There are many people out there that make a living on making arts and crafts. There are others that do it just for fun and a little extra cash. Depending on what you’re making, how much of it you’re selling, and where you live, you may or may not have to have a business license in order to do it.
Whether or not your crafting business is just something fun or it’s a registered business, you still want to look to the future and look at what kind of coverage you have if something were to go wrong. This is especially important if your arts or items you are crafting are the means of your only income.
Living The Life Of The Self Employed
When you are self employed there are many things that you need to keep in mind. You are responsible for your own health insurance. You are responsible for taxes on the work that you do and the money made from that work. You are also responsible for everything that has to do with your business.
This means that you don’t have coverage from your employer for things like workers comp, so if you are injured on the job and can’t continue to make art or do your crafts you will not have any income. If the art you are creating is dangerous, such as using metal cutters and machinery, you may want to speak to a lawyer about what you can do to protect yourself, aside from health insurance.
Covering Yourself In Emergencies
Obviously health insurance is one way to protect yourself in an emergency, but you also want to make sure that you have some money put away just in case you are unable to work for a while. You could also consider getting a disability insurance policy to cover any potential long-term absences from work – if you’re wondering “how to quote a llc for disability insurance?“, then you can click to get some help with that and get yourself protected. Hopefully, you’ll never have to make a claim but, for the peace of mind it gives you, getting disability insurance is something that you may want to seriously consider. Savings accounts are especially important for the self employed, since being off work when you work for yourself doesn’t offer you the chance to file for unemployment compensation.
These are all important things to consider when you plan to work for yourself. While it can be fun and less stressful to be your own boss, or seem that way anyway, you are actually putting more pressure and responsibility on yourself.
Making It Legitimate
You may want to make your business legitimate and get an LLC or some other business licensing. This may open you up to some tax breaks and other benefits that can help you in case of an emergency or a temporary inability to work.
If you get the right kind of set up you may also be able to hire an employee or two, which means spending more money, but it also means you’ll have someone to keep product moving if you need to take a few days off of work to heal from and injury.
