The best advice I ever got about freelancing was to increase my rate for every job and keep on doing that until people refused to hire me. How else can you figure out what you're worth?
An alternative is to consider what lifestyle you think is fair for society and work it out from that. We don't all have to perpetuate the worst of capitalism that I should be paid whatever people will pay me.
My dad was a house painter and charged a pretty low rate and had work coming out of his ears which meant more choice of what work he wanted/how far away it was. He could afford to live on it and that was OK for him.
The solution is to not live above your means and assuming that your current income will always be there. It's important to have a buffer, especially if you are self employed. Just not raising your rates isn't really the solution to the problem.
Getting the biggest mortgage that your current income supports is the problem in that scenario. Being prudent and patient doesn't have to mean missing out on the good times.
That's actually why you should charge as much as you can. Build a buffer, have a way out of market drops. That kind of risk is precisely why contractors tend to charge a lot more than their salaried counterparts.
This has nothing to do with your rate or the market but your inability to avoid crippling lifestyle creep.
My own lifestyle creep has become problematic, but thankfully not yet crippling, and I'm working to claw back some of that creep. But not in a creepy way.
but in actuality, no, unless you have a social group where all your old clients get together and mingle. my clients do not know the other ones exist, for the most part.
High rates never hurt anyone, given that they actually deliver on it.
I'd like to have the 0USD surgery, but maybe that's just my inner European.
The money for health insurance is taken out of your salary before you even receive it.
> Free just means you pay with other peoples money while they pay with yours.
That doesn't make any sense to me, you contribute by paying your taxes and you benefit when you need it.
You've just described insurance
Does any country pay doctors per outcome?
Business don’t spend money like frugal people.
When I started freelancing, I only took multi month projects that paid thousands of dollars. I never had to discuss money with any of these clients.
A friend of mine focused on per hour contracts, in the hopes they would be ongoing. His clients constantly haggled.
"How do you discern quality?"
"I look at the price."