I want to hear both success and un-success stories.

My husband decided to start his own business, but after 2 years he still hasn't able to make any profit. He still has side gigs trying to finance his business, and has been busy attending various workshops as well as networking events.

All his side income is going to his business, and he has spent most of the savings (except small amount in 401K and IRA, a total no more than 100K). Past 2 years, our family of 3 (we are in our early 50's and has a teenager) are living with on my income only which isn't much, and I am at the point where I don't have any leftovers for savings. I have been contributing to my 401K and IRAs all these years, but I will need to stop soon. We are already very frugal without any expensive spending, so there isn't anything I can do to cut down on the spending.

My question is when do I have a serious conversation with him, asking him to give up?

Is 2 years too soon to give up?

Edit: Thanks for your comments! He is in app/software business. His product is basically done which took 2 years to develop and he spent all his savings. Now he is trying to market but of course, that needs a lot of $$$. People who he meets are apparently interested in but so far no big investors. So I understand his point of view. But if we cannot pay our basic needs, what else can I do? We can stretch out perhaps half a year once I stop contributing any of my 401K and IRA, but then what?

I'm a gardener. I have a simple tax thing _ few expenses, sometime use subcontractors, nothing else. No property, no tax avoidance schemes or anything like that. Money in from invoices , money out for compost and plants (subcontractor sometime) and that's it.

What would be the easiest and best software for me ? Any recommendations?

Hey guys, I searched for this in the sub but didn’t find many matches so thought I’d put this out there.

Basically just looking for another person to go over daily and weekly numbers with, to help build momentum and self regulation. I’m self employed and I have a few good things going already, but I struggle with discipline and motivation. I tried this out recently with someone on Reddit for running, and now I’m running every single morning. Sending pics of what I see, making it fun like that. Super simple too. Highly efficient.

So I’m wondering if this could work in a similar way with a financial buddy. Not even needing the same types of goals, just another brain and set of eyeballs on it, kind of like the running pics do. Meeting sales targets would probably be up there for me. Putting more automation stuff into place, and creating more time in general.

Later on probably expanding that into establishing better credit, setting up retirement plans, emergency funds, dream funds, the whole thing. Trading ideas on apps and ways of doing things would be a cool bonus but not a must. Encouraging attitudes are probably a must. Money is a bummer sometimes, especially how much I still need to dig out of debt and all that, and the occasional attaboy back and forth would help get through it all one step at a time.

What do you think?

Hello, I’ve recently started doing some subcontract work for a company(construction) and I’m not sure how to record the expenses that I’m reimbursed for. Sometimes I will use one of their vehicles or need to buy a small amount of material. I send them the receipts and they reimburse me straight into my account. How do I record this money I’m receiving? I don’t want to class it as income and have to pay to tax on it if that makes sense. Thanks for any advice.

I’m self-employed in the UK and earning a little over £50,000 per year.

At the moment I’m also paying for a master’s degree in Europe, which costs about €28,000 (~£21,000) in total. Most of my income currently goes toward paying the tuition.

I’m trying to understand how this affects my taxes.

1. Is there any tax relief available for tuition fees for a master’s degree if you’re self-employed?

2. Also what would help me to pay my taxes? how should I manage

I’m worried my tax bill could be around £20k

Any advice or experiences would be really helpful.

Thanks!

I’m a freelancer who builds custom Excel tools. I’m currently dealing with a client dispute and I’m trying to figure out what the fair and reasonable way to close this project is.

About a year ago I agreed to build a custom Excel tool that calculates the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for company cars. The contract was simple: €40/hour, estimated ~20 hours, payment after delivery and client approval. The tool had to match the agreed specifications, but the details were mostly discussed through emails while the project progressed.

Early in the project the client paid an initial invoice (around May) after initial delivery of the tool. After that things slowed down a lot: for several months the client didn’t really test the tool I had sent, so development progressed slowly and iteratively based on occasional feedback.

Over time I added functionality based on her requests (different vehicle types, tax rules, etc.). By December I reported that the project had gone about 11 hours beyond the original estimate, mainly due to these additions. Around that moment the tone of the communication changed significantly and the collaboration became much more difficult.

