I have been through a bunch of threads on here but still have some questions.

I am a 23-year old Indian citizen. I am a freelance graphic designer. I want to travel to the UK for a period of 19 days to visit my friends and well, basically just be a tourist.

My UK visa was refused due to lack of sufficient evidence and documents, which was honestly due to my lack of research. Although my refusal letter stated that I was likely to get rejected again if my circumstances didn’t change drastically, I am applying again. I didn’t add a bunch of documentation: for example I didn’t add evidence to my savings of about 4,000 GBP, which I shall with the current application.

I have the following questions:

1. My father was sponsoring about 85% of my travel costs. Should I make him the sponsor for my entire trip AND also declare all of my personal finances?

2. There was some sort of miscommunication: the ECO said that he understands that my friends are sponsoring me. (I had attached two of my (British citizen) friends’ invitation letters with copies of their passports and bank statements for one of them). Should I clarify that my friends are only HOSTING me and the rest of the expenses will be paid by me?

3. The tricky thing is that I am an unregistered freelancer. From July 1, 2017 to December 1, 2017 I had a full time graphic design job that I quit. Since I am adding my bank statements this will be evidenced in the application. I am also adding my offer and resignation letters.

I am a freelance graphic designer and have either short-term contracts or projects on retainer with my clients. The ECO wanted more evidence about the deposits made to my account so I am attaching my emails and invoices and writing justifications for each deposit made.

4. How do I prove strong ties to my country? My parents support me by providing housing. I can include a cover letter, my mutual funds and fixed deposits as well as my fathers since he is sponsoring me and their property and housing society papers. I will be adding my return tickets. Apart from this I don’t have anything else because I recently graduated from college.

5. In my previous application there was an error/misunderstanding. Right after the income page, there is the other income/savings page. I had only ticked ‘Investments’ and it said “What’s your total income in a year?” or something similar. I thought they wanted to know my total overall income with my pay as well as investment returns. When they said I haven’t provided documentation for this amount I was confused and realised they meant total of investment returns + other fields. So how can I clarify this in my cover letter?

What would you suggest?

Thank you for your time!