Going 1099 is a book that teaches you how to become a solo federal sub-contractor and gain control of your working life, earn more money and unlock more free time. I wrote it because quite a few people have asked me how they can become a 1099. I figured it was best to write a single book that I can send them and that I can share with others who are interested. This newsletter goes out Monday - Friday and covers topics that will help you succeed in starting and maintaining successful 1099 career.
When you have too much free time at work
If you're good at what you do, you probably realized that you can do your job in far less than forty hours per week. The problem is as a W2 employee, you probably have lots of non core tasks to do (meetings, proposal work, etc.). But when you go 1099, you're just expected to do the core job. There is no manager to hover over you and give you extra stuff, so you find yourself with all this free time, even if you still have to be on site with the client. If you're in this situation, here's what I recommend you do. Take some of that new "free time" and learn a new skill while you're on the job. I don't just mean a random skill, but one that can help you "level up" in your 1099 career. On one of my projects, I had lots of free time, so I learned Tableau. That helped me get even more well paying gigs later. It's better than being bored and just surfing the web all day. But there's a few criteria you should apply: First, the skill should be useful to the current job you have. In my case, I built a Tableau dashboard that was used on my current project which the client appreciated. This keeps it "within scope" of your sub-contract. Second, you should actually be interested in the thing you're learning. I wanted to learn Tableau because it would automate a lot of stuff I found repetitive or tedious. If you're not interested, you'll give up. Having lots of free time at work seems great, but eventually, you'll get depressed and antsy if you don't feel like you're doing something useful. Giving yourself some on-the-job training is a great (and potentially lucrative) way to pass the time, especially since you're being paid for it. If you're interested in learning how to get your first solo 1099 federal sub-contract, check out my book: |
I'm Dale, the author of Going 1099
Going 1099 is a book that teaches you how to become a solo federal sub-contractor and gain control of your working life, earn more money and unlock more free time. I wrote it because quite a few people have asked me how they can become a 1099. I figured it was best to write a single book that I can send them and that I can share with others who are interested. This newsletter goes out Monday - Friday and covers topics that will help you succeed in starting and maintaining successful 1099 career.
My approach to short term gigsSource One of the reasons a prime may want to bring on a 1099 is because they have a vacancy on a contract that is ending in less than six months or sooner. Taking on a full time employee may be risky if the contract doesn't get extended or if they lose the re-compete, so bringing on a 1099 is a good compromise. The question is, should you take a short term gig? Here are a few factors I'd consider: If the contract ends and you're out of a job/gig, how easily...
Budget with air quotes is how most 1099s plan their moneySource Once you go 1099, your income becomes a little more variable. I say a little more because in the federal space, your work is pretty consistent and likely near full time. But, there are months where you take a vacation and that means you'll get paid maybe 50% less than a normal full time month. If you normally get paid $20,000/month and you take a two week vacation, you'll get paid $10,000. This is not a big deal overall, but if...
New 1099s as they make their estimated tax paymentSource Many people are under the assumption that if they work for themselves, they can write off all their normal life expenses as "business" expenses. This is not true, and is in fact illegal. You can't write off your weekly Costco run or your kid's birthday party bounce house as a business expense just because you thought about work for a minute during those times. Really, you should have pretty minimal expenses as a 1099. Here are some...