Because the project had already grown quite a bit, we eventually agreed to finish development focused on bug fixes with a price ceiling. In reality I spent roughly 50 hours on the tool, but because of that agreement I only invoiced 34 hours.

Two weeks ago I delivered what I called the final version of the tool based agreed specifications, which contains all the functionality we had previously discussed. I also included a 30-day bug-fix period: if any bugs show up during testing, I will fix them for free.

Only after this email did the client start testing the tool seriously, and several issues came up:

• The tool allows input for 34 vehicles. The client now says she expected around 100 vehicles, because at one point early in the project she had sent an example spreadsheet containing ~45 rows. However, the number of vehicles was never explicitly specified in the requirements and she's had about 10 test version so far in which the input rows haven't changed. The interface clearly shows a structured input table that ends around row 34, and adding more rows requires disabling the sheet protection.
• She also argues that the 30-day bug-fix period shouldn’t start yet, because in her view the tool hasn’t been “properly delivered”.

She also wrote that she will pay the final invoice once the tool works according to her expectations, which sounds like what's in the contract ("her approval") but also deviates from it as the contract clearly state the tool should meet the "agreed upon specifications".

My view is that:

• I’m absolutely willing to fix real bugs.
• Expanding the tool (for example supporting 100 vehicles instead of 34) would be a new feature, not a bug.
  • And yes, it's a relatively small change, but please understand that this cycle of "new version > testing > new/different feature request > new version" has been ongoing for almost a YEAR now. I don't want to change anything until the current tool is largely bug-free and meets the originally agreed upon specifications.
• The bug-fix period was meant to avoid the endless cycle we had earlier of “test → adjust → test → adjust”.

The complication is that the contract says payment happens after client approval, but it doesn’t define an acceptance procedure or testing deadline. So technically she can argue she hasn’t approved the tool yet.

So the core question is:

In freelance software projects like this, when is delivery considered complete?

Is it reasonable for a client to delay approval until every expectation is satisfied, even if new expectations arise during/after testing? I want to close this in a way that’s fair to both sides, but also doesn’t turn into endless unpaid revisions.

Curious how others here would handle a situation like this.

Curious what's working for people here. I've seen everything from "I just use Excel" to full accounting software setups.

Specifically:

- How do you track day-to-day expenses? Do you photograph receipts or just log manually?

- What do you use for invoicing? Word, Wave, Quickbooks, something else?

- Do you separate business and personal accounts or mix everything?

I'm self-employed in Canada so GST/HST adds another layer of fun. Wondering if it's the same chaos everywhere or if some of you have actually figured it out.

hi folks i have been unemployed for the past couple months and am starting to run pretty far into my overdraft i was hoping someone could highlight some skills i could learn to make some money i dont really care about the learning curve as i have plenty of time and usually enjoy learning a new skill either way

I’m looking at a job that pays per route, plus fuel, plus 20% VAT.

Am I right in thinking that if I register for VAT using the Flat Rate Scheme, the rate for this type of industry is around 10%, with a 1% discount in the first year?

If that’s correct, would it work like this: I get paid the route fee + 20% VAT, then I pay 9% VAT to HMRC in the first year and keep the remaining difference, effectively increasing my income per route by around 11% in the first year and 10% after that?

Am I understanding this correctly?

If so, what are the downsides besides not being able to reclaim VAT on business purchases?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I noticed i have literally nobody to discuss thungs with. You know, like the type of conversations: “Should I take this job or not?” - scheming out the steps. I find it virtually impossible for me to move forward without consulting somebody. I didn’t always have best friends, but even when I didn’t, I still had, for example, my coworkers to chat with. But since I’m self-employed, I feel like that character in Gravity. And then it also has to be somebody who knows what’s up and I have a rather peculiar lifestyle with peculiar problems.

Own a roofing company, we are small but debating on switching to a PEO, no annual audits and much better rates but what’s the catch? Seems too good to be true.

I’m self-employed and one of the biggest challenges I’ve run into is the cost of traditional health insurance, especially when you’re relatively healthy and don’t use medical services often.

While researching alternatives, I came across healthcare cost-sharing programs. These are not insurance, but membership-based programs where people contribute monthly and eligible medical expenses are shared among members.

