Thank you all for your replies. I am sorry I should have given more details in my initial post.
The work to be done is designing graphics for labels and tags for clothes. The client is an ex-colleague of mine and he had materials/fabrics to show me for the project. I know he could have emailed these as pictures but he is not knowledgeable in computer stuff, attaching files by email etc. It's terrible.
Anyway I had decided not to charge for the meeting, nor to agree to meet again when he could have asked someone in his office to do the emails for him.
I would like to know if / how freelancers charge for meeting clients.
If the client agrees to meet with you locally, would you charge by the hour as from the time of the appointment?
Do you charge for the initial consultation?
Any advice would be most welcome. So far, I've only worked without having to meet the client.
I had a look at the HMRC website and I am getting very worried now. It says to register within 3 months. I have been very silly and did not check about all this, as at first I was not very serious about freelancing, just thought about building up my portfolio, get some money from this whenever possible and was earning very little. It looks like I am in trouble and I don't know what to do now.
I started doing some work 5 months ago, on/off. I am afraid I will get a big penalty which is going to cost me more than what I earned so far from freelancing.
Any suggestions from anyone on how to make it right?
Should I take a break and start afresh in a few months, and register properly?
Also after registering, will I be paying more taxes for my full-time job?
This is my first post. I hope I am in the right place for this.
I am working full-time as a fashion designer in a company, earning about £18k a year. I have recently taken up freelancing as a graphic designer/illustrator, and my earnings vary a lot. So sometimes, I earn nothing a month or £60 a month or only lately, £350.
I registered to a few sites and also pay commission of at least £15 if I get any job.
I am also registered to a US website, it is very bad for money. (any low earnings soon disappear with the commission to pay to the site)
I started freelancing to build up my portfolio. But now I am wondering if it is worthy to carry on as a freelancer but I wish to do this correctly if I decide to do so, that is paying taxes etc.
Now my question is how do I go about for paying taxes for this extra earnings? What is my first step?
Anybody who is in a similar situation to mine, can please advise?
