As I mentioned in the Prospect's page, when you start out as a translator (and even well into your career), there isn't enough money in translation to pay the rent. I was living in a very inexpensive town (Tucson, AZ), and I could only barely make it at the rate I was paid. And after 2002 when the model for manga publishing changed from releasing pamphlet comics first and graphic novels later over to an all-graphic-novel strategy, the rates for translators went down.

So when you start out, translation will be your side business. You won't be able to quit your day job. Still, if you love manga and anime, this may not be such a bad arrangement.

Once you have started freelance work, your taxes will become more difficult to manage. Sorry, that's just the way it is. But here's the good thing, you will wind up paying less taxes as a translator with a day job. Here's how to do this thing right.

-- Your day job should be able to pay for 100 percent of your gas, car payments, insurance, health care, and any non-anime/manga-related hobbies, and at least 90 percent of rent and utilities.

-- Your day job shouldn't be creative since translation is creative and you don't want to come to your translations drained.

-- Your day job should not require much in the way of overtime.

If most of the above is taken care of, here's the strategy. You should have a room devoted to your home office, and the percentage of space that room takes up in your apartment/house should be charged to your translation business for rent and utilities. Your future video equipment should show anime most of the day and be considered a part of your business. Your anime hobby is now research material. Your vacations should be taken at anime/manga/comic conventions (they usually choose cities with lots of attractions).

And here's the biggest part of the strategy: while you have a day job, your translation business should be run at a loss for as many years as the IRS allows it to be. (When I was following this strategy, the IRS required your business to have a profit one year in every five.)

Getting a break on taxes isn't that wonderful a thing since you still have to pay out the money. But if you were going to get that plasma TV anyway, isn't it better that you don't have to pay taxes on the money you used to buy it? If you were going to visit family in Los Angeles, couldn't you schedule it for somewhere around the 4th of July when Anime Expo is running? And if you're a holic of xxxHolic, wouldn't it be better to not pay taxes on the money you spend on the series?

When (and if) you go full time into translation, you won't be able to follow this strategy anymore since you will be paying your rent, utilities, car expenses, etc. with your translation pay, so you will have to run at a profit from the business standpoint. Day jobs withhold tax money, but with translation, you will have to pay taxes out of you own pocket (as it were).

Oh, and do find a system for keeping receipts that works for you. I've had years where my "system" consisted of Spring Cleaning my apartment on April 14th so that I can find those receipts that slid under the couch -- and I don't recommend it.