I finally charged what my time is worth after a talk at the library

Last Tuesday I was at the downtown branch looking for books on small business and ended up chatting with a retired graphic designer. She told me she used to charge $25 an hour for years until a friend showed her a simple formula based on living expenses and taxes. I went home and redid my numbers for my first freelance web project and raised my rate from $30 to $45 an hour. Has anyone else had a random conversation that made them rethink their pricing?

3 comments

3 Comments

andrew_baker96d ago

Good for you, that's a solid raise.

martinez.paul6d ago

Did you already lock in your rate or is it floating? Just curious since @andrew_baker9 might be able to give you a heads up on when to make the move.

rose_clark816d ago

The librarian who helped me find those books actually mentioned something similar about how people undervalue themselves until someone gives them permission to stop. It's funny how we walk around with these numbers in our head and just assume they're right because that's what we started with. I've noticed the same thing with my neighbor who runs a cleaning service, she was charging way less than the market rate just because she never stopped to run the real numbers. A random chat over a reference desk turned into you getting paid what you're worth, it's like these little nudges are everywhere if we're paying attention.