The life-changing magic of spending money

I’m trying to get better at spending money. It’s so hard, because:

• My business’ money is still my money, unlike how employees generally don’t think of their company’s money as their money
• It seems we’re brought up to save, save, save as much as possible because whatifeverythinggoeswrongandIneedmoneyhelp!

But spending money on the right things can be life-changing

Take interview transcription, for example…

In the past, I was a cheapskate who transcribed interviews using YouTube’s free audio transcription feature. Basically, you upload your video to YouTube (as a private/unlisted video) and it’ll generate a transcript of the video’s audio for free! 🤩

I wanted to have a screenshot of the transcript setting here but I can’t find it on any YouTube video right now lmao, maybe it’s temporarily/permanently unavailable

17 Aug 2024 editor’s note: I found it! You have to click to expand the video’s description, and then scroll to the bottom to click the “Show transcript” button:

YouTube’s transcription feature worked. Usually. But not the most conveniently.

If I had only an audio recording of the interview, I had to convert it to a video before YouTube would accept it. This was already troublesome.

Then, I didn’t know how long YouTube needed to generate a transcript, so I’d sometimes wait a few hours—and then discover the transcript wasn’t available. I checked back a few hours later, and it’s the same story.

I would then try reuploading the video in different file formats and sizes until something eventually worked and I finally got my transcript.

There was also at least one occasion where I couldn’t get the transcript for any YouTube video (okay, make that at least two occasions now 😂) and I freaked.

All this was a massive waste of time. Plus, YouTube’s transcription quality is decent at best. If your audio contains acronyms or names of certain organisations or people with non-English names, good luck to you.

So, when I recently started taking on more interview work, I decided I didn’t want to deal with all this nonsense anymore.

I went looking for a better audio transcription tool

Sure, it would be awesome if the tool was free, but I didn’t mind paying a reasonable amount if it met these two requirements:

1. It offers high transcription accuracy
2. It can recognise different speakers

I tried a few tools. I really wanted to like Otter for its cute name, but its transcription accuracy wasn’t always great. It also had features I didn’t need, like Otter AI Chat.

In the end, I signed up—and paid—for TurboScribe after seeing some Redditors recommend it. And it has been amazing.

It’s easy to use, transcribes fast and has superb transcription quality. It has saved me so much time in uploading my interview files and correcting transcriptions. I paid US$120 for a year’s service and consider it money well spent.

There are other services I also happily pay for, like:

• ​Make for automating my tasks—I wrote a blog post about this here!, and
• ​Wise for getting paid by overseas clients.

(Note: afiliate links above.)

But I won’t be freely throwing money at any app I see. As far as possible, I’m still going to stick to free tools, and then switch to paid only if I like the service and bust its free plan’s limits.

(This newsletter was NOT brought to you by TurboScribe. I’m just a happy user lol.

Also, if you want to learn more about the skill of spending money, I highly recommend reading Ramit Sethi‘s stuff. He’s taught me so much about personal finance and automation.)

More freelancer news

Introduction of the Platform Workers Bill

This Bill covers upcoming laws that will enhance protections for platform workers, like:

• Requiring platform companies to make CPF contributions for platform workers below 30 years old, and those 30 and older who opt in to receive CPF contributions
• Requiring platform companies to pay work injury compensation if a platform worker gets injured during a gig
• Setting up a legal framework for platform workers to better negotiate with platform companies

What happens next is that—I’m summarising here—the Bill will undergo a few rounds of discussion in Parliament. It may also be amended.

Then, if it’s approved (it likely will be), it will become law and take effect.

​Here’s a news article that announces the Bill’s introduction.​

(And if you want to read the Bill itself, you can find it here 🤓 check out the amendment Schedules at the end of the Bill for the details on the protections platform workers will have.)

Lots of freelancer events coming up!

Seats are available as of writing—register ASAP if you’re keen so you don’t miss out.

• 22 Aug – Pricing right for profitable passions: Find out about the “revenue and cost-models as a freelancer-business” and learn how to set your prices better.
• 28 Aug – Polish Your Copyright Know-How for Creative Business: Get insights into how copyright laws apply to the creative works you produce for freelance clients. More info on this page (scroll down and click the Day 2 tab to find the event), and you can register on this page.
• 29 Aug – Branding and Reputation Management: This looks like a rerun of last month’s session about building your brand and defending your reputation.
• 5 Sep – Understand Your Contractual Rights as a Creative: A panel discussion on intellectual property and contracting issues that freelance creatives may encounter + how to navigate them. There might be some overlap with the content covered during the 28 Aug event.

These events are free to attend, but all of them except the “Polish Your Copyright Know-How for Creative Business” one require you to be a library member. Check the event page for the link to sign up for (free) library membership.