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Showerthought: I was charging way too little for my time
I was talking to a plumber who came to my house last week, and he said his minimum call-out fee was $150 just to show up. I'm a freelance writer and I realized I was charging like $30 an hour for stuff that takes real skill. That chat flipped a switch for me. How do you guys figure out what your time is actually worth?
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ray6131mo ago
Man, that plumber story hits home. I was charging like a kid with a lemonade stand (and my lemonade took ten years to learn how to make). I never even thought about billing for the "just showing up" part, which for me is staring at a blank page for an hour before typing a single word. Blake's right, our tools are just invisible, so we forget they cost something too. I guess I need to start seeing my own brain as a really fancy, high-maintenance wrench.
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sanchez.julia1mo ago
Yeah @ray613, that shower thinking time is real work too lol.
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blake_owens1mo ago
Funny how talking to tradespeople makes you rethink your own rates. They get paid for their time on the road, their tools, just showing up. As a writer, you're bringing your own tools too, your brain and your experience. That $30 an hour probably doesn't cover the time you spend thinking about a project in the shower or the years it took to get good. Start adding a "showing up" fee for just opening the laptop.
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