'Never Leave Me'
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Yeah, I got lucky because I know some lawyers, and I got advice and feedback on contracts pro bono.
If I ever need a lawyer, or decide to go LLC, I will get a lawyer.
But right now, I can't even pay the fucking water or cable/net bills.
I guess I DO just have a fucking hobby. /stressed.
ETA: Nope, that stressed tag ain't closed.
A solid contract, business entities, etc., yep. Paying a retainer just so some douchebag on the internet will stop being mean and calling it a hobby? Nah...
I think that's a little more defensive than the quotation called for. It seems you have budgeted for legal spend, so why the "douchebag" and "mean"? What's he saying that's wrong?
I will pay for advice when I need it
Then isn't it within your budget?
I didn't expect bristling. I think that legal situations come up for people (who own businesses or do not) more than people wager for, and if it's your primary source of income, you can't afford to freewheel it and make stuff up, because things go wrong very easily.
Also, lots of actual douchebags out there who are trying to get money out of you or avoiding paying you some, as opposed to what struck me as just advice that can be taken or left.
I suppose for me it means that I don't have it counted as a recurring annual expense. There have been a handful of times over the years that I've needed to talk to a lawyer for the business. So it tends to fall in my budget under general expenses, not a line item for legal.
I think the bristle is because that's a pretty unilateral statement to make. If one doesn't have a line item for legal fees then your business is a hobby. The term hobby denigrates the business.
I'm sorry if the bristle seemed out of proportion or at all directed at you -- but it is genuine, and there for a reason. "Hobby" is a very common way of undermining just the kind of businesses that I (in particular) and a lot of others who hang in this thread do: freelancers get it constantly, but so do many other one- or two-person businesses, even more so if you work online or out of a home office rather than a fixed place like a shop. It goes right along with "when are you going to get a real job" and "so this is a little thing you do on the side?" and "but your spouse must be making good money, right?" and a hundred others like it.
So, yeah, making sensible legal precautions is a part of any business. But "hobby" is kind of a third rail.
Yeah, what ND said. And I'm not bristling at you, ita !, but at the writer.
It's just...mine's not a hobby, and I would love to have money laying around for legal fees, really, and it's a sensible thing to build into a budget -- but it's just SO not feasible right now. And isn't for SO many small business owners. Most, I'd reckon, especially young, new businesses.
...and x-post with amych!
Freelancer Twin powers ACTIVATE!
Form Of... AN OUTSTANDING INVOICE!!
Heh.
I don't have any outstanding, yet. I've just got some stuff lined up that won't come in for a while.
I HAVE had a client who didn't pay me for 3 weeks. It was a $40 payment. I was like, UM -- PAY ME. Due date means due date; I gotta eat, you!
There are always the occasional people that are deadbeats on payments. Honestly for most of them unless it is a very large amount I'd spend more in legal fees to get the money that to just write off the loss.
So is it good advice or not? I get that there's hot button language, but it seems to me to be a couple steps behind accountant on the taking precautions list.