Latest / Solopreneur Sessions with Fexingo: One-Person Businesses, Freelancing, and Independent Work / How a Solopreneur Cut Costs 40 Percent Without Losing Quality
Transcript
- Lucas: So last week I was talking to a friend who runs a one-person brand strategy practice, and she mentioned something that stopped me cold. She said she cut her monthly operating costs by 40 percent last year — without reducing the quality of her work. In fact, her client satisfaction scores went up. Luna: Forty percent is huge. How did she pull that off without feeling like she was downgrading everything? Lucas: That's exactly what I asked. Her name is Priya Patel, and she's been a solo brand strategist for about five years. She told me that by early 2025, she was spending nearly four thousand dollars a month on software subscriptions, freelance support, and administrative tools. She wasn't even sure where it was all going. Luna: That's a lot for one person. I know I've looked at my own bank statements and wondered where a couple hundred bucks went every month. Four thousand is another level. Lucas: Right. So she did what she calls a 'full operating expense audit.' She went line by line through every recurring charge and asked three questions: Does this directly generate revenue? Does it save me more time than it costs? And is there a cheaper alternative that does the same thing? She ended up cutting twelve subscriptions entirely and downgrading five others. Luna: What kind of things did she cut? I'm imagining stuff like premium analytics tools she hardly used. Lucas: Exactly. She was paying for three different project management tools — she'd inherited one from a client collaboration, kept another for personal use, and had a third she'd forgotten about. She consolidated down to one free tier of a platform she already liked. That alone saved her about a hundred and fifty bucks a month. Luna: And the quality didn't drop? I feel like free tiers often lack key features. Lucas: That's the interesting part. She realised she was using maybe 20 percent of the paid features. The free version did everything she actually needed. The other big saving was her CRM. She was on a professional plan for a popular CRM at seventy-five dollars a month. She switched to a bare-bones free spreadsheet template connected to a simple email tool. It actually forced her to be more disciplined about her pipeline. Luna: I can see that. Sometimes having fewer features means you actually use the ones that matter. What about the bigger line items? Lucas: Her biggest single expense was a virtual assistant service — about eight hundred a month for ten hours of support. She realised she was only using maybe six of those hours, and the VA was doing tasks she could batch herself in half the time. So she cancelled that and instead hired a part-time research assistant directly for three hundred a month, focused specifically on industry trend reports she could repurpose into content. Luna: So she actually got more value from a cheaper, more specialised hire. That's a smart trade-off. Lucas: It was. And that research assistant ended up helping her land a new client because she had such sharp market insights to share in a proposal. So the cost cut actually generated new revenue. She also renegotiated her internet and phone plans — she'd been on business-tier packages that she didn't need. Switched to consumer plans and saved another fifty bucks a month. Luna: Did she touch her software for design work? That's usually the one freelancers are scared to downgrade. Lucas: She kept her core design suite — that's non-negotiable for her. But she did find that she was paying for a premium stock photo subscription at two hundred a month and only downloading maybe five images. She downgraded to a cheaper plan with fewer downloads and supplemented with free resources. Saved a hundred bucks a month. Luna: So the total savings added up to roughly sixteen hundred a month, which is her 40 percent. What did she do with that extra cash? Lucas: She reinvested about half into professional development — a couple of courses and a coaching program. The other half went straight into her profit margin. She told me her net income actually went up about 15 percent in 2025 without her raising her rates at all. Luna: That's the kind of story that makes me want to do my own audit. But I imagine a lot of solopreneurs are overwhelmed by the thought. Where would you even start? Lucas: Priya's approach was pretty methodical. She exported her last three months of bank and credit card statements, highlighted every recurring charge, and categorised them into three buckets: essential, nice to have, and forgotten. Then for each one, she set a timer for twenty minutes to research alternatives. If she couldn't find a better option in twenty minutes, she kept it. Luna: I like that time box. It prevents the analysis paralysis that usually kills these projects. Lucas: Exactly. She also reached out to vendors directly to ask about discounts. You'd be surprised how often companies will give you a loyalty discount or a lower tier if you just ask. She got her email marketing platform down from fifty dollars to thirty a month just by calling and saying she was considering switching. Luna: That's a pro move. And it ties into something we've talked about before on this show — the power of just asking. Lucas: Right. And the thing is, Priya's story isn't about deprivation. It's about intentionality. She didn't cut things that mattered to her clients or to her own sanity. She cut bloat. And the result was a leaner, more focused business that actually delivered better work because she had more clarity about where her energy was going. Luna: That clarity is something I think every solopreneur is chasing. And honestly, conversations like this — where we get into the real nitty-gritty of how someone actually ran their numbers — that's exactly the kind of practical insight that makes this show useful. Lucas: Yeah, I agree. And you know, if these conversations have moved your work forward in some small way, listener support is what keeps this show ad-free and focused on stories like Priya's. If you'd like to chip in, you can find us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. No pressure at all — just a way to keep the episodes coming. Luna: Absolutely. And it helps us keep digging up these real-world examples. So back to Priya — one thing I'm curious about is whether she plans to keep doing these audits annually. Lucas: She actually schedules a quarterly 'financial health check' now. Every three months she spends an hour reviewing her subscriptions and expenses. She says it's become a habit, like brushing your teeth. And she's already caught a couple of new services that crept in during a busy month and weren't adding value. Luna: That's a habit worth stealing. I think a lot of us sign up for free trials, forget to cancel, and end up paying for months before noticing. Lucas: Priya's advice is to put a reminder on your calendar for three weeks after any free trial starts. If you haven't used it meaningfully by then, cancel immediately. She says that alone saves her hundreds a year. Luna: So the takeaway here isn't just 'cut costs.' It's 'build a system to regularly check whether your spending matches your priorities.' Lucas: Exactly. And the numbers speak for themselves. Priya's revenue stayed flat in 2025 — she didn't grow top line — but her net income jumped because she stopped leaking money on things that didn't serve her. That's a lesson that works whether you're making fifty thousand or five hundred thousand dollars a year. Luna: And it's a reminder that sometimes the fastest path to more profit isn't earning more — it's wasting less. Lucas: Right. Priya's story is a great example of that. So if you're a solopreneur listening, maybe pull out your bank statement this weekend and start highlighting. You might be surprised what you find.