Freelancing During the Holidays

Not too long ago, I set a ridiculous financial goal for myself. I’ve been working extremely hard to reach it, and I have three months left to fulfill my plan. I’m using visualization, creativity, and a whole lot of midnight oil to work toward paying off a student loan by the first day of spring.

When I came up with this hair-brained scheme, I was really worried about the holidays. I was scared that there was just going to be no business in the last two months of 2008. If I recall correctly, last year was pretty darn quiet; and there wasn’t even an official recession going on then.

So far, it looks like my fears were in vain. We’ve been keeping pretty busy. Sure, Tamara did the NaNoWriMo thing last month, but I also took on a lot of extra work, so it sort of balanced out, I think. Obviously, we’re only a week into December, but so far things are looking pretty good there, too. In fact, we even got to revisit our “Want to Work with Us” post last week and hired another Freelance Parent reader to work with us (hi, Michelle!).

So, how can you help ensure that you’re going to have work to do during the times of year that are usually quieter? This week we’re going to talk about a couple of ideas we’ve had that have helped. Some are totally obvious, but bear repeating. Others are a little more innovative, if we do say so ourselves.

I’ll start off by opening up the comments section to those who have suggestions on how you keep busy this time of year. Any tips or pointers that the rest of us should know about?