Like ursus, I traded the freedom you enjoy Jake for less stress and took a sizable cut in the process. Thankfully, budgeting has spared us any heart-attack moments. The more I learn, the more I think simple budgeting is the answer to less stress.
I recently wrote about municipal expenditures which are typically funded with several volatile income sources, much like self employment. Your chart fits nicely into the method I laid out for a balanced municipal budget - leveraging the power of projections.
Hopefully you don't have much debt but not to worry, a projection based budget helps you plot a mean income level that you can budget to (including debt repayment) with all excess going into your savings to pay future shortfalls. I know from experience that a lot of the stress of self employment is the paperwork and interactions with the tax mafia, but having a budget makes that so much more predictable and manageable.
Like ursus, I traded the freedom you enjoy Jake for less stress and took a sizable cut in the process. Thankfully, budgeting has spared us any heart-attack moments. The more I learn, the more I think simple budgeting is the answer to less stress.
I recently wrote about municipal expenditures which are typically funded with several volatile income sources, much like self employment. Your chart fits nicely into the method I laid out for a balanced municipal budget - leveraging the power of projections.
http://fiducate.blogspot.com/2011/02/how-much-can-people-afford.html
Hopefully you don't have much debt but not to worry, a projection based budget helps you plot a mean income level that you can budget to (including debt repayment) with all excess going into your savings to pay future shortfalls. I know from experience that a lot of the stress of self employment is the paperwork and interactions with the tax mafia, but having a budget makes that so much more predictable and manageable.