Ideal bottom line (personal profit put aside per year)? Thread poster: Natalia Eklund
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Well, maybe this should be under Money Matters...
I'm interested to know what the average (or ideal) bottom line is for us freelance translators. By bottomline, I mean 'how much (percentage) are you able to put aside in your savings once you've paid all your professional/personal expenses and taxes'. I've looked around on the internet and I get a very different result depending on the freelance profession.
But, I think it's a good figure for us to know and use if you w... See more Well, maybe this should be under Money Matters...
I'm interested to know what the average (or ideal) bottom line is for us freelance translators. By bottomline, I mean 'how much (percentage) are you able to put aside in your savings once you've paid all your professional/personal expenses and taxes'. I've looked around on the internet and I get a very different result depending on the freelance profession.
But, I think it's a good figure for us to know and use if you want to compare your progress with other people in different economic regions and even with employees. We all know we cannot compare our rates due to the different economies around the world.
I think this information could be interesting for a multitude of reasons, from setting personal goals to comparing our activity earnings based on our standards of living. It could also show beginning translators that they should reasonably expect to have profits (not just live from month to month) and they can adjust their rates accordingly.
Not to mention, it can help us define how much to budget for extraneous personal expenses!
For example, I have:
- 29 % in Professional Expenses (social contributions, business travel, training, etc.)
- 34 % in Personal Expenses (mortgage, bills, food, gifts, vacation, etc.)
- 8 % in Taxes
- 26 % in personal profit (bottomline)
Even if you don't know your own, what percentage would you say is OK/GOOD/VERY GOOD/EXCELLENT? ▲ Collapse
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I agree that this could be an interesting method of comparison.
I don't know what my own figures are, but I would say that 10% would be good, and 26% excellent.
Considering that my mortage is already 30% of my budget, I think my own bottom line would be much closer to 10%.
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Local time: 18:29
Spanish to English
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| Ideals, living in the real world, and opting out. | Sep 22, 2008 |
N.M. Eklund wrote:
I'm interested to know what the average (or ideal) bottom line is for us freelance translators. By bottomline, I mean 'how much (percentage) are you able to put aside in your savings once you've paid all your professional/personal expenses and taxes'.
Ideally that should be 100% .
N.M. Eklund wrote:
For example, I have:
- 29 % in Professional Expenses (social contributions, business travel, training, etc.)
- 34 % in Personal Expenses (mortgage, bills, food, gifts, vacation, etc.)
- 8 % in Taxes
- 26 % in personal profit (bottomline)
By my reckoning, that's only 97%. If you're wondering what to do with the remaining 3%, maybe you'd like to give it to me ... ?
Until the year 2000, when I was living and working in Europe, it was simple:
- one-third went on tax and suchlike,
- one-third went on rent (such is the cost of rented accommodation around Geneva)
- one-third went to my wife for her personal expenditure and a bit of house-keeping
-and the rest was all mine! Yipee!
Then I got wise.
Now I have no rent or mortgage, I pay no tax (besides a tiny property tax), my wife's gone ... so my income is to all intents and purposes my profit. Yipee again!
MediaMatrix
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