Win a free copy of “The Money Book” and whip your finances into shape for 2012

Last Monday was the deadline to pay your 2011 taxes here in Canada, and I hope everyone got them finished on time and had enough money set aside to pay the tax man. If you’re a self-employed, freelance photographer you know that no one is deducting money from every cheque you get and setting it aside to pay your taxes at the end of the year. And if you’ve been self-employed long enough, you’ve probably had years when you found yourself short on funds when tax time came around. When your income is erratic, it can be difficult to know how much of every cheque you should put aside for income taxes, let alone things like retirement, emergency funds, etc, etc.

I’ve experience these problems myself, and like many freelancers I’ve over-spent during good times and paid bills with credit cards during lean times. Fortunately, I discovered a book last year that really helped me get a handle on my finances and put a system in place to manage my cash flow in good times and in bad. It’s called The Money Book for Freelancers, Part-Timers, and the Self-Employed and it’s the only book I’ve found that so clearly covers the financial problems freelancers have to deal with. The authors are American and some of the retirement info is only applicable to freelancers in the States (hence the picture of Ben Franklin on the cover), but the vast majority of the advice will work for Canadians as well.

I highly recommend this book, and I’m happy to announce that the authors have generously provided me with two autographed copies that I’m going give away to two lucky readers of CanPhoto.Net. I’ll cover the postage to mail them to anyone with a Canadian address (that’s the only restriction) and there are several ways to enter:

1. Copy and paste this tweet: Canadian photographers enter to win “The Money Book” from @canphoto by RTing this! #canphotofreebie http://bit.ly/K8ZVEc

2. Write your own tweet, but be sure include our twitter handle @canphoto, the hashtag #canphotofreebie, and the long or short link back to this page: http://bit.ly/K8ZVEc

3. Write a post on your own blog about this contest, include a link back to this page, and then add a comment here so I know where to find your post.

4. Sign up to receive updates via email.

5. “Like” CanPhoto.Net on Facebook.

The contest will run until May 31st, and after that I will pick two random winners who will receive a free copy of The Money Book. Please remember that you must have a Canadian mailing address to win. Good luck!

If you don’t want to wait until the 31st to see if you’ve won, you can also show your support for CanPhoto.Net by purchasing the book from Amazon.ca using the link below.