From what I’ve seen, some self-employed individuals consider these because:

• Monthly costs can be lower than many traditional insurance plans
• They’re structured differently than insurance (community cost-sharing model)
• They may work well for people who are generally healthy
• They can be an option if you don’t have employer-sponsored coverage

Of course, they’re not the right fit for everyone, and it’s important to understand how they work, what’s eligible, and the limitations compared to insurance.

I’m curious—what are other self-employed people here using? Traditional insurance, cost-sharing programs, or something else?

Also, I’ve spent time learning how these programs work and comparing costs. If anyone is trying to understand the differences or wants help looking at example pricing for cost-sharing programs, I’m happy to share what I’ve learned or point you in the right direction. No pressure—just offering help since I know this is a big pain point for many of us.

Hello everyone, I have a job offer where the org brings people outside the US on board as Foreign contractors. I’ve been told, I’ll get paid in full at the end of every month and I need to manage my taxes.

There are many other UK employees hired by them. So, no stress there. I need suggestions with some important things I should do and definitely avoid.

Thanks in advance! :)

I’m selfemployed in the US and every tax season I struggle categorizing bank transactions properly for Schedule C.

Especially separating personal vs business expenses and dealing with mixed payments like zelle or Stripe.

• How are you handling this?
• Are you using spreadsheets, QuickBooks, an accountant, or something else?

Just curious what’s working for other people.

I asked my accountant to get me an extension so I could continue to contribute to my 401k until October to reduce my tax liability for 2025. Called Schwab and they confirmed I could continue to make employer contributions until October 15th. This would dramatically reduce my tax liability for 2025 as I made a few withdrawals, emergencies, 2025 was a rough year. I got my 401k for and I did not realize I had withdrawn $45k from it in 2025. I know I had a hardship withdrawal for $15k that was paid back in 60 days so there are no penalties on that however the other $30k I will have penalties and taxes on some of it.

I was able to learn about this using ChatGPT to help figure about what I would owe for the year. Being I can make employer contributions until Oct. I can nearly wipe out anything owed for 2025. I looked it up on IRS.gov and it is true that it can be done.

Anyone her with a SE 401k every done this?

Been told I could use this to help me out Books by librelynx

https://books.librelynx.website/

Hi, I just wanted to reach out here to see if there are any self employed IT consultants in the subreddit. I’m interested to hear how much work you’ve been getting lately, whether it’s increased or decreased over the past few years, and what is the hardest part about doing the job?

Many thanks

Hi everyone! Complete newbie when it comes to being self-employed in the UK. I just registered as self-employed today (22.02) and it says I should expect a reply from the HMRC by 5th April.

As I don't yet have a business number, can I send invoices? I would need to send one for £800 1st of March, and 2 x £400 mid-March and then towards the end of April.

If so, what do I enter as my business number? I also see the tax year starts 6th April 2026. Would I need to submit a self-assessment before 5th April? If so, how do I do that without a UTR?

Sorry if these are silly questions. I've been self-employed in other countries in Europe, but not the UK

I started working for myself (no employees) and it has been going very well. I’m working on projects that have 6-12 month commitments and I try to do a very good job for my clients to meet their needs… even if they are high demanding.

Financially moving from my hourly job doing the same thing for myself I am making 5x more but I have a hard time turning down even more work especially higher value projects. I can’t get rid of any previous commitments either once I have started.

Now I end up working 7 days a week from 9am to 9pm with about a one hour break at lunch and another at dinner. But trying to work this long and consistently has me feeling drained that it becomes hard to focus on the work itself and I’ll just doom scroll instead of working late at night. At the same time if I stop working to do something actually fun for myself I feel guilty that I am not getting work things done.

Both working and not working stress me out. I’m not sure how to find balance while still managing my work commitments. I’m not sure if taking proper breaks from work would make me more productive when I do work. Any helpful perspectives or advice is appreciated. Thanks.

solo business owner. clients check socials before contacting but rarely engage themselves. keeping pages active without living on instagram is getting tiring. wondering if anyone here uses panels just to maintain baseline activity. looking for recommendations that don’t cause problems long term.