Vacation planning as a 1099

I'm currently in Portland, OR for a little over two weeks. Taking long vacations is one of those great perks about going 1099.

But people who go 1099 can get a little antsy about planning vacations, because every hour they're on vacation is an hour they're not billing. You are "losing money"

As a 1099 in the government space, you have the benefit of getting longer term, stable contracts while also having flexibility in terms of how much vacation time you can take. Basically, it's up to you!

But the key to not feeling antsy is to plan in advance how many hours you will bill per year.

A standard work year in many government contracts has 1850 billable hours. This is about 5-6 weeks of time off if you include federal holidays.

Since you know your billable rate, you can calculate the maximum amount of income you can earn. If it's $100/hour, it's $185,000/year.

But if you're like me and want to take lots of vacation, say, 10 weeks off year, you can just subtract an additional 5 weeks off (200 hours) of your billable hour "quota", so 1850 - 200 = 1650 hours.

This means you will earn $165,000 per year.

Are you still leaving money on the table?

Yes, but if you calculate the actual number, you can decide for yourself before you take the vacation whether it's worth it to you.

That way every time you're drinking hipster coffee in Portland or sipping umbrella drinks on a sunny island, you don't add $100 to the bill for each hour you spend lingering there.

Want the full playbook? Check out Going 1099.