If you’re a freelancer, or thinking of becoming one, you must learn how to withstand financially hard times, as income is not steady.
This is something I had to learn the hard way but now I have a system that makes it easy. I did it by training my brain’s reward centre to not want less (as that’s almost impossible) but to want different.
My system flies in the face of “accepted wisdom” that tells you to ignore your wants. People who spout that advice have no clue how the brain actually works.
If you follow my process you’ll emerge a financially lean freelancer able to weather hard times of little work or severe illness.
Let’s get started.
The Golden Rules
Freelancers must obey 2 important rules to survive:
- Earn money and;
- Keep money
Earning money is something I’ve covered elsewhere, so today we’ll focus on keeping it. This is a skill many people don’t have.
After all, how many stories have you heard where someone makes it in life, only to let spending get out of control and lose everything?
Overspending as a freelancer puts you in a very compromising position. If you hit a dry spell with little work, let’s say due to illness, then high expenses will eat up your savings.
Once your savings are gone you might have to regress and get a job, the worst possible fate for someone who’s just won their freedom.
The obvious answer is to limit spending but there are many areas I could cover on just this topic. However we’ll address the most common among freelancers which is overspending on technology!!
Yes, a laptop and mobile phone addiction might only cost $3000 a year, which is low compared to income but realise this:
Overspending on small things is the gateway drug to overspending on large things like cars and houses.
By using my system on spending that doesn’t matter it can help you completely sidestep larger and potentially fatal financial errors later.
This doesn’t mean going without though! By the end I promise to have cut your technology bill in half, whilst making you feel better than if you had bought brand new stuff every year!
The true definition of wealth is keeping more money than you make.
Do You Love Apple? I do.
I’m not lying when I say I love everything Apple makes. It’s all so sleek, beautiful and crash free (sorry Microsoft fanboys, but it’s true ;).
Every year they announce new stuff with double the processing, triple the graphics and a hundred times the AI power.
And all in a sexy new shape, making last year’s device look old and frumpy.
Their facts and figures about power may be correct but they are a front, designed to hide the truth.
Increased power is irrelevant except for maybe 1 in 1000 who really need it.
Listen to Apple though, and you’ll be told that everyone can benefit from the new A99x chip. Your dreams can now be reality.
What they’re selling you is not a device, but what they say the device can help you become.
But that vision is a lie, designed to do one thing – get their money out of your pocket.
The key to unravelling their web of lies is to understand dopamine.
Dopamine
Dopamine is a natural chemical in our brains that makes us feel good. It evolved as a survival tool rewarding activities which kept your ancestors alive.
It works by giving us a little shot of happiness whenever we anticipate completing some task and receiving a rew ard.
Our brains are quite dumb though, and cannot tell the difference between dopamine from a new MacBook versus a successful hunting trip.
Dopamine is the reason why you always have a little rush when you buy something and continue to get little highs over the next few days, reinforcing your Apple bond.
The rush is only temporary though, and after a week that new thing is not quite as shiny. After a month the dopamine is gone and now your new thing is just a laptop.
A year later it has become the old laptop, which is exactly when Apple pounces on you with a fresh new product, and so the cycle continues.
Anticipation
If you’re eagle eyed you’ll notice I said dopamine was a response to anticipation of reward, and NOT the reward itself.
We know this as studies on addicted gamblers show that dopamine is released before the betting wheel stops spinning.
Clever marketers use this fact to weave together anticipation of your improved self and the purchase of their gadget.
Whenever you want to buy a new iPhone your brain is being tricked into thinking this will improve your life (and hence your survivability).
iPhone in your Hand
Look at the phone in your hand and be honest with yourself. How much has it improved your life in the past year?
Maybe your photos are slightly better and maybe you save about 5 seconds each day in app loading speed. That’s 30 minutes per year in total.
Was that worth the thousand dollars you paid for it?
I doubt it.
You’ll never hear rational points like this directly from Apple though. They know that sales are made on emotion and not rationality.
Instead they tell you “it’s 2x faster” whilst showing happy and productive people. Your brain will then do the rest of the work, assuming the purchase will yield an improved version of yourself.
And it’s not just tech that does it. They learned from the masters: alcohol, tobacco and perfume brands.
When You Die
Let’s now get real with a question.
It’s 50 years from now and you’re on your deathbed. Do you think you’re wishing you had bought the iPhone 19 sooner?
Probably not.
In fact it’s always the same 2 wishes that people on their deathbeds have:
“I wish I had spent more time with the people I love and doing what I like”.
That thousand dollars you spend on an iPhone could buy you between 10 and 30 days of freedom, depending on where you live.
Take your favourite hobby and imagine being able to do it for 30 days without the annoyance of having to work.
Now look at your children and imagine being able to spend time with them, helping them become functional and useful people.
How do those compare to the iPhone 19?
Practical Section
I’m not denying that you want or need an iPhone and a MacBook. By all means get them but realise that the phrase “latest and greatest” is a dopamine powered marketing scam.
