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Archives for September 2013

September 17, 2013

Cutting the Fat: Business Expenses

Cutting FatLast week my friend, Curtis McHale, wrote a newsletter about reviewing recurring business expenses to keep overhead low. After a hectic week when it hit my inbox, I finally got around to reading it and it kicked my butt into making a bunch of changes with more to follow. It was simply time to start cutting the fat from my outgo.

who’s first?

The first casualty was Audible, which I use nearly daily on my phone. I had the 2 credits/mo plan for $22.95 and have quite a backlog and had 6 credits available. Just in case the price goes up or they change things soon, I placed it on hold for 90 days. If I am caught up on books by then (after getting 6 more, including the Lord of the Rings trilogy), then I can resume it or alter my plan. Savings: $275/yr.

The next one was much rougher, but something I’d been mulling over for many, many, many months. Such a long breakup just made the financial decision all the more obvious and, looking in hindsight, the delay was not very smart. I signed up for Scribe SEO very soon after it was released for 300 inspections/mo for $27/mo, which is no longer an offered plan. That was the sole reason I have held onto my license for over 18 months now and I just realized that alone was not a good reason to keep paying $27/mo. I barely use it because I know enough about SEO to not rely on it and I have been using WordPress SEO for many months with clients who can’t pay $97/mo for Scribe. Savings:  $324/yr

what’s next?

My next move is using a trial period of a new client invoicing system to shave some more fat off. I’ve used Freshbooks since before I was full-time running my business, but they charge more to keep adding clients using the grandfathered plan I have now or else switch plans and pay $29.95/mo. Right now I’m paying $24/mo.

Curtis’ e-mail pushed me to look at other solutions, so I signed up for Ballpark using a 30-day trial and really like what I see, especially for $12.99/mo. I imported all of my Freshbooks clients, invoices, and estimates and all appears to be great. You can use offer code JESSEPETERSEN for 10% off your paid account if you like it after your trial. I don’t really see any downside to switching other than losing my historical reporting and my wife learning a new system to do our finances. Potential savings: $132/yr.

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