The Downside of working for yourself

I love being my own boss. I love making money online. But it isn’t all roses and happiness. There are some things about it you must know before you decide you want to work at home for yourself. They might not bother you enough to really worry about but they might turn some people off to making money online.

1) Taxes. It is tax season. When you work for yourself and don’t just earn income with a W-2, taxes become a little more complicated. You will have to figure out all the income you made from blogging and other online income sources. You might have to wait for 1099s to come in the mail. You have to claim all the free stuff you reviewed on your blog. You also need to come up with all of your expenses so that you write that off. There is a lot more to think about then when you just worked for someone else and received a W-2. I am a numbers girl. I love math and even I get a little overwhelmed at tax time. It is also hard to look at what you made and see how much you do have to pay in taxes. Pat Flynn just did a great Podcast about this. I would really encourage you to listen to it. He also talks about healthcare and while that isn’t a worry for us right now since we do get it through my husband’s work, it might be in the future.

2) Being alone too much. If you are working from home, you don’t have coworkers. You don’t have anyone you can chat with on a coffee break. You may feel a bit isolated at times. If you are home with your kids, you might have a hard time not interacting with other adults. If you have a lot of work to do you might not have to time get together with others and that can make for a lonely week. The best thing to do is to try to schedule in friend time when you can. Maybe try to go out to dinner once a week or plan a playdate with your kids and their friends. You can also try to find a group of other people who work from home and would like the interaction of being around other people during the week. There is also the option of co-working. I would love to do something like this when all my kids are in school all day. You can share workspace even though you are each doing your own thing. Here is an example of a Co-working workspace. That would be the best of both worlds and you could decide how often you wanted to be in an office vs your own home. You can also find a local coffee shop to get your work done. You won’t be alone and will be free to work on your laptop. I like to go to Starbucks sometimes to write. It is a nice way to focus on what you need to do without feeling that loneliness you might feel just at home.

3) Finding Balance. This can be one of the most difficult things about working at home. When you have your work to do, children to take care of, laundry to put away, meals to cook, school meetings to attends, sports practice to get your children to and much more it can be a bit overwhelming. You have to be able to find balance and figure out how to make time for everything. Lists really work for me as well as deciding what is important each day. I also have to pick certain days that my friends know I will be working. Then they won’t ask me to do anything on that day since they know I am busy. It is quite difficult to balance everything during school breaks when all three of my kids are home. I have to always redo the way I do things to figure out the best way to make it all work. If you are the type of person that can’t handle all that, working from home might not be the best job for you.

Overall I love being able to work from home and make money online. But it does come with its challenges I am constantly trying to figure out the best way to make working from home work for our family.

What would you consider a downside of working from home? What do you struggle the most at?

Image courtesy of Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net