Tips for Remote Workers to Save Money
If you have your own virtual business or are a remote worker you may find that sometimes the costs incurred during work hours from overheads or other expenses substantially detract from the profits you are making. In order to maximize your profits you need to ensure that you adopt the best practices so that your income is yours to spend or save, and doesn’t go into the pocket of others. Here’s how.
1. Minimize Telecomms Bills
You probably spend a lot of time on your phone and on the internet. Don’t merely accept services from the first telecommunications company you find. In order to cut costs, call multiple service providers. See what bundles they offer and how they can reduce your monthly fees. You might want to explore unsubscribing from unnecessary service features that you never use or opt for a lower-capacity plan.
2. Use Recycled Printer Cartridges
Especially if you print a lot of documents, the cost of printer cartridges can add up really fast for remote workers. If you want to cut costs, buy a laser printer. It also helps to use 75 DPI and low quality settings to save ink. Unless you are printing visual documents for clients, you will not notice the difference.
3. Go Paperless
To cut even more costs and save money as a remote worker, just go paperless. Paper, ink cartridges, printers are all unnecessary expenses in today’s high tech world. There are plenty of easy practices to implement to go paperless, such as scanning and digitizing all documents, and signing everything electronically. You should also convert all your bills to e-bills and instead of keeping business slips and collecting business cards, scan them all with your smart phone.
4. Minimize Employees
Human Resources are a time and money consuming investment in any business venture, whether you are involved in remote work or own a bricks and mortar business. Determine what staff are really necessary and consider hiring a virtual assistant to help you instead of full time staff. Hiring, recruiting, taxes and insurance for employees are huge costs, when you hire a virtual assistant you can avoid all of these costs.
5. Reduce Energy Consumption
Overheads add up when you are a remote worker. Instead of having the lights and the AC on all day, use natural sunlight and keep the windows open. Make sure you buy low energy-consuming devices, such as those that say ‘energy star’ on them indicating their costs savings. Turn off your modem when you are done on internet for the day and also turn off any devices you are not using, like your laptop instead of leaving them on standby. You will be surprised at how much you can cut costs.
6. Coworking
If you work remotely but are seeking an alternative working space or an office you can go into when you can’t concentrate at home, try coworking. This consists of working with others in a shared office space. As opposed to hiring your own office coworking provides a viable solution by providing an office environment for a fraction of the cost of dedicated office space.
