Why part-time contract work, even at an hourly rate lower than your normal rate, makes good business sense. 

For a self-employed person, the cost of an idle hour can be significant as it directly impacts their income and profitability. An idle hour is a period of time when you’re not working on a billable project or job. During this time, you are not earning any income, but still have expenses to cover, such as equipment maintenance, insurance, and other business-related costs.

To calculate the cost of an idle hour, the you should add up all your fixed and variable expenses for the month and divide that total by the number of billable hours you expect to work in that month. The resulting figure is the cost per billable hour.

For example, if a self-employed tradie has monthly expenses of $4,000 and expects to work 160 billable hours in that month, their cost per billable hour would be $25 ($4,000/160). This means that for every hour they are not working on a billable project, they are effectively losing $25 in potential income.  

Now, consider this, if your charge out rate per hour is $75 you earn $12000 for the month, leaving a profit/income of $8000.  Now, what if you only worked 140 hours one month, your earnings drop to $10,500 and your profit/income is down to $6,500.  If you replaced the lost hours with paid work, even at a rate lower than your normal, say $50, your earnings go back up to $11500 and profit/income $7500.  So clearly, an hour worked (even at the lower rate) will still cover two hours of expenses!

Therefore, it's important for self-employed people to manage their time effectively, keep their schedule full with billable work, and minimize idle hours as much as possible to maximize their income and profitability.

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If you would like to make sure every hour counts, complete the application form below and we will be in touch with work opportunities.