Starting in the make-up industry is difficult : not easy to get jobs, sometimes difficult to get paid quickly, and being a freelance involves taking care of money papers, tax and dealing with a ever-changing budget.
Here are a few tips to help start on the right foot.
- Get your Schedule D number, you need to have a proper status to be able to make an invoice for any work. And avoid the VAT registration, it’s more a problem than anything else. Contact H&M revenue for more infos
- Do short films : build your kit thanks to that, as well as your network. but do not say to anything. ask questions, see if the film will be of any interest for you. You don’t want to loose time for nothing.
- Don’t spend money because you’ll have that job next week. Don’t spend money till you get the cheque : a job can be cancelled or postponed really often. It can be the weather, or the client changing is mind. and you can get paid late.
- Keep tracks of your expenses, keep a receipt for all and get an accountant to help you with your tax return.
- Save 25% of everything you earned for your taxes. You’ll be happy to have the money when asked, preventing any overcharges for delayed payment..
- Save also 10% of what you earn to build an emergency fund. As a freelance, if you get paid late, or if you ill or without work for some weeks, you are not paid or covered by anything to pay the bills. It’s good to have 3 to 6 months of expenses aside. It avoids a lot of stress and charges when your rent is due. And remember, those fantastic boots in sale ARE NOT an emergency. This fund should only serve for unavoidable expenses, like rent, electricity, gas, food and internet/phone, as they are tools for you to get work.
- Save those 10% for retirement once you’ve got yourself a nice emergency fund. I know, when you’re young, you thing about averything else, retirement doesn’t sound really glamorous, but the sooner you start, the better it is as the magic of compound interests will do wonders without you noticing.
If you have any more tips, put them in the comments.
have a nice day.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
hey any information on how makeup artist or rather us trainee makeup artists go about dealing with insurance do we need this ?
any information on this subject would really help
Yes i’d also like a bit of info on this, ive heard you can get insurance when training but not sure from who??
Bectu get you insurance for good price when you enroll. you can check that on their website.
Usually, on (big) films, it’s not necessary, the production taking care of it. On smallers projects, like short-films and corporate, I find an insurance reassuring. It’s quite personnal and it would nice to have people sharing their views on that topic in the forum.