer you are self-employed. No more calling Human Resources to verify your employment or taking your check stubs in to verify your income. You are on your own. The first thing you need to do before you start writing full-time is to check your credit report. Make sure everything on it is correct and up to date. If there is anything incorrect on your credit report get it taken care of right away. Also while you’re still employed you might want to purchase any major items you might need or open any new accounts while you’re still working. This way your credit report can verify your place of employment. Once you walk away from your job to write, your income will be hard to verify, since writers get paid periodically and you won’t receive consistent checks to verify your income.

The next thing you might want to do is open any bank accounts that you might need for your writing. It’s always good to have a separate checking account to put your income in from your writing so you won’t have to put it into your household account. You might also want to set-up a separate savings account for emergency funds to have for when you’re between assignments. All of these accounts need to be open before you leave your job, because your credit report is pulled when you want to open any new account at a bank.

Your most important step to cleaning up your life financially to write is to pay-off as many bills as possible. Try to eliminate all your small bills, so you won’t have several minimum payments you are making each month. If you can’t pay-off large payments like your car note or mortgage, at least get rid of as many other payments as possible. This will keep your monthly expenses down for when you are not receiving a check weekly, bi-weekly or monthly. Take advantage of getting out of debt while you’re still getting a check regularly.

Cleaning up your life financially to write is a smart move when you know you’re ready to go full-time as a writer. Before you walk away from your job make sure you have line everything up so the transition will be smooth. You’re now considered self-employed and you’re responsible for verifying your employment and income. It will be a little harder especially the first year to purchase things and open new accounts, because you’re just getting started. That’s why it’s smart to take care all of that before you quit your job. Once you make that step of writing full-time, your life is at a different level and you need to be prepared for it.

Copyright © 2003 Rose Walker. All Rights Reserved.

Rose Walker is an author, freelance writer and columnist. After being in Corporate America for twenty-three years as a banker, mortgage banker and owning her own financial consulting firm, she walked away to become a writer. She has written two novels and currently at work on her third one. Ms. Walker is a contributing writer for Successful Single Parenting Newspaper. She also writes a monthly column for Single Focus Newsletter, called Money Matters. Her articles on parenting, health, finance and career, have been published by Themestream, PageWise, The Writing Parent, IslandOak and Working Writer. Ms. Walker lives in Memphis, Tennessee.