The Freelancer's Money Manual: Budget and Tax Planning Built for Irregular Income

is a personal finance writer, educator, and recovering all-or-nothing budgeter who has spent more than fifteen years helping independent professionals build financial systems that survive irregular income. She began her own freelance career as a marketing copywriter, learning the hard way what happens when a big check lands in April and the tax bill arrives in January. That experience became the foundation of her work: practical, judgment-free money guidance written for people whose income does not cooperate with a two-week paycheck schedule.

Her writing has appeared in leading personal finance and small business publications, and she has taught budgeting and tax-planning workshops for creatives, consultants, and trade professionals across the United States. She is a frequent speaker at freelancer conferences and the instructor of an online course on profit-first budgeting for the self-employed.

Carol lives in Portland, Oregon, with her two dogs and a color-coded accounting system that she insists is a personality trait. When she is not writing about estimated taxes, she works as an editorial consultant for small business publishers—which means, conveniently, she practices everything she preaches.