This is part 1 of a 4 part series that looks at dif­fer­ent approaches to free­lanc­ing and which one may be best for your situation.

Work a full-time job while freelancing

Free­lanc­ing is one of the most flex­i­ble careers you could have. In Part 1, let’s take a look at what is prob­a­bly the most com­mon arrangement—working full-time while free­lanc­ing (or moon­light­ing, as it is often called).

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The pros:

Work­ing full-time cer­tainly has its advantages—a steady pay­check and ben­e­fits such as health insur­ance, 401(k), paid vaca­tion, paid sick time, profit shar­ing, and vision plan are the most notable. A few of the more employee-centered com­pa­nies may even offer non-traditional ben­e­fits such as flex time, telecom­mut­ing, day­care, paid gym mem­ber­ship or a mul­ti­tude of other benefits.

Chances are you don’t have to worry about being respon­si­ble for bring­ing in new clients, pay­ing the rent, mak­ing pay­roll, pur­chas­ing new equip­ment, hir­ing or firing. You can focus on what you do best — design, pro­gram­ming, writ­ing, illus­tra­tion, pho­tog­ra­phy, etc.

Most likely, you work a set sched­ule, say 9 am–5 pm from Monday–Friday. You can plan to do things, know­ing your evenings and week­ends are free. If you’re not a salaried employee, you prob­a­bly get paid over­time for any addi­tional hours you work.

Work­ing for a com­pany or agency also gives you a place to go, a rou­tine to estab­lish and a group of peers with whom to asso­ciate. You may not real­ize it, but you ben­e­fit from the social inter­ac­tion of a work environment.

Now, com­bine work­ing full-time with freelancing.

By free­lanc­ing, you can earn more, have more cre­ative free­dom, enjoy the sat­is­fac­tion of build­ing up your own busi­ness and get all the credit for a suc­cess­ful project.

Espe­cially if you’re just start­ing out in your career, the sup­ple­men­tal income from free­lanc­ing can help you save for your first apart­ment, buy your first home, get mar­ried, start a fam­ily, etc. You can work as much or as lit­tle as you want, gen­er­ally speak­ing, because you know you have that steady pay­check com­ing in from your full-time job and that your ben­e­fits are covered.

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The cons:

Sounds like work­ing full-time and free­lanc­ing is per­fect, right? Unfor­tu­nately, it’s often not. There is a down­side that may not be obvi­ous in the very beginning.

There are no per­fect com­pa­nies. OK, maybe one or two. But most often, your full-time job can become a great source of stress. You may have an over­bear­ing, con­trol­ling boss whom you can’t seem to please. Or maybe you dis­agree with your boss’ deci­sions or actions. You have to deal with office pol­i­tics and unruly co-workers. You get stuck doing tasks that you don’t feel should be part of your job. You have to play by the rules — some­one else’s rules — which is some­times hard to swal­low for creatives.

Maybe you haven’t received a raise in a long time. Your liv­ing expenses keep going up, but your pay stays the same—so you are ulti­mately los­ing money.

The econ­omy takes a down­turn and you face uncer­tainty of job cuts or worry about busi­ness. Sud­denly, the secu­rity of that steady pay­check and ben­e­fits doesn’t seem so secure anymore.

You work long hours at nights and on week­ends free­lanc­ing. Maybe you don’t mind the work, but it’s start­ing to affect your rela­tion­ship with your spouse, your fam­ily or your friends. Every­one else is out hav­ing a good time, but you’ve got this big project that’s due, so you’re stuck in front of the com­puter. You feel as if you are work­ing two full-time jobs.

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Sum­mary:

In my expe­ri­ence work­ing full-time and free­lanc­ing can allow you the income level you desire to achieve the things you want, but comes at a price. The long hours, the lost time with friends and loved ones—all need to be taken into con­sid­er­a­tion. Weigh all of your options and decide if this is the best move for you. I rec­om­mend this sit­u­a­tion if you’re try­ing to achieve spe­cific goals, but not as a long term solution.

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Your turn…

Are you cur­rently work­ing a full-time job while free­lanc­ing? What chal­lenges do you face? How long do you expect to do both? Please take a moment to com­ment below and let me know what you think!