The Lumpy Income Ledger

Freelance money does not arrive like a salary. It comes in lumps: three thin weeks, then one invoice the size of a season. A monthly budget has nothing to say about that. This binder does.

The Lumpy Income Ledger teaches one rule and gives you the pages to run it. Every payment that arrives is split four ways, in the same order, every time: set aside for tax, pay yourself a fixed monthly amount, top up a buffer for the lean months, and only then decide what to do with what is left.

What is inside (36 pages)

• The system, taught with diagrams and five worksheets: where every invoice goes, how to choose your own set-aside rate, how to fix a monthly pay figure from your own past income, how big your buffer should be, what to do in a lean month, and what to do when a very large payment lands. A full worked year shows it running month by month.
• Fourteen working forms: the income ledger, invoices sent and chased, client payment habits, a three-month forecast, expenses, the tax set-aside account, tax dates, the buffer account, a ten-minute month-end close, a quarterly review, the year at a glance and a year summary for your accountant.
• A plain-words glossary and a guide to the companion spreadsheet.

What you download

• The book in US Letter and A4, for reading on screen.
• A fillable edition in both sizes, with a typing field on every write-in line.
• A white-paper print edition in both sizes, light on ink, plus a companion spreadsheet (.xlsx, opens in Google Sheets and Excel) that does the split for you, in one ZIP.

Good to know

• No currency symbols on the write-in pages and no country's tax rates: it works wherever you trade. The book tells you what to look up with your own tax authority.
• The fillable edition is made for Adobe Acrobat Reader, Chrome and Edge. Form fields do not work in GoodNotes or Notability; use the print edition there and write by hand.
• Print at 100% or "actual size", not "fit to page".

This is a record-keeping and planning system. It is not tax, financial or accounting advice, and it makes no promise about what you will earn, save or owe.