One Common Mistake Writers and Creatives Make with their Finances

March 7, 2016

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Writers and creatives are always in their own world imagining the best stories and concepts for their audience. Hence, they rarely have extra time to think about what happens to the money earned and how it is maintained. Most writers are never really worried about it because they believe they maintain their bank accounts and ensure that everything is in its place and they continue to focus on what they do the best – writing. Finance, on the other hand, can be quite complicated and writers and creative often end up making mistakes that can be detrimental to their success.

However, there is one common mistake that writers and creatives make with their finances is that they assume it will take care of itself. Most creatives are busy with their own work and therefore they never really care about their finances. They are not bothered about hiring finance professionals that can help them with their books and ensure that their finances are been paid in the right way and that their investments are safe. They usually believe that once they have deposited the money in the bank account it will take care of itself while they can continue on their creative journey.

Since writers and creatives are not really bothered about how to maintain their books they are not too keen on hiring professionals that can help them with it. Most online writers do their own bookkeeping work and they have to dedicate good amount of time to it because they are not really good at it and they often end up missing receipts and information which they should include. For instance, if a writer has bought a coffee machine, he or she would not think of adding that to the expenses because it seems like a personal expense. However, the coffee machine is also a part of the business expenses and should be added. On the other hand, buying new laptops and software will also include, which is usually missed out.

Assuming that money will take care of itself also impacts the writers and creatives because they don’t know when to pay their taxes. Most writers are concerned with their work and they often miss out on deadlines and have to deal with penalties that are slapped by HMRC or other departments which does impact their income in the long run. They also fail to take advantage of tax deductions that can help them save that extra money.