Where to Invest Your Money as a Creative - #66

January 14, 2023

Welcome to The Loaf - making money & business more approachable for self-employed creatives & freelancers

creator crumbs

You work hard for your money.

Shouldn't it be working hard for you?

By definition, investing is the allocation of resources (usually money, time or energy) with the expectation of a future benefit.

This means that things like taking a course, buying a book, or going to the gym can all be viewed as an investment.

But as a creative, there are certain areas where your dollars have the most impact.

These are five of those areas (and only one is the stock market 👀)

Friendly money & business reminders for self-employed creatives

✅ Review your credit limits

Why? As your business & income grows, your spending is likely to increase as well. If you keep the same credit limits as when you first got your cards, you may be hurting your credit score.
Your credit score is partially calculated using your "credit utilization" so if you have a $5,000 credit limit and spent $4,000 in a month, your utilization would be 80%
If you let your utilization percentage stay high every month, it'll hurt your credit score

To help increase your score, you want to keep your utilization below 25%
Since 25% is relatively low, oftentimes you can simply message or call your credit card provider and request an increase - and they may ask for income verification or other details before approving

✅ Make Q4 estimated tax payment

Why? Because the IRS hates us
Taxes are due for income you earned in Q4 2022 on January 17th, 2023 (this Tuesday)
To help calculate what you might owe I recommend talking with a tax professional, though you can use a tool like this if you know your numbers