Owning a businesss costs money, even if you are a sole trader or freelancer. Costs of a business are:
Accounting software + accountant
Domain
Hosting platform for the website
Membership to apps that help you sell or promote
E-mail adress
Alternative website & all it's costs
Editing software (Lightroom, Photoshop) or whatever you need to provide your service or product
Ads on Google, Instagram, Magazines, etc.
Travel costs (Gas, parking, trains, flights, ubers, hotels, consumptions while traveling)
Hardware (Camera, lenses, SD cards, Flash, tripod, laptop, lamps)
Maintenance of hardware (repairs, software to maintain your laptop)
Mobile phone
Internet
Notebooks, pens, etc.
Business cards
If applicable, sending materials (wrapping paper, etc)
Commissions of leads
Lunch/dinners with potential clients / networking events
Props for shoots
All the costs of all those ideas you get to test but don't know yet if they will work?
Learning platforms / courses.
Insurances for your gear or yourself.
Taxes, could you invest in a pension instead of taxation? Discuss this with your accountant.
Memberships you don't even use.
Questions to ask yourself and recommendations
How much do you spend per month/kwarter/year in simply having this business, even if you are not getting work in, you have to pay this? How much do you have over?
Sometimes there are costs that I don't even remember until I go into my bank spendings list and I see it.
I try to find patterns of which of the "investments" where really investments and not just costs that didn't give me anything back. Notice if you are spending too much in props for promotions or shoots that aren't giving you anything back. Or any other costs that you actually do not need.
Take a close look in memberships that are in auto renew or that you forgot to cancel, you could be loosing a lot of money yearly if you have a couple of those. Even one, if you aren't using it is a waste. Check on your Apple account for memberships. Or softwares on Adobe, like if you ever wanted to test Adobe Bridge or Premiere but you don't really use it anymore. Cancel it.
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