The #1 Freelancing Rule - FU Money!!

everybody it's Stephanie shockwave killer sites if you're gonna watch any video of the hundreds of videos that I put out on YouTube if you're gonna watch any video this is the one to watch this is the most important lesson but I've ever gotten when it comes to small business or freelancing or coding and actually generally in life so take out your pen and paper or your smartphone and take down this note so what you need to understand is something called F you money F you as in money so what's the whole point of this a few money what it is why you should be concerned about it and we'll talk about a few other things so f you money is a stash of money that's emergency money this is money that you never ever touch in fact I have my Fu stash I haven't touched it ever and I've had it in place for whatever 15 20 years now it's money that is untouchable and the whole point of f you money is that it's your security money to emergency money so how much money should you have in terms of f you money well you should have enough fu money to last you at least one year to cover all your expenses so if you spend a thousand bucks a month to live I'm just pulling that number out of my out of the air if you have a fast you a thousand dollars a months to live you should have at least twelve thousand dollars of F you money now you're not gonna build this up right away it's gonna take time to build it up but you should really be working on building up your f you stash your stash of cash and again this is not money you use to buy a new laptop if you need a new laptop or you go on vacation for it no no this is money that's untouchable it's only used in dire straits situations so what you should do is as you save it up you should be putting it in some account where you can't easily get at the money may be some sort of savings account a different branch a different bank but you typically would use something where you have to go to the branch to get the money you to make sure that this money is hard to get at but you don't want to invest this money in something volatile like stocks or bonds you don't know you don't want to lock up the money where you collect you can't get at it at it in an emergency because remember when the market is bad for you in your business whether you're a freelancer web developer or web designer or a carpenter it's probably bad for everybody so if the market is bad for everybody if your money is locked up in some sort of investment you're gonna have time getting at it so let's say you took your fu money you put it in a stock market even McDonald stocks something safe if the market starts crashing your stocks will start scrap crashing to a certain amount and then you're not gonna want to sell it because your your stocks will be lower right so what you want to do is you want to take your fu money you put it aside that one year ideal ideally of cash you put it aside and you never touch it and it's for emergency purposes only to pay your rent to pay your mortgage this is pretty buy food this is dire straits type of stuff this is separate from your long terms retirement savings this is separate from your your basic bank account for your day-to-day operations in your business whether you're freelancer or whatnot and this is a very important distinction so what I do is I put it in a savings account and a bank separate from them from my main bank and it's a high rate of savings in terms of the percentage well by today's standards not the literal one or it's one and a half percent or something like this and I just don't touch it it's been there for like 15 20 years and friends of mine say yeah your money it's not working for you should have invested I said well it is working for me it makes me sleep well at night that's the whole point a few money you can sleep well at night and you'd have to worry about paying your bills now ideally I say one year but you start initially maybe pull out 5% 5% or 10% of your income and you start building up your fu money and you want to build it up build it up why is it fu money well let's say you're independent coder contractor freelancer web developer carpenter and you're dealing with some clients or real you know they're you know they're not the nicest people I'm trying to avoid swearing because they deal with law schools and I got to be you know I gotta be correct with my terms here can't use terms that are not suitable for the younger crowd anyway so let's say you're doing with a client is a real jerk getting on your nerves and you're like if you have a year's worth of fu money you can just go you know what I don't need your contract we're not doing we're not dealing with you anymore why because you know but you have one year worth of cash saved up and you don't have to worry about it that's amazing now for me I keep two years in fu Mike I like two years personally and I know that if all hell breaks loose and I got no contracts no income coming in heaven forbid I know for two years I don't have to worry about money let me tell you it's so relaxing to live that way it changes your entire life your psychology changes you're much more relaxed when you in which you're gonna find which I found strangely enough and I walked into business meetings when I had built up even like a year's worth for fu money six months a year I was much more relaxed when I meet with clients because I wasn't desperate for the contract and you know it's weird they say that 85% of communication is nonverbal and what happens is that people pick up on that subconsciously they can pick up that know this guy Steph he doesn't really need the money and they go damn he must be really good and then I'll send what I saw what would happen when I had a lot of fu money the amount of money I would earn on my contracts to start going up because I would ask for what I wanted and they would give it to me I said I want I want 80 bucks an hour 100 bucks the hour and it's gonna take this many hours and they were like okay sure and it's the weirdest thing I know it sounds strange but remember 85% of communication is nonverbal body language it's all these subtle cues and people could pick up subconsciously if you're feeling comfortable with yourself if you're confident and let me tell you nothing makes you more confident knowing that you have a good years worth of fu money in the bank so fu money super-important life-changing it just does not apply to colors it applies to anything that you do it's a life it's a life lesson that's so important so yeah a few money start building it up slowly slowly I know it's hard for at first five percent of you which you bring in put in your Fu stash 10% whatever you can it's very important now that said you got to also if you have debt you got to balance that out as well I'm not say you should pay off all your dead have no fu you should actually bounce it out so if you have some debt so she's low interest a pay off something like that but cash is king cash is king it's very important to have a few stash now remember a few stats you want to go on vacation you got no money in your in your personal account you've got no money in your corporate account you can't you can't go on vacation that fu money is not for going on vacation you need a new computer because your computer getting a little slow but you have no money you can't use a few money don't use it that's it's the silliest thing you do that's the worst thing to do is to spend your ass few money in fact ideally should never spent it right because you don't want to be in that situation but let me tell you you get that a few money you're gonna be thanking me go staff life is so much easier life is so much easier you know for a number of years I sort of went into semi-retirement 32 because I did very well in the 1990s and so on and I had a lot of fu money and I became like a professional coffee drinker people would say what does Steph do he says well I don't know I as far as I know he goes for coffee he goes for breakfast a lot that was that was my job for a number of years now recently I've gotten back into it because of my interest in studio web and I'm helping schools now and she just covert into into their curriculum since I've been teaching code since 2003 so you know maybe coding since 94 so anyway back to a few money a few money is so important number one thing get your f your money together understand the rules of fu money if any of this is unclear you want some more you want me to unroll this for you a bit more in terms of what f you money is all about let me know I think I've covered everything but it's such an important thing to have and I highly recommend that you get into it I hope you found this useful ciao

Channel: Stefan Mischook

Views: 44,869

Rating: 4.9734511 out of 5

Keywords: freelance web developer, freelancing, web design business, web developer contractor, small business advice

Id: uulIsjar8jo

Length: 8min 53sec (533 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 09 2016