Why I Built Use Your Marbles
Updated: 1 day ago
If solo freelancing makes you feel like you're losing your marbles, you're not alone. I've dropped more marbles than I care to count. Some rolled under the sofa and some I never found again.
After 25 years, I still have days when I wonder why I didn't just settle for a 9 to 5 job. You know, the kind that you can finish, go home and forget about until morning. Those days are far fewer now. And a recent conversation with a friend made me realise that some of the marble-juggling tricks I've picked up along the way might help other freelancers too.
Too many tools, not enough time
One of my biggest challenges was (and still is) time management. Over the years I've tried loads of project management tools and clever apps, and I spent more time messing about with them than they ever saved me. Most wanted a monthly subscription, of course, and most were built for teams rather than one person with a to-do list.
To be fair, I still use some of those dashboards when that's how a client organises their work. For collaboration, and for keeping track of who has the ball on a big group project, they're excellent. I'll write about that another time.
But for me, working alone, they're too much. After struggling with several of them, I realised all I needed was a simple system. So I built my own.
What you'll find at Use Your Marbles
Until now I've only shared these tools with friends, and they've gone down well. They're small and practical, and most of them are Google Sheets templates for freelancers. Each one does one job and does it properly, whether that's keeping on top of your time or your money. When you save a copy to your Google Drive, it's yours. I can't see it, and nobody else can either.
Common challenges for freelancers
Whether you sell services or physical products, the same challenges come up again and again.
Late payers. The work is done, the invoice is sent, and then nothing. Chasing money you've already earned is awkward and eats into billable time.
Scope creep and endless revisions. "Just one more small change" has a way of turning into a second project at the same price as the first.
Free consulting by stealth. Some clients want the whole plan mapped out before they'll agree a price, then disappear with it.
Saying yes to the wrong client. When work is quiet, it's tempting to take anything. Those are often the jobs that cause the most grief.
Being ghosted after a proposal. You spend an evening on a careful quote and never hear back.
Subscriptions that quietly pile up. Two tools doing the same job, or one you forgot you were still paying for.
None of these means you're bad at freelancing. They're part of the job, and a simple template or a ready-made email can make most of them a bit less painful.
The big one: working out what to charge
This one's a biggie. Pricing sits underneath almost everything on that list. If your freelance day rate is too low, every late payment turns into a crisis and you always feel as if you're struggling to stay afloat.
The trick is to be realistic about everything your rate has to cover that an employer would normally pay for. In short:
Time you can't bill for. Admin, proposals, invoicing and keeping your skills up to date all take hours nobody pays you for directly.
Tax and National Insurance. There's no PAYE when you're self-employed (GOV.UK: Employment status, self-employed and contractor), and National Insurance is paid through Self Assessment. For 2026 to 2027, Class 4 is 6% on profits between £12,570 and £50,270, and 2% above that (GOV.UK: Self-employed National Insurance rates). Income Tax comes on top, so put a slice of every invoice aside.
Business costs. Software, platform fees, bank charges and the odd emergency laptop.
Holidays and sick days. Employees get at least 28 days' paid holiday a year (GOV.UK: Holiday entitlement), but self-employed people get no holiday or sick pay (GOV.UK: Employment status, self-employed and contractor).
Quiet months. Work rarely arrives in a nice even stream, so the busy months have to carry the slow ones.
Your pension. There's no employer contribution, so saving for later is down to you.
I'll go into all of this properly in a post of its own but for now, let me introduce you to the Freelancer Rate Calculator.
Try the free Freelancer Rate Calculator
It's the first Use Your Marbles tool, and the free Freelancer Rate Calculator is yours to keep. It's a simple Google Sheet. You put in what you want to earn and what your time and costs really look like, and it shows you the day rate you need to charge to get there.
It won't haggle with clients for you, but it will give you a number you can stand behind, and that makes the next pricing conversation a lot less wobbly.
Use them, don't lose them!
Julie
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