For what it is worth, you are one of the smartest people on the internet I know and have seen. I couldn’t have started blogging without you.

I think it is illegal to make a rates guideline because it can be construed as price fixing. People are never allowed to talk about it on freelance lists or websites. Good luck with your business and let me know if you ever figure out how to get paid better!

Thanks for the ideas VAB. Hopefully it will work out with rehab for me to do the business program. I charge hourly for a lot of things, and the extra work on the project was to be billed hourly. Biggest problem with that is keeping track of hours. I find it to be nearly impossible no matter how many different ways I try to do it.

Thanks sweetie! I love you because you don’t think I am an idiot

Thanks to you too unruly. Yes, if only we could combine our superpowers. “Wondergeek powers, activate!” “Form of a codemonkey!” “Shape of a content management system!” We’d be hanging out in our mansions trying to decide which mac pro to use next.

I like the way you think, spins You are right. It would be better all around. I also think it would cause my clients to value my time more if they knew that they would be charged for every “just one more thing”. Maybe it would cause me to value my time more too.

“As a therapist, I provide a service which pays for the office and my time. These are things my client values. It does no good to devalue your time or your service because by doing so you may no longer be able to offer these things to your client.”

This totally applies to your services, as well. It’s a hard thing to internalize, but here’s the deal…if you can start being okay with charging more, you can afford to spend more time with clients that you like, and have to do less to make ends meet (thus also helping your mental health).

Whew! I make that sound easy, don’t I….now ask me when I last raised my fees for my therapy practice?

this email explaining something that was complicated to me and made it so simple, that email was sent by an “idiot”? not.

but in the 2 years i’ve known you, the $2/hr problem has been continual. it sucks, cuz you deserve better. kinda interesting, i wish we could combine my hyper organization and being able to completely spell out all aspects of a job with a client, but being possibly too ocd, and your flexibility and ability to accommodate clients’ surprise requests, man, we’d have a winner.

i totally don’t want to do any “you should”-ness, just posit that perhaps, given the rut you’re in, and have been in, it might be practical to consider drastic changes (consultant, class, charging hourly rather than per project, etc), in order to upset the stasis, get yourself out of the rut.

You might also consider switching to hourly billing.