Freelance Finance

Once, when I was just starting out as a freelancer, a colleague asked: “How is your freelance life going?” Without missing a beat, I replied, “Great! I’m very busy!” She responded: “It’s easy to be busy. But are you actually making a living?” She was more right about this than I was willing to admit at the time. We can always be busy. Clients can keep us busy until we’re blue in the face. It doesn’t mean that they’re paying us adequately for our time. You alone can make that call, but only if you know what you are worth.

I’ll say it again: Time is money. You should know what an hour, day, week, or month of your time is worth. Say you strive to earn $6,000 a month. That’s what you’d love to get, but you have accepted the fact that you don’t always achieve this milestone. If a client offers you a one-month gig, project or assignment and he can only pay $3,000, you know should know instantly that you’re taking a pay cut. It’s fine if you can’t negotiate a higher rate, but if you don’t even realize that you’re getting the short end of the stick, you’ve got a major problem.

My point: It’s fine to accept less, but your knowledge of your value should be so ingrained in your psyche that you know immediately what you’re in for. Mire and I are often astonished to meet who freelancers don’t track their time this way, and who are often surprised that they have trouble making ends meet.