I am technically self employed. I am both a nanny and a cleaning lady, I love what I do and it’s a blessing to be able to assist my husband with the finances.
Recently though someone asked about sick day advice. They particularly wondered how self employed people handled sick days, vacations, and in my soon to be case, maternity leave. It was a good question, and one that I am going to address here today.
Sick Day Advice and Similar Matters for the Self Employed:
Taking time off from work, no matter what you do takes some planning. Sick days happen yes, but other times you should know in advance when you will need time off and you start planning. You ask for time off, you plane tickets or whatever you need for your day(s) off. You put in for maternity leave and all that stuff.
Point is, you plan. No different for the self employed, you just start planning a whole lot sooner!
We do not do the envelope method…. I will not knock it, because it sounds good, but what we do seems far simpler for us.
What we do is a second bank account. This account is named the Fun Fund. 🙂 Very appropriate yes?
We always try to keep a small amount in there to cover for unexpected sick days, but our main goal for that fund is for our vacations. We added money to this account for 2 years and funded our trip to the Florida Keys last winter. We also use this account to buy plane tickets when we go to see Jason’s family.
Where does this money come from:
- Jason mows the neighbors yard each week
- I sometimes watch my “little friends” while their parents take a date night
- Jason randomly picks up odd jobs in the summer
- The money from our garage sales
- Our cash back checks from Ebates
- I am part of a survey panel (have been for years), that cash goes into our fund
- Basically any extra cash that comes in, goes to the fun fund
When I found out I was pregnant we realized we would need to save a little faster. Because not only would I be off work for almost 2 months, we would also be going to Oregon for a wedding and we would need to cover those expenses as well.
This was done by designating one of my cleaning checks to our fun fund. Now, with less than a month away, I would say we are pretty close. I will also be paying myself from the blog account (first time to do that, I’m so excited at how God has blessed us!), and between the fun fund and the self pay I will pull from the blog account, our bills should be taken care of.
This method has worked extremely well for us. The main key is simple planning. You have a savings account for emergencies and stuff like that, why not have an account where you can stash extra cash for sick days or just for something fun!
Oh, and my last little bit of sick day advice is as follows: Don’t get sick! 😉
No matter if you are self employed or not, having a fun fund along with a proper plan for funding it can really help when it comes to doing fun family things together!
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