Hidden Expenses That Come with Remote Work

In-office work comes with some hidden expenses. You’ll have to commute to your corporate office building, which means that you’ll have to spend money on parking passes and extra fuel for your car. If you take public transit for your commute, you’ll have to pay for daily tickets or monthly passes.

You’ll also find that you spend quite a bit on food and drinks. You’ll order lunch from the nearest takeout joints. You’ll get snacks from the office vending machine. And, if the breakroom coffee just doesn’t taste great, you’ll find yourself buying lots of coffee from cafes.

Working remotely can drastically reduce these types of expenses in your budget. Since your office space is steps away from your bedroom, you don’t have to spend more on gas or public transit. Since your kitchen is nearby, you don’t have to spend money on fast food and drinks. You can brew your own cups of coffee. You can heat up leftovers for lunch. You can raid your pantry for snacks between meetings.

So, working remotely should save you a fortune, right? Not exactly. While working remotely can reduce certain expenses in your budget, it will also add other expenses to it. Find out which extra expenses you can expect to encounter when you work remotely.

Equipment

Unless you already have a perfect home office setup, you’ll have to purchase equipment for your remote work. This won’t be a small investment. There are a lot of home office essentials that you’ll need to be as productive as you would be in a corporate work environment.

Now, you might not have to shoulder all of these expenses. Your company might offer to pay for some of your remote work equipment. So, before you go shopping for any of these items, ask your manager about policies regarding equipment expenses. They might offer you a stipend for these equipment essentials. They might offer to reimburse you for certain essentials. Or they might even give you pieces of equipment from the corporate office to bring home. You could get items like an ergonomic office chair or large-scale computer monitor for free.

Certain states like California and Illinois require that employers reimburse employees for necessary remote work expenses. Research your state laws regarding remote work to find out if you’re legally entitled to reimbursements.

Utilities

Whenever you work from home, you will be footing the additional utility costs. You might find that you’ll have to pay more for electricity, water and internet when you stop commuting to your corporate office. Considering how energy costs have gone up, this increase could be very noticeable.

In the same vein as equipment, your corporate office might help you pay for certain utilities that are necessary for remote work (like internet services). Discuss this with your management before you assume that you’ll be reimbursed.

Tech Repairs

When you’re working in a corporate office and your computer breaks down, you can call the IT department to come and help you. You won’t have an IT department that’ll rush to help you at home. You’ll have to bring your devices to the nearest repair shop, and you’ll have to pay for those repairs out of pocket.

You can prepare for this type of expense by having an emergency fund. An emergency fund is a personal collection of savings that allows you to cover urgent expenses, like computer repairs, as soon as possible.

If you don’t have enough in your emergency fund, you can turn to a payment method like a personal loan. Go to the website CreditFresh to see whether you can apply for a personal loan there. You’ll need to make sure that you meet all of the qualifications to get approved. You’ll also need to make sure that the personal loan is accessible in your state of residence.

With an approved personal loan, you’ll have access to temporary funds to cover your urgent tech repair in a short amount of time. You’ll be able to jump back into work in no time.

Keep the receipt from the tech repair. Your company might offer to reimburse you for the necessary repair, so you’ll want evidence of the services rendered. The expense might not be a personal loss!

Don’t get caught by surprise. Prepare for these expenses the moment that you start working remotely.

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