The difference between this year’s model and last is a couple of percent that you’d never notice.
In fact if you go back to the iPhone from 3 years ago you still wouldn’t notice the change unless you really push the machine (only 1 in a thousand need to, so that’s probably not you).
Unfortunately all your rational thinking is no match for Apple’s world class emotional manipulation.
We need a go-to-war plan.
What follows is the strategy I use to fight back against the tech marketing machine. With it I have immunised myself against wanting the latest and greatest.
Don’t Fight Dopamine
First realise that you cannot control your brain’s reward system because it’s hard coded into you. Many financial gurus will tell you to use your willpower but they are wilfully blind to the science.
Willpower cannot save you because you are bombarded with dopamine marketing every single day and eventually, you will break.
Over the years I have come up with a practical strategy that embraces the dopamine system but shields it from emotional manipulation by marketers.
Instead of fighting dopamine, we turn it into our ally.
Displaced Dopamine
We’re still going to partake of the dopamine system when we buy something but with one key difference: We only buy technology from 3 years ago or older.
The obvious advantage to this is that used stuff is 50 – 80% cheaper than new. Instead of a $1000 iPhone now you need only spend $500.
Depreciation (where things lose value over time) is at its worst in the first 3 years after purchase, so let some other chump take the depreciation hit.
I realise that buying used is not as sexy as buying new, as your brain has been indoctrinated to always want new stuff.
However I have discovered how to flip this internal narrative on its head, and it’s thanks to the magic of the internet, which stores everything forever.
Hype up the Old
To make used products seem desirable we’re going to trick our dumb brain into thinking it’s getting something new.
To do this fire up Google or YouTube and search for reviews of the used item you’re looking at, but here’s the trick:
Limit the search results to around the date it was launched.
Now soak in those reviews and let them work their dopamine magic. Marvel at the new display with better, faster pixels. Cue wonder at the new AI camera system that makes you look like a Hollywood star.
After this hype session go out and buy that “old but new” MacBook for $1000 instead of paying $2000 for the latest one.
The dopamine hit will be exactly the same, whilst saving $1000!
Buyers Remorse
Once you get your old but new thing, you may get depressed that it’s not the latest and greatest.
The key here is to reinforce your choice by giving yourself more dopamine shots. Take that $1000 you saved, break off $100 and go have a gourmet burger with your son.
Or get a babysitter and take your wife for a cocktail.
This way your brain gets 2 dopamine shots instead of 1. The next time you want to buy technology it will subconsciously steer you to “used is better because I get a burger and cocktails”.
I call this my internal marketing system and it beats the pants off anything Apple can produce! (At least until Apple offers free burgers and cocktails).
Try this Everywhere
It’s not just with technology you can do this because dopamine is used by every single company’s marketing department.
Starbucks been tempting you with their coffee dopamine buzz? Try this instead:
Go buy a pack of Jamaican blue mountain coffee (very expensive but totally awesome), brew it at home and fill up a thermos. Now drive to a nearby spectacular view and enjoy it knowing Starbucks cannot compete. Plus the coffee and fuel came in at one third the price of Starbucks.
Been looking at the latest 50 grand BMW? How about this:
Find a well maintained, top of the range 10 year old BMW for 10 grand. Pay a mechanic another 10 grand to totally fix it up so it’s like new. Then spend 5 grand on the most epic road trip with your son, stopping wherever you like and staying in the nicest hotels.
I just saved you 25 grand, you have a more reliable car (because older cars usually have all their teething issues worked out) and your father son relationship is in great shape.
My point is that there are always alternatives to get that dopamine buzz without spending obscene amounts of cash, as Apple would have you belive.
Always Remember: Increasing cost does not increase dopamine.
The Most Important Life Skill
For many successful freelancers a few hundred bucks a month is not a deal breaker, but there’s a much bigger picture to look at.
Your future depends on your financial skills now.
Keeping money you’ve earned is the key to this, ensuring you have enough to last you forever without relying on government help. After all, have you ever met a government pensioner who’s happy with their income?
Your Home
Training your brain to subdue new technology has a great knock on effect, which is to reduce your largest expense:
Housing.
Training yourself to be frugal means you can now choose a house that fulfils your needs and not your wants. The difference could be thousands in monthly payments!
Miss a couple payments and the bank will take it away with no remorse, whereas the frugal player will still have a roof over his family’s heads.
By adopting my system you’re not depriving yourself of stuff, but you are ensuring good financial habits that let you live the life you want.
Finally
If you’re looking to become financially free, earning 3x the average salary, then I have a cheat sheet that gives away the secrets of how I did it.
It shows you the path I took from a low paid 9-5 worker to well paid freelancer.
However it’s not the usual advice you hear these days. I actually give you the details of how I managed to build my freelancing career without giving up my job. Doing this tripled my income without having any significant gaps in income.
The cheat sheet is filled with solid, practical tips that I have used in the real world. It’s not theoretical advice spouted by wannabe freelancers who’ve never won a contract in their lives.
Oh, and it’s completely free.
To get it, click below: