March 2, 2020 • 50 mins
How do you make a real career out of your multiple interests? Including things like paid time-off, health insurance, and retirement savings? Today, we’re sharing tons of resources and strategies to help you claim your worth, negotiate your rates, manage your taxes, and take ownership of your finances. Because you deserve it.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Limit Does Not Exist is a production of I
Heart Radio. Okay, I'm Christina Wallace and I'm Kate Scott Campbell.
We're here to help you follow your curiosity, celebrate your individuality,
(00:20):
and embrace the and not the ore, so you can
turn everything you love into a custom built career that's
as unique and dynamic as you are. If you feel
that one path may not be your only path, and
you call yourself a human ven Diagram, then you are
in the right place, because when it comes to pursuing
your passions, we believe the limit does not exist. Some
(00:44):
of you might consider yourselves human ven Diagrams by hobby,
but we are very aware that many, if not most,
of you are figuring out how to make a real
career out of your multiple interests. As by the way,
are we correct and to day we're here to help
you do just that. We are. We've long joked about
creating a TLDN E m B A what we would
(01:08):
consider the baseline business skills that a human event diagram
needs to make this life really successful and sustainable. And
let's face it, we love a good acronym, we do,
you know, Christina, what if we called it an m
v D or Masters of ven Diagram. Oh, I like it.
It kind of sounds like MVP, which is confidence boosting. Yes,
(01:31):
And if there's one thing we want you to feel
after listening to this episode, it's confident about claiming your worth,
negotiating your rates, managing your taxes, and just getting more
comfortable with personal and professional finance because you deserve paid
time off and health insurance and retirement savings. I can't
(01:51):
help but think about another acronym, cream cash rules everything
around me. Truer words have never been spoken. So jump in,
shall we let's do it today. We're going to start
with money. That's absolutely right, and it's really coming from
(02:14):
this intention of wanting to continue to share real practical
tools with you as we move into uncharted territory. We
want to feel charted about things like being able to
pay our bills. That's really important, it is, and these
are skills you can learn right, A little bit like
our philosophy on math, it's not like some people are
(02:35):
good at it and other people are bad. That's not true, right.
You can learn to be good at managing money, you
can learn to be good at math, you can learn
to be good at knitting, Like, all of these are
things that are learn about skills. So if it feels
really scary and nebulous and overwhelming, go listen to episode
one oh six on overcoming overwhelm, and then come back here,
(02:58):
because we're going to learn how to do this well. Christina,
I'm so happy that you said that, because I distinctly
remember being at sort of this peak moment of tutoring
ap calculus and still feeling deep, deep anxiety about my
taxes and going, wait a minute, why do I feel
this way? But money just in general is so vulnerable
(03:21):
by nature, and we just have a lot of stuff
around it, and I feel very passionately about it because
it's tied to huge things like worth, and it also
often feels shrouded by mystery. To your point of like,
it's connected to this feeling of worth. I know, I
certainly didn't learn about money from my parents. I know
(03:44):
a lot of people don't. It's not a topic a
lot of parents bring up at the dinner table. I
think sometimes because of this question of worth, that the
fear that, you know, if my kids know how much
I'm paid, maybe they'll think less of me, or they'll
wonder you know how we compare with all the other
kids and families on the block or the apartment building,
(04:05):
and so it's just like not a thing that you
learn at home, And for the most part, it's not
a thing you learn at school unless you go to
an MBA program, and even then we're not really learning
personal finance, we're learning corporate finance. So I think it's
just so important to be especially if you're an independent creator, freelancer,
(04:27):
someone who you know is relying on yourself to drum
up your money, take care of your money, pay your
money to Uncle Sam. It's really important to learn these
skills and not just hide your head in the sand
and hope it goes away, because it won't. That's such
a great point, Christina, that I absolutely learned how to
(04:48):
negotiate by figuring out my rate as a math tutor
when I was trying to support myself that way, and
by talking with my brother who is a DJ and
who does this every every day, from just being in
the trenches and doing things like typing up a script
for the phone call I was going to make to
(05:10):
the parent that I was going to convince that I
needed to be paid, like even five dollars more an
hour and just having the sweatiest palms around that, you know. So,
I think it's really important to note that we are
coming at this from the experience of having spent a
lot of time figuring things out and knowing that it's
(05:30):
an ongoing journey that we are on right now. Absolutely,
And Kate, you found this really interesting article. It talks
about learning how to manage your money, like learning a
new skill, and it has this great pyramid of kind
of like the different levels of competency with your money.
Do you want to kind of lay out the pyramid
(05:51):
of financial awesomeness? Yes? So when I came across this
article scouring the internet, and I actually think it was
link in a Creative Mornings newsletter. Creative Mornings are these
breakfast talks with creatives, and their news letters are great
because they're filled with lots of links to cool things.
This article appeared on the website of a group called
(06:13):
the Hell Yeah Group, and I went, Okay, I love
that enthusiasm around money or anything in general. But it
felt like a great vote of confidence to start this
episode with. Because as human ven diagrams, learning new skills
is our j M. It would make sense that learning
money as a new skill could be our jelly, right,
(06:34):
Like it is not out. Do you really just say
that I did? I did, and I'm not going to
take it back. Oh my gosh, I can't believe you. Okay, okay,
it's our jelly. About a P, B and J right now, Christine, Now,
I mean I was going more scones. But fine, no,
(06:54):
I love that approach, the scone approach. There's something there. Okay,
keep going. It's our jelly. So that's right. So basically
this article breaks down that, like any new skill, the
first thing to do that can be very helpful is
to get acclimated with the universe you're venturing into. Now,
this article had me at universe and venturing into right.
(07:15):
That feels very on brand with the limit does not exist.
But the author shares this pyramid of financial awesomeness, and
what it is is really the financial universe broken down
into manageable nuggets. So kind of like those really outdated
food pyramids that you still exist, right, is better. The
foundation has things like map out goals, build good habits,
(07:40):
schedule weekly finance time, things that feel really doable and
familiar in the carbohydrates position on the yes, and the
original carbohydrates position that's right, was it sweets that were
at the very top. I'm trying to remember, like sweets
and oils. I think I don't know. It was like
things you're not supposed to have very often. What I
(08:01):
love about this pyramid of financial awesomeness is at the
very top just says you are awesome, Like it has
a positive affirmation at the top. So already I'm looking
at this and I'm going, wait a minute, I have
learned many a new skill. I can certainly learn about money.
The next point this article makes, and we'll link to
this in the show notes so you can look at
this in much more detail. But the next point that
(08:21):
they make is really about the difference between motion and action,
and I think that really ties into this learning a skill, right,
because there's a lot of activity or motion that you
can make on a new skill. And they make this
great example about bread, which you know we both love,
uh hashtag sour dough um San Francisco Hello. And so
(08:48):
this great point of like you can do kind of
all of this activity that makes you feel like you're
making progress but is not actually doing the work. And
what's important is to sit down and do the work.
So you can read about financial awesomeness. You can take
a class or listen to a podcast, and that's great,
But what actually moves the needle forward is to do
(09:11):
like it suggests in the bottom of the pyramid, to
sit down once a week and check in on your finances,
to set a budget, to track your expenditures in an app.
What are those concrete tools that actually move you forward
and get you closer to the goal instead of feeling
like you can cross something off your to do list
(09:32):
but doesn't actually do the work. I really love that, Christina,
and I'm almost visualizing to do list with one side
that says motion and one side that says action and
sort of seeing do both sides of that list match
in terms of how much is on them right, because
that percolation time can be really important for informing yourself
(09:53):
and building up your confidence. You just can't stay there.
That's right exactly, And on that action note, I also
love this point that the article makes about get good
at the things that will have the biggest impact. And
the example that the author uses is so great, which
is learning guitar and Christina I don't know if I've
told you this, but I'm currently learning guitar for the
(10:14):
first time. I am. And here's the thing. If you
know even three chords on the guitar, you can basically
play Johnny Cash's entire canon. I believe that if you
just know three chords, there's so much you can do.
So I just love that as a general rule for
learning anything new and doing anything new, to say, what
(10:36):
are the three things that if I prioritize those, I
will have the greatest body of new skills or to
their point, the greatest impact. I mean, you brought this
up at the top of the show. I think the
number one thing that makes the biggest impact on your
finances as a human Van Diagram is to know your
worth and to set your rates correctly, right Like, if
(10:59):
you have the raw hourly rate or you're quoting the
wrong amount of time for your projects, you could be
doing all of the work in the world and still
end up at the end of the year not making
enough to make this life sustainable. So I love that
we're just going to jump right into this and talk
about one of the biggest things that has an impact,
which is how do you set your rates. Okay, this
(11:22):
is so huge because there is a very good chance
that you probably have a portfolio of projects or multiple
streams of income, whether or not that's the case if
you just have one steady stream of income right now.
This still applies whether or not you have a bunch
of ten or one W two. Being able to figure
(11:44):
out what your rate is is so profound, and again
it's a moving organism. This applies to negotiating a job
offer as much as it applies to a freelancers rate.
I think we're going to talk quite a bit about
the freelancers rate today because that's where there's a lot
of opacity in the market. It can be hard to
(12:05):
know what to charge. But this is just as true
when you're on the job market, especially if you're changing
careers or changing cities where you might not know as
much about market rates for your level and your type
of work. Absolutely, we found this great article that Christina
you forwarded to me that's on you, and it's called
(12:26):
no You're Worth A Guide to Setting your Rates, which
is exactly what we're talking about. Thank you Google, Thank
you Google. What I love about this article is it's
quite comprehensive, so we're going to touch on a few
of the things that IT mentions, and of course linked
to the full article in our show notes so you
can deep dive it. This first point, Christina I think
(12:47):
is really worth mentioning, which is in the conversation of
setting your rates, try if you can, to not go
first right, not playing that rate first. This is sort
of one of those old school negotiation principles that can
be really hard to do because often if you are
in an interview, the question will be thrown at you
(13:08):
what's your rate, and it can feel like you don't
have a choice but to say the number absolutely. And
this is true again when you're, you know, interviewing for
a job when they say, well, what salary would you
like to earn? Or sometimes they might ask what were
you making before this, which is now illegal in New
York State many other states, they can still ask yes, yeah,
it's great. The point here is that you have asymmetrical
(13:32):
information from the person asking the question. You might know
what you would like to earn or what you what
kind of your floor is, what's the minimum amount that
you could earn to make this profitable and make it
worth your time, But you don't know a lot of
other pieces of information. You certainly don't know what they're
willing to pay. You also don't know, for talking freelance,
(13:56):
is this something they want to be quoted at an
hourly rate or a project rate? This? Right? Is this
the type of work I've done a million times, and
so I have a really good sense of how many
hours it will take to do this, And I actually
feel pretty comfortable giving you a project rate because I
know what my input will be. Or is this the
first time I'm doing this or the first time I'm
(14:18):
working with this particular partner, And what I think might
take twenty hours could end up taking a hundred hours.
And now what I thought was a really great project
rate is a terrible project rates right, So if they're
asking what's your rate, my inclination is always to say,
you know, let's start with a better understanding of what
(14:40):
this project is going to look like, and let's talk
about the project budget, because I feel confident that we
will find a way to work together. If this is
the right fit, we will get to a rate that
works for both of us. But I can't just put
a number out there until I have more information, and
that usually gives me the chance to It buys me time,
(15:02):
for sure, but it also buys me the information I need.
And if you can set it back on them of well,
what's the scope of your budget, what's what's your expectation,
that will also give you a sense of is this
even close to the right fit right, So you might
be thinking in the back of your head, I think
(15:23):
this is probably about ten thousand dollars and they say
my budget is seven hundred and fifty dollars. There is
no what we call a negotiations a zone of possible agreement,
like those two numbers are too far apart. Whereas if
they come back and say, well, I'm thinking between you
know to you know, twelve thousand, and it really sort
(15:45):
of depends on X, Y and Z, then you can say, great,
here is potentially three proposals. Here's the version, the ten
thousand version, the twelve thousand version. Which of these are
are what you want? You know? So like you make
it a conversation not just a I charge one. What
this allows you to do is be in conversation about
(16:09):
by the way, one of the hardest things to talk
about in an interview setting, and to see are we
able to hear each other. Are we collaborating here? Are
we literally on the same page. It also allows you to,
like you said, Christina, by yourself some time, start really
understanding the different elements and layers of this particular gig
(16:33):
and then go okay, great, that's really great. Intel. Let
me wrap my head around that. See what I can do, right,
come up with some proposals to not be afraid to
really take some space there to make sure that you're
on track with what is going to work for you.
(17:00):
So another really great way to get informed about what's
possible with rate is to get comps, which is the
next point that this article makes. Getting comparables, which is
what comps are the best way to get a sense
of is what I'm asking for fair and reasonable? That's
right now. I'm going to say this, Christina, that this
(17:22):
can be really challenging in certain industries where there is
a wide divide between rates. So, going back to my
original example from my early days of negotiation in tutoring,
it can feel very challenging to figure out what your
rate is when you are in a field where a
lot of people maybe undervaluing themselves. And I'm going to
(17:46):
say that with a lot of sensitivity, but where you
will see rates at like fifteen bucks an hour and
then you'll see rates like three hundred dollars an hour, right,
and truly finding the comp it in to do the
work you need to do to figure out, well, where
do I sit in that. I remember this story from
(18:07):
tutoring where I'd been tutoring for a little while and
a tutor in colleague called me and she said, Kate,
I have a client for you. Now. I have to
tell you I've had them for a long time, so
their rate is as low as I would ever go, Like,
I never tutor at this rate anymore. And the rate
that she named for me was my highest rate that
I had been really afraid to ask for. Really, yeah,
(18:28):
and that's one of those moments in life where you were,
why didn't I talk to her years ago? You can't
unhear that information now. It wasn't drastically different, but it
was different, and the way that she really kind of
like tried to justify it to me really just added
salt to my wound to know where I was like,
oh my gosh. But it also conversely gave me the
(18:49):
confidence to go. First of all, she's asking me for help.
I know I am as gifted as a tutor as
she is. Right, So that's a great way to find
comms industry friends, really having these conversations with each other,
asking and offering when you can write, helping each other out.
I've also seen this in the freelance writing area, oh
big time. That there can be some real disparities in
(19:13):
areas where people are doing the work in addition to
other forms of income, right where it is a bit
of a side hustle and so they aren't dependent on
this as their main source of income. I don't want
to say they're doing it for fun, but they're doing
it as sort of an extra, and so they may
(19:34):
be more willing to take a rate that is not
a living wage in some cases, you know. And the
more you see that, the more you're going to see
that kind of bifurcation or bimodal rate setting where the
people who you know are doing this for a living
are charging the three or whatever that number is, and
(19:55):
the people that are saying, oh, I'm really excited to
be published somewhere, I'll take fifty dollars for a thousand
word piece is really kind of pushing rates down and
you know that was me when I first started getting
paid to write. It wasn't totally a side hustle, and
it was I felt so honored that an outlet would
(20:16):
be willing to publish what I was writing that I
was sort of like, sure, whatever you want to pay
me is fine. I have a day job. And then
when I talked to more of my writing friends, and
I realized that by me saying yes to this, that
when they were going out and asking for the rate
that they deserved, these media outlets were saying, I can
get someone cheaper than that, you know, and I was
contributing to pushing down those rates. So I started asking
(20:39):
for more a because I think my writing is worth it,
but B I didn't want to be contributing to depressing rights.
This is so huge, Christina. It reminds me of episode
ninety eight Magic and Heels. We touched on this a
little bit with Kayla Drescher, where she talked about the
business of being a magician, with many people like to
(21:01):
call themselves magicians and would perform for free. This is
certainly true of actors as well. There's so many skill
sets where we see this happening, and if there is
one thing that I can give in this whole episode.
It is the fact that you are the commodity, and
you are valuable as someone who has literally paid my
(21:23):
bills by and because of my creativity for the last
five to ten years. I absolutely have learned that just
because I might be up for doing something for free
absolutely does not mean that I should. And if you
feel timid about asking for more, I think Christina, you
(21:45):
just made such a beautiful point. Think about your rate
as affecting your fellow creator's rates as well. Absolutely, I
mean it's certainly. I know I'm much more capable of
negotiating on behalf of someone else than on behalf of myself.
If you think about this, every time you ask for
what you're worth, as I'm ensuring that my fellow creatives
(22:05):
are going to also be paid with their worth. This
isn't just about me. I'm not being greedy. I'm not
you know, asking above my bridges? Is that a phrase?
I'm going to make it a phrase. Yeah, I like it.
This is me ensuring that people are paid a living
wage and that respects the work that they're putting in it. Um,
I think it's easier for me to say you know what,
(22:26):
I can't write for exposure. I can't give that speech
at your conference that you are charging attendees for and
you have sponsors that are paying for but somehow you
can't pay me for. It makes it a lot easier
to draw a pretty hard line in the things that
I'm willing to contribute my time into and the things
(22:47):
that I expect to be paid for my time. Absolutely.
You know, if you're new in an industry and you
don't currently have friends who can help share with you
what they make, there's other great resources to There's a
group called Freelancing Females that I'm sure are friendly to everybody,
but they have this great rate sheet on their website
(23:08):
that you can literally fill in some information and you
can see what rates of similar creatives are in your area,
which I found to be very valuable. I've also Christina
found Facebook groups, which are really the only reason I'm
still on Facebook, to be really valuable too. I mean
a couple of groups Freelancing Females has one. There's a
(23:29):
lot of these creative groups where people will say, Hey,
I have this kind of client, never known what to
charge before, Can you guys give me some context or
could anyone hop on a d M with me and
help me out? I found that to be very helpful.
There's a bunch of different binders which came out of
the binders full of women. Joke that made right immediately. Yeah,
(23:49):
So there's all these different kind of binders full of
blank types of writers, these communities that have grown out
of that, and they all share writing opportunities and jobs,
and they always include the price, and people can comment
on whether or not they think that's a reasonable rate.
But you just start seeing so many of these numbers
that you get a good sense of what is market
(24:11):
rate for this type of work. Now. I do think
that it's important to bring up another point in this article,
Christina that may sound like it's in contrast with what
we're saying, but it's really not, Which is this idea
of being able to be flexible with your rates. I
certainly have as a writer my ideal rate. There was
a time when I had taken time off from writing
(24:31):
and I was getting back in and I just like
needed a job, right, I really needed to work, and
so I took on a job that was a bit
below the rate that I would like, but it was there,
and it worked for me. And what I said in
that conversation, as I said, you know, typically this is
what my rate is because of the circumstances. I will
(24:53):
work for this rate, but only for about this long
and then we'll really have to reevaluate. And at that
time we decided that I had done a great job
for them. They were happy, and I got had gotten
clients at the rate that I really wanted at the time.
So there's not necessarily a perfect equation to this. You
won't get to determine what works for you. Yeah, and
(25:14):
this is the point of having this conversation with your
partner and not just putting out your number first. Right.
So when I do public speaking, I have a huge
range of what my quote rate is because there's a
ton of factors involved. Am I traveling? Do I need
to be there the night before for a sound check?
Are there other things that you expect me to do
(25:36):
as a speaker, like doing a step and repeat or
signing autographs or a dinner with your sponsors. Are you
videotaping this so that you can share it with other
people later. Are you going to share that video footage
with me? Is this the first time I'm doing a
new speech, and so I might be willing to do
it for less because I'm still work shopping it. Or
(25:58):
is this something that you know I've done a lot
and I know that it's a really powerful talk, and
you're charging and you have sponsors and you know, etcetera.
So there's a lot that goes in that's not just Hey,
what's your rate as a public speaker? What are you
getting out of it? Are you building your portfolio? Are
you getting a nice client that fills an open spot
(26:19):
in your calendar for the next three months and it
helps with a cash flow thing and it kind of
fell in your lap. Are you getting experience in a
new type of work in your area? Um, is this
something you really don't want to do? And so you
double your rates in case they say yes, great extra
money and you're totally fine with them saying no. This
(26:41):
isn't a flat number. It really does kind of come
down to a lot of things. However, there are things
that you can take into account when you are setting
that up. So you want to make sure that you
are thinking about not just what am I worth for
an hour of work? An hour of work is your
(27:03):
billable rate, but you're not billing for every hour in
your day. You deserve time off, right, You deserve vacation time,
sick time, just like full time people do. To my
earlier point, you might be willing to do a little
extra work for a client you love, and you might
want to be paid for that extra work for a
client you don't love or don't know, and so you
(27:26):
want to be able to take those things into account
and you can sort of back your way into a
what I call your rack rate, and then you can
adjust from there. But to your point, it's often really
important to make clear what your rack rate is, even
if you're giving someone a discount, so they understand kind
(27:47):
of where you exist in the market and what you
might charge them in the future if they want to
come back for more. I love that expression rack rate.
I've never heard that before. Oh yeah, it's from the
hotel and just tree. That's sort of like, what are
your published rates? And then we have a free room
and you're standing in front of me, and I'm going
to get zero dollars if I don't give it to you.
(28:08):
So here's what I'm willing to charge you tonight. That's
where that comes from. Oh my gosh, that's amazing, and
it's just the term itself sounds very badass in a
way that but you know, Christina, you also brought up
an important point about ownership as well when you were
mentioning are you videotaping this? What are you using this? Right?
Certainly we could talk and may talk in a full
(28:28):
episode about ownership as well, but that also comes into play.
Where is this living You're going to build a website
for a client and that's going to really exist for
a very very long time. That's this idea of value
based pricing, like really figuring out what is the true
value of what I'm giving you. If I'm writing some
(28:50):
words that are showing up in one email, that's different
from if I'm writing words that are going to be
warned by thousands of people on a T shirt. Again,
a lot of factors to think about, and Christina, this
article actually mentions is its last point if you're still
lost that there's a quick formula you can try as well.
If you think about if you were full time at
(29:10):
a salaried position, it is not correct to take that
number divided by fifty two weeks, divide that by forty hours,
and that becomes your hourly rate because you're not working
and getting paid for every hour, every day, every week,
and that means you get no time off and ps.
You have to pay taxes as a freelancer in a
(29:31):
very different way than if you were a W two employee.
So the best way to do this is take that
sort of number that you would like to be making
if you were salaried at a job. Let's just come
up with a pretend number, a hundred thousand dollars a year.
Now move the decimal point three places so that hundred
(29:52):
thousand dollars a year becomes a hundred dollars an hour. Right,
moved the decimal three spots. Then imagine and you want
call it four weeks of paid vacation or time off.
You deserve time off just like everyone else does. So
instead of fifty two weeks in a year, you're doing
forty eight weeks in a year, and you're not going
(30:14):
to be billable every single hour. You have to have
time for writing emails, sending invoices, doing your fine administrative
jack up so much of the clock it really really can.
So then imagine, I don't know, thirty thirty five billable hours,
forty eight weeks a hundred dollars an hour. When you
(30:35):
do that math out, you end up getting a salary
number for the year that's about forty percent greater than
what you will actually take home. And that's forty percent
buffer covers your taxes, maybe some insurance if you want
health insurance. Right, all of those extra things that administrative time,
(30:57):
that time off that gives you that buffer that people
who are salaried don't see, but their employers are are
buffering for that. Yes, let's say this once more for
the people in the back. You have time off and
health insurance, and these are things that you pay for
as a self employed worker if that is in fact
(31:21):
what you are. You know, this has been very helpful
for me in moments when I've gotten pushed back about
my rate, to say, hey, just so you know, I
don't take home that full rate. This amount goes to taxes.
This E meant like to really show that this has
a breakdown that ultimately when I pay myself from my rate,
it ends up being about of what that actual rate was.
(31:45):
So I think that's so important. And the other point,
just to stress again is that if you are doing
highly creative work, right, this is work that you do
need to build some time in. We talked about this
an episode one oh six, which is what kind of
time do you need in order to be able to
do this really heavy creative lifting, so that while you're
(32:07):
doing that lifting, yes, that's billable, but think about what
you need to do to make sure you can deliver.
Because when you're getting paid hourly, you are really getting
paid for the amount that your brain can put on
a page, or on a screen or wherever it lives. Right. Absolutely,
the key to get uncomfortable with all of this is
to just talk to your network, talk to your friends,
(32:30):
talk to the people in your industry, and be transparent.
You know, our generation is very comfortable talking about sex, politics,
and religion, but somehow money makes us really uncomfortable, and
I would say it's time to get over that. There
was a great article in The New York Times back
in January. Jessica Bennett wrote it about how she is
(32:51):
getting more comfortable talking to all of her friends about
how much they get paid. Because the only way that
you are going to get more is to know that
there's more money on the table that you are currently
leaving behind. So that is my PEP talk for you
to go and and to really have these vulnerable conversations.
(33:14):
And I would add just that it takes a ton
of courage to do the things that we are discussing, right,
to even talk about money in a transparent way. We
have generations and generations and a lot of cultural programming
that we are swimming upstream against, right, So so just
take it one step at a time, be good to yourself,
(33:37):
be kind to yourself, and if it feels clunky, that
probably means that you're doing it right. You know. A
lot of this progress, too, is progress with yourself of
continuing to evolve your identity as you get more experienced
under your belt to say yes, I am I am
worth this much and I can say that with confidence.
(34:08):
So Christina, speaking about brass tax finances, we are less
than a month away from tax day, so taxes, I
have to tell you, I truly consider my accountant in
the same group as a therapist. So we thought it
(34:28):
would be really valuable to just you know, pretty quickly, again,
this is a huge topic, but to share some helpful
takeaways if you are in the mode of getting your
taxes in order. Christina, as the member of our partnership,
who does our podcast taxes kicking off with some helpful
(34:49):
tools and strategies that you employ. Sure, So I'm going
to make this very quick, and I will say up front,
I have a math degree, I have a Harvard m
b A. I almost became a tax lawyer. That the
true story, I didn't. And I find all of this
absolutely maddening. All of the people who should be able
(35:10):
to do their own taxes, except for c p A.
I should be that person, and I still scream things
at the tax software while I'm doing it because this
is a ridiculous system. So I just want to put
this out there. Do not be down on yourself. If
this feels hard. It is hard. It was designed that
way for a reason. We can talk about why that
(35:32):
is some other day. Also, don't feel bad if you
want to hire a c p A an accountant to
do this for you. I am raising my hand. I
do fabulous c p A who I'll talk about it
in a minute. That is kind of the bare minimum
that I wanted to start with. But here's my quick tip.
Because I do my own taxes. I do now my
husband and my taxes. I do our LLC taxes, and
(35:54):
particularly for me, My taxes are complicated because I have
typically had a full time job at W two, and
I also have lots of ten ninety nine from all
of these other forms of side hustle income, and your
W two withholding is not taking out taxes for all
of your ten ninety nine, and in some cases, your
(36:14):
ten ninety nine might actually bump you up to a
higher tax bracket, which also means you're not taking out
enough from your W two job. So interesting, Yeah, this
is where it gets tricky. This is my hack. So
I have two different turbo tax accounts. I have one
that's the actual account that I file my taxes with
(36:34):
every year, and so it will import last year's data
into this year's etcetera, etcetera. And then I have a
separate one of fake account where I use basically last
year's tax return set up to estimate this year's taxes.
And it's not perfect in years like you know, a
big tax overhaul like the tax bill a few years ago.
(36:57):
It is not a good system because the roles are changing,
but generally from one year to the next it works
pretty well. So I can put in what I expect
on my W two. Here are all of my ten
ninety nine. Here's what I think I'm going to be
putting aside for quarterly estimated taxes. It will run the
numbers and say, actually, you o X number of dollars still,
(37:19):
and I'm like, oh okay, and that becomes the adjustment
that I make to my estimated taxes. So I do
quarterly taxes federal, state, and city, Thank you, New York.
And so I'll use basically that shadow account to estimate
what I think I'm going to have to pay, because
to do the straightforward math is absolutely insane. To hear
(37:43):
you say that is very empowering because I have deep,
deep rooted shame around taxes that I can trace right
back to my first tax season in New York. I
wrote about this, which I will post the article, but essentially,
I showed up to this accountant's apartment on the Upper
East Side with my stack of I think there were
(38:06):
a couple of W twos in there from acting jobs,
or a bunch of ten ninety nine's, probably some other
stuff I don't remember. But she just looked at me
and she was like, this cannot go on. And it
was just the opposite of a vote of confidence. And
you know what, I have turned that shame into is
a lot of self empathy and a lot of grays,
(38:27):
and I really have asked for help. You know, I
have a wonderful accountant who I found through a fellow actress.
I just reached out and was like, who knows somebody
who is cool with someone's taxes that look different every
single year because mine have some years I have a
stack of ten ninety nine. Some years I've had three
(38:47):
W two's always a couple of ten nines alongside of that.
Right that, I have never had a year that has
looked like any other years, and that has felt really scary.
It's felt like not steady ground. I have bit by
bit figured out a way to really walk through my
(39:08):
tax prep process with confidence. And for me, the magic
word as someone who gets paid off of a lot
of ten ninety nine is deductions. So I keep track
of miles to auditions, travel expenses, equipment, rental, pieces of
wardrobe that I could only use for a job. We
all know about my wig collection, right, important deductions that
(39:32):
I have used for business expenses, and my lovely accountant
carry actually has a great blog post with a wonderful
chart for things that you can deduct if you're self employed,
so will definitely link to that in the show notes too.
Deductions are the name of the game if you're a freelancer,
but that requires you to stay organized. This can't be
a thing that you show up on April one and
(39:54):
think how much did I spend last year on things
related to my business? Like, you will not survive. So, Kate,
how do you keep track of your expenses in real time?
I have a big confession to share that until like
last year, I was stapling receipts onto pieces of paper. No, seriously,
(40:15):
paper receipts, paper receipts until I know. I actually think
we had a moment in New York when I grabbed
my receipt and you were like, Kate, expensify. I was like, Christina,
tell me everything on the show. Guess what we're here
right now, it's happening. But yeah, I literally had these
number ten envelopes, which, by the way, if you do this,
I'm still a fan. Okay, So I see you, and
(40:39):
I am with you. I was filing receipts into envelopes
and then taking them all out. Okay, So I don't
blame your cp A for at least like giving you
a look if you showed up in her office with
like fifteen envelopes stuffed to the brim of receipts. By
the way, when I was in my m f A program,
we had an accounting class in the accountant like brought
envelopes like this is what we were taught. Okay, So
(41:03):
now since then, here's what I'm currently using. I use
budgeting software. I'm a big fan of It's called you
Need a Budget. That has worked for me. This is
a big one for me. That's not about deductions, but
it's important. I use a time tracking software to really
keep track of how long I'm working on a project.
The one I use is called clock ify. It's free.
(41:24):
Will link to it in the show notes. There's a
lot of these, and some of them actually linked directly
to invoicing, so you can just put your hours directly in.
I'm a really big fan of that, and that's really
helped me with my rate. I currently use Google Sheets
to keep track of all of my tax deductions. Also,
like if I get an email receipt, I use a
lot of labeling on Gmail to say like, oh, this
(41:47):
is in my tax deduction label, so I know that
I can look back at that, but I really want
to start a regular practice, and I know I have
more to learn here. So Christina, your turn. What do
you use? So first of all, I actually loved your
point of time. I'm tracking with clockify because if you
aren't sure if your rate is profitable, if you're like, well,
this is what I've always been paid, keep track for
(42:09):
a while of how much time you think you're going
to spend on a project and then how much time
you actually spend, and do a little bit of you
know analysis at the end to say did I make
or lose money on this project based on you know,
how it actually turned out. Yeah, there can be a
huge difference, you know, Christine. For example, I used to
think that, oh, something took me an hour, and it
(42:29):
actually taken me several hours. But I was like no,
but really, you know the other thing about time tracking
is it literally reinforces the fact that I'm on the clock.
I do use my time really wisely. When I know
that that clock is running. It's good accountability. It is.
I worked on something yesterday that I put in my calendar.
I thought it would take me three hours and it
ended up taking me eight. Wow. So that was news. Okay,
(42:53):
So here's the big thing that I'm trying to get
you on board with. It's called Expensify. It is a
free app, has a website that has an app, and
basically this is how I keep track of all of
my freelance expenses. You can take a photo of a receipt,
upload that you can forward, and a receipt if you
have it in your email. This is great for all
(43:14):
of those flights and hotels or anything that you get
from like Square reader that shows up in your email,
and then you can go in and label them. I use,
basically and quote an expense report for each of my
different projects. So even if I'm not submitting expenses to
the client, even if I'm just keeping track of how
(43:34):
much did this project cost me, I will create a
project or an expense report for that and submit all
of my receipts to that a It helps me keep
track and then be for each of those receipts, you
can categorize what type is this airfare, is it a taxi,
is it a business meal, what is it? And at
the end of the year you can run a report
to say, show me how much I spent across all
(43:57):
of these expense reports in each of these categories, so
that I am not hand adding up each receipt and
having to like tally it with, you know, an adding
machine and a piece of paper. I can have all
of this in one place, and I can compare a
year over year, so it actually helps me set my
budget for the following year based on what kinds of
(44:18):
projects I think I'm going to do. That is so smart.
It's also much greener, which we know is very important.
And I also just love the idea. Like the phrase
run of report just makes me feel like I have
shoulder pads on. I am so into this, Christina. I'm
implementing it immediately because this is the key to having
a freelance lifestyle. Right. If you don't know what your
(44:40):
profitability is off of this work, if you're only focused
on that revenue number, how many dollars am I getting paid,
and you're not focused on how much is it costing
me to do this work? How many hours? How many
taxi rides am I paying for office space? Did I
buy a new computer to do this work? Right? If
you're not keeping track go all of that, you may
(45:01):
find you get to the end of the year and
be really proud of how many jobs you got, but
you didn't make any money, and or you made just
enough to pay your rent, pay your meals. But you're
not putting anything away from retirement. You're not saving, you're
not getting a vacation fund. You're not getting an f
off fund, which is my favorite fund. Uh. It's the
(45:24):
money you put aside so that if you're ever in
a job or a relationship that you feel trapped in,
you can walk away if you have your f off fund. Yes,
I relearned the value of that by not having the
fund that I wanted to have in the last year.
Like truly, you and I talked about that right Hence
I ended up moving more than one probably should in
(45:45):
a year. A huge part of being a human ven
Diagram and being innovative in terms of how you create
your income and what you do in the world is
understanding and making sense of what that is for yourself
so that you can then share that with others. And
that's no different from what we're talking about here. Doing
(46:08):
your own inventory and fact finding on a daily, weekly, monthly,
yearly basis to say where can I optimize, how can
I do this better? How Can I give myself some
more downtime and still not be worried about next month's rent? Absolutely?
This really comes down to what is the business model
(46:31):
for your life? Right? How are you bringing in money,
what is the cost of delivering that value, and what
is left over for you? And is that enough to
make this life sustainable for you? Because if it's not,
If you're working every day, every hour, fifty two weeks
a year, you're going to burn out. Just like if
(46:53):
you had taken a corporate job, you're going to get
sick and you won't have health insurance to pay for it,
you know. So this isn't about, like, I'm so not
into the hustle culture that we have been fed that
we should be doing. Right. This is not that. This
isn't about monetize every hobby you have so that you
have enough money for avocado toast. Um. I love avocado toast.
(47:16):
But that's a side point. This is about how do
you design the financial side of your life to work
for you as much as you're designing the ways that
you get to bring in all of the pieces of yourself.
And what feels scary and hard is because this is
a skill that we're never really taught. But to do
(47:38):
this in a sustainable way, you have to learn it.
And that's why we're talking about it here. That's right.
And by the way, we're often if we are taught
it at all, it often will look like one thing
that maybe you've learned, but that just doesn't work for
the way that you live your life and the way
that you make a living for yourself. So we are
here to say that is okay, that is par for
(47:59):
this worse that we are on and that we're so
excited to be on. And this is a course that
requires so much of us, so much of our creativity.
If I can say it a thousand times, I will,
which is that you are the commodity you cannot literally
afford to burn out. So it's worth the extra creativity
(48:20):
and time, and you know, rolling up sleeves to have
difficult conversations and to learn new skills to make it
work for yourself. We believe in you. We know you
can do. This is a huge topic, and we know
that we only touched on it a little bit, and
we're going to link to all of these tools and
(48:40):
articles in our show notes. It will probably be a
mile long. But if there is a topic that we
didn't touch on today that you have a burning interest in,
send us a note to put it on our social
or send us an email and we will either discuss
it in a future episode or we'll try to find
some relevant links that we can share with you on
that as lutely, if you're looking for someone to talk
(49:01):
with about this, consider us two of those people for you.
We love hearing from you, and we also love knowing
If this is helpful for you, so, you can reach
us on Twitter or Instagram at t L d n
E Pod, or you can email us at hello at
t L d NY podcast dot com. Or old school,
you can leave us a voicemail at eight three three
(49:23):
high t L d n E as eight three three
four eight five three six three. Then you get to
dial eight zero three. That's right, and you know, if
you liked the old school quality of receipts, you can
have the old school quality of voicemail as you're transitioning
over to expensive by or something similar. Thanks so much
(49:54):
to our producer Maya Coole and to you for tuning in.
As always, please subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts.
If you like what you heard, it really helps us
get the word out to fellow human ven diagrams. Until
next time, Remember the limit does not exist. The Limit
(50:15):
does not Exist is a production of I heart Radio.
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows. Yeah
The Limit Does Not Exist is a production of I
Heart Radio. Okay, I'm Christina Wallace and I'm Kate Scott Campbell.
We're here to help you follow your curiosity, celebrate your individuality,
(00:20):
and embrace the and not the ore, so you can
turn everything you love into a custom built career that's
as unique and dynamic as you are. If you feel
that one path may not be your only path, and
you call yourself a human ven Diagram, then you are
in the right place, because when it comes to pursuing
your passions, we believe the limit does not exist. Some
(00:44):
of you might consider yourselves human ven Diagrams by hobby,
but we are very aware that many, if not most,
of you are figuring out how to make a real
career out of your multiple interests. As by the way,
are we correct and to day we're here to help
you do just that. We are. We've long joked about
creating a TLDN E m B A what we would
(01:08):
consider the baseline business skills that a human event diagram
needs to make this life really successful and sustainable. And
let's face it, we love a good acronym, we do,
you know, Christina, what if we called it an m
v D or Masters of ven Diagram. Oh, I like it.
It kind of sounds like MVP, which is confidence boosting. Yes,
(01:31):
And if there's one thing we want you to feel
after listening to this episode, it's confident about claiming your worth,
negotiating your rates, managing your taxes, and just getting more
comfortable with personal and professional finance because you deserve paid
time off and health insurance and retirement savings. I can't
(01:51):
help but think about another acronym, cream cash rules everything
around me. Truer words have never been spoken. So jump in,
shall we let's do it today. We're going to start
with money. That's absolutely right, and it's really coming from
(02:14):
this intention of wanting to continue to share real practical
tools with you as we move into uncharted territory. We
want to feel charted about things like being able to
pay our bills. That's really important, it is, and these
are skills you can learn right, A little bit like
our philosophy on math, it's not like some people are
(02:35):
good at it and other people are bad. That's not true, right.
You can learn to be good at managing money, you
can learn to be good at math, you can learn
to be good at knitting, Like, all of these are
things that are learn about skills. So if it feels
really scary and nebulous and overwhelming, go listen to episode
one oh six on overcoming overwhelm, and then come back here,
(02:58):
because we're going to learn how to do this well. Christina,
I'm so happy that you said that, because I distinctly
remember being at sort of this peak moment of tutoring
ap calculus and still feeling deep, deep anxiety about my
taxes and going, wait a minute, why do I feel
this way? But money just in general is so vulnerable
(03:21):
by nature, and we just have a lot of stuff
around it, and I feel very passionately about it because
it's tied to huge things like worth, and it also
often feels shrouded by mystery. To your point of like,
it's connected to this feeling of worth. I know, I
certainly didn't learn about money from my parents. I know
(03:44):
a lot of people don't. It's not a topic a
lot of parents bring up at the dinner table. I
think sometimes because of this question of worth, that the
fear that, you know, if my kids know how much
I'm paid, maybe they'll think less of me, or they'll
wonder you know how we compare with all the other
kids and families on the block or the apartment building,
(04:05):
and so it's just like not a thing that you
learn at home, And for the most part, it's not
a thing you learn at school unless you go to
an MBA program, and even then we're not really learning
personal finance, we're learning corporate finance. So I think it's
just so important to be especially if you're an independent creator, freelancer,
(04:27):
someone who you know is relying on yourself to drum
up your money, take care of your money, pay your
money to Uncle Sam. It's really important to learn these
skills and not just hide your head in the sand
and hope it goes away, because it won't. That's such
a great point, Christina, that I absolutely learned how to
(04:48):
negotiate by figuring out my rate as a math tutor
when I was trying to support myself that way, and
by talking with my brother who is a DJ and
who does this every every day, from just being in
the trenches and doing things like typing up a script
for the phone call I was going to make to
(05:10):
the parent that I was going to convince that I
needed to be paid, like even five dollars more an
hour and just having the sweatiest palms around that, you know. So,
I think it's really important to note that we are
coming at this from the experience of having spent a
lot of time figuring things out and knowing that it's
(05:30):
an ongoing journey that we are on right now. Absolutely,
And Kate, you found this really interesting article. It talks
about learning how to manage your money, like learning a
new skill, and it has this great pyramid of kind
of like the different levels of competency with your money.
Do you want to kind of lay out the pyramid
(05:51):
of financial awesomeness? Yes? So when I came across this
article scouring the internet, and I actually think it was
link in a Creative Mornings newsletter. Creative Mornings are these
breakfast talks with creatives, and their news letters are great
because they're filled with lots of links to cool things.
This article appeared on the website of a group called
(06:13):
the Hell Yeah Group, and I went, Okay, I love
that enthusiasm around money or anything in general. But it
felt like a great vote of confidence to start this
episode with. Because as human ven diagrams, learning new skills
is our j M. It would make sense that learning
money as a new skill could be our jelly, right,
(06:34):
Like it is not out. Do you really just say
that I did? I did, and I'm not going to
take it back. Oh my gosh, I can't believe you. Okay, okay,
it's our jelly. About a P, B and J right now, Christine, Now,
I mean I was going more scones. But fine, no,
(06:54):
I love that approach, the scone approach. There's something there. Okay,
keep going. It's our jelly. So that's right. So basically
this article breaks down that, like any new skill, the
first thing to do that can be very helpful is
to get acclimated with the universe you're venturing into. Now,
this article had me at universe and venturing into right.
(07:15):
That feels very on brand with the limit does not exist.
But the author shares this pyramid of financial awesomeness, and
what it is is really the financial universe broken down
into manageable nuggets. So kind of like those really outdated
food pyramids that you still exist, right, is better. The
foundation has things like map out goals, build good habits,
(07:40):
schedule weekly finance time, things that feel really doable and
familiar in the carbohydrates position on the yes, and the
original carbohydrates position that's right, was it sweets that were
at the very top. I'm trying to remember, like sweets
and oils. I think I don't know. It was like
things you're not supposed to have very often. What I
(08:01):
love about this pyramid of financial awesomeness is at the
very top just says you are awesome, Like it has
a positive affirmation at the top. So already I'm looking
at this and I'm going, wait a minute, I have
learned many a new skill. I can certainly learn about money.
The next point this article makes, and we'll link to
this in the show notes so you can look at
this in much more detail. But the next point that
(08:21):
they make is really about the difference between motion and action,
and I think that really ties into this learning a skill, right,
because there's a lot of activity or motion that you
can make on a new skill. And they make this
great example about bread, which you know we both love,
uh hashtag sour dough um San Francisco Hello. And so
(08:48):
this great point of like you can do kind of
all of this activity that makes you feel like you're
making progress but is not actually doing the work. And
what's important is to sit down and do the work.
So you can read about financial awesomeness. You can take
a class or listen to a podcast, and that's great,
But what actually moves the needle forward is to do
(09:11):
like it suggests in the bottom of the pyramid, to
sit down once a week and check in on your finances,
to set a budget, to track your expenditures in an app.
What are those concrete tools that actually move you forward
and get you closer to the goal instead of feeling
like you can cross something off your to do list
(09:32):
but doesn't actually do the work. I really love that, Christina,
and I'm almost visualizing to do list with one side
that says motion and one side that says action and
sort of seeing do both sides of that list match
in terms of how much is on them right, because
that percolation time can be really important for informing yourself
(09:53):
and building up your confidence. You just can't stay there.
That's right exactly, And on that action note, I also
love this point that the article makes about get good
at the things that will have the biggest impact. And
the example that the author uses is so great, which
is learning guitar and Christina I don't know if I've
told you this, but I'm currently learning guitar for the
(10:14):
first time. I am. And here's the thing. If you
know even three chords on the guitar, you can basically
play Johnny Cash's entire canon. I believe that if you
just know three chords, there's so much you can do.
So I just love that as a general rule for
learning anything new and doing anything new, to say, what
(10:36):
are the three things that if I prioritize those, I
will have the greatest body of new skills or to
their point, the greatest impact. I mean, you brought this
up at the top of the show. I think the
number one thing that makes the biggest impact on your
finances as a human Van Diagram is to know your
worth and to set your rates correctly, right Like, if
(10:59):
you have the raw hourly rate or you're quoting the
wrong amount of time for your projects, you could be
doing all of the work in the world and still
end up at the end of the year not making
enough to make this life sustainable. So I love that
we're just going to jump right into this and talk
about one of the biggest things that has an impact,
which is how do you set your rates. Okay, this
(11:22):
is so huge because there is a very good chance
that you probably have a portfolio of projects or multiple
streams of income, whether or not that's the case if
you just have one steady stream of income right now.
This still applies whether or not you have a bunch
of ten or one W two. Being able to figure
(11:44):
out what your rate is is so profound, and again
it's a moving organism. This applies to negotiating a job
offer as much as it applies to a freelancers rate.
I think we're going to talk quite a bit about
the freelancers rate today because that's where there's a lot
of opacity in the market. It can be hard to
(12:05):
know what to charge. But this is just as true
when you're on the job market, especially if you're changing
careers or changing cities where you might not know as
much about market rates for your level and your type
of work. Absolutely, we found this great article that Christina
you forwarded to me that's on you, and it's called
(12:26):
no You're Worth A Guide to Setting your Rates, which
is exactly what we're talking about. Thank you Google, Thank
you Google. What I love about this article is it's
quite comprehensive, so we're going to touch on a few
of the things that IT mentions, and of course linked
to the full article in our show notes so you
can deep dive it. This first point, Christina I think
(12:47):
is really worth mentioning, which is in the conversation of
setting your rates, try if you can, to not go
first right, not playing that rate first. This is sort
of one of those old school negotiation principles that can
be really hard to do because often if you are
in an interview, the question will be thrown at you
(13:08):
what's your rate, and it can feel like you don't
have a choice but to say the number absolutely. And
this is true again when you're, you know, interviewing for
a job when they say, well, what salary would you
like to earn? Or sometimes they might ask what were
you making before this, which is now illegal in New
York State many other states, they can still ask yes, yeah,
it's great. The point here is that you have asymmetrical
(13:32):
information from the person asking the question. You might know
what you would like to earn or what you what
kind of your floor is, what's the minimum amount that
you could earn to make this profitable and make it
worth your time, But you don't know a lot of
other pieces of information. You certainly don't know what they're
willing to pay. You also don't know, for talking freelance,
(13:56):
is this something they want to be quoted at an
hourly rate or a project rate? This? Right? Is this
the type of work I've done a million times, and
so I have a really good sense of how many
hours it will take to do this, And I actually
feel pretty comfortable giving you a project rate because I
know what my input will be. Or is this the
first time I'm doing this or the first time I'm
(14:18):
working with this particular partner, And what I think might
take twenty hours could end up taking a hundred hours.
And now what I thought was a really great project
rate is a terrible project rates right, So if they're
asking what's your rate, my inclination is always to say,
you know, let's start with a better understanding of what
(14:40):
this project is going to look like, and let's talk
about the project budget, because I feel confident that we
will find a way to work together. If this is
the right fit, we will get to a rate that
works for both of us. But I can't just put
a number out there until I have more information, and
that usually gives me the chance to It buys me time,
(15:02):
for sure, but it also buys me the information I need.
And if you can set it back on them of well,
what's the scope of your budget, what's what's your expectation,
that will also give you a sense of is this
even close to the right fit right, So you might
be thinking in the back of your head, I think
(15:23):
this is probably about ten thousand dollars and they say
my budget is seven hundred and fifty dollars. There is
no what we call a negotiations a zone of possible agreement,
like those two numbers are too far apart. Whereas if
they come back and say, well, I'm thinking between you
know to you know, twelve thousand, and it really sort
(15:45):
of depends on X, Y and Z, then you can say, great,
here is potentially three proposals. Here's the version, the ten
thousand version, the twelve thousand version. Which of these are
are what you want? You know? So like you make
it a conversation not just a I charge one. What
this allows you to do is be in conversation about
(16:09):
by the way, one of the hardest things to talk
about in an interview setting, and to see are we
able to hear each other. Are we collaborating here? Are
we literally on the same page. It also allows you to,
like you said, Christina, by yourself some time, start really
understanding the different elements and layers of this particular gig
(16:33):
and then go okay, great, that's really great. Intel. Let
me wrap my head around that. See what I can do, right,
come up with some proposals to not be afraid to
really take some space there to make sure that you're
on track with what is going to work for you.
(17:00):
So another really great way to get informed about what's
possible with rate is to get comps, which is the
next point that this article makes. Getting comparables, which is
what comps are the best way to get a sense
of is what I'm asking for fair and reasonable? That's
right now. I'm going to say this, Christina, that this
(17:22):
can be really challenging in certain industries where there is
a wide divide between rates. So, going back to my
original example from my early days of negotiation in tutoring,
it can feel very challenging to figure out what your
rate is when you are in a field where a
lot of people maybe undervaluing themselves. And I'm going to
(17:46):
say that with a lot of sensitivity, but where you
will see rates at like fifteen bucks an hour and
then you'll see rates like three hundred dollars an hour, right,
and truly finding the comp it in to do the
work you need to do to figure out, well, where
do I sit in that. I remember this story from
(18:07):
tutoring where I'd been tutoring for a little while and
a tutor in colleague called me and she said, Kate,
I have a client for you. Now. I have to
tell you I've had them for a long time, so
their rate is as low as I would ever go, Like,
I never tutor at this rate anymore. And the rate
that she named for me was my highest rate that
I had been really afraid to ask for. Really, yeah,
(18:28):
and that's one of those moments in life where you were,
why didn't I talk to her years ago? You can't
unhear that information now. It wasn't drastically different, but it
was different, and the way that she really kind of
like tried to justify it to me really just added
salt to my wound to know where I was like,
oh my gosh. But it also conversely gave me the
(18:49):
confidence to go. First of all, she's asking me for help.
I know I am as gifted as a tutor as
she is. Right, So that's a great way to find
comms industry friends, really having these conversations with each other,
asking and offering when you can write, helping each other out.
I've also seen this in the freelance writing area, oh
big time. That there can be some real disparities in
(19:13):
areas where people are doing the work in addition to
other forms of income, right where it is a bit
of a side hustle and so they aren't dependent on
this as their main source of income. I don't want
to say they're doing it for fun, but they're doing
it as sort of an extra, and so they may
(19:34):
be more willing to take a rate that is not
a living wage in some cases, you know. And the
more you see that, the more you're going to see
that kind of bifurcation or bimodal rate setting where the
people who you know are doing this for a living
are charging the three or whatever that number is, and
(19:55):
the people that are saying, oh, I'm really excited to
be published somewhere, I'll take fifty dollars for a thousand
word piece is really kind of pushing rates down and
you know that was me when I first started getting
paid to write. It wasn't totally a side hustle, and
it was I felt so honored that an outlet would
(20:16):
be willing to publish what I was writing that I
was sort of like, sure, whatever you want to pay
me is fine. I have a day job. And then
when I talked to more of my writing friends, and
I realized that by me saying yes to this, that
when they were going out and asking for the rate
that they deserved, these media outlets were saying, I can
get someone cheaper than that, you know, and I was
contributing to pushing down those rates. So I started asking
(20:39):
for more a because I think my writing is worth it,
but B I didn't want to be contributing to depressing rights.
This is so huge, Christina. It reminds me of episode
ninety eight Magic and Heels. We touched on this a
little bit with Kayla Drescher, where she talked about the
business of being a magician, with many people like to
(21:01):
call themselves magicians and would perform for free. This is
certainly true of actors as well. There's so many skill
sets where we see this happening, and if there is
one thing that I can give in this whole episode.
It is the fact that you are the commodity, and
you are valuable as someone who has literally paid my
(21:23):
bills by and because of my creativity for the last
five to ten years. I absolutely have learned that just
because I might be up for doing something for free
absolutely does not mean that I should. And if you
feel timid about asking for more, I think Christina, you
(21:45):
just made such a beautiful point. Think about your rate
as affecting your fellow creator's rates as well. Absolutely, I
mean it's certainly. I know I'm much more capable of
negotiating on behalf of someone else than on behalf of myself.
If you think about this, every time you ask for
what you're worth, as I'm ensuring that my fellow creatives
(22:05):
are going to also be paid with their worth. This
isn't just about me. I'm not being greedy. I'm not
you know, asking above my bridges? Is that a phrase?
I'm going to make it a phrase. Yeah, I like it.
This is me ensuring that people are paid a living
wage and that respects the work that they're putting in it. Um,
I think it's easier for me to say you know what,
(22:26):
I can't write for exposure. I can't give that speech
at your conference that you are charging attendees for and
you have sponsors that are paying for but somehow you
can't pay me for. It makes it a lot easier
to draw a pretty hard line in the things that
I'm willing to contribute my time into and the things
(22:47):
that I expect to be paid for my time. Absolutely.
You know, if you're new in an industry and you
don't currently have friends who can help share with you
what they make, there's other great resources to There's a
group called Freelancing Females that I'm sure are friendly to everybody,
but they have this great rate sheet on their website
(23:08):
that you can literally fill in some information and you
can see what rates of similar creatives are in your area,
which I found to be very valuable. I've also Christina
found Facebook groups, which are really the only reason I'm
still on Facebook, to be really valuable too. I mean
a couple of groups Freelancing Females has one. There's a
(23:29):
lot of these creative groups where people will say, Hey,
I have this kind of client, never known what to
charge before, Can you guys give me some context or
could anyone hop on a d M with me and
help me out? I found that to be very helpful.
There's a bunch of different binders which came out of
the binders full of women. Joke that made right immediately. Yeah,
(23:49):
So there's all these different kind of binders full of
blank types of writers, these communities that have grown out
of that, and they all share writing opportunities and jobs,
and they always include the price, and people can comment
on whether or not they think that's a reasonable rate.
But you just start seeing so many of these numbers
that you get a good sense of what is market
(24:11):
rate for this type of work. Now. I do think
that it's important to bring up another point in this article,
Christina that may sound like it's in contrast with what
we're saying, but it's really not, Which is this idea
of being able to be flexible with your rates. I
certainly have as a writer my ideal rate. There was
a time when I had taken time off from writing
(24:31):
and I was getting back in and I just like
needed a job, right, I really needed to work, and
so I took on a job that was a bit
below the rate that I would like, but it was there,
and it worked for me. And what I said in
that conversation, as I said, you know, typically this is
what my rate is because of the circumstances. I will
(24:53):
work for this rate, but only for about this long
and then we'll really have to reevaluate. And at that
time we decided that I had done a great job
for them. They were happy, and I got had gotten
clients at the rate that I really wanted at the time.
So there's not necessarily a perfect equation to this. You
won't get to determine what works for you. Yeah, and
(25:14):
this is the point of having this conversation with your
partner and not just putting out your number first. Right.
So when I do public speaking, I have a huge
range of what my quote rate is because there's a
ton of factors involved. Am I traveling? Do I need
to be there the night before for a sound check?
Are there other things that you expect me to do
(25:36):
as a speaker, like doing a step and repeat or
signing autographs or a dinner with your sponsors. Are you
videotaping this so that you can share it with other
people later. Are you going to share that video footage
with me? Is this the first time I'm doing a
new speech, and so I might be willing to do
it for less because I'm still work shopping it. Or
(25:58):
is this something that you know I've done a lot
and I know that it's a really powerful talk, and
you're charging and you have sponsors and you know, etcetera.
So there's a lot that goes in that's not just Hey,
what's your rate as a public speaker? What are you
getting out of it? Are you building your portfolio? Are
you getting a nice client that fills an open spot
(26:19):
in your calendar for the next three months and it
helps with a cash flow thing and it kind of
fell in your lap. Are you getting experience in a
new type of work in your area? Um, is this
something you really don't want to do? And so you
double your rates in case they say yes, great extra
money and you're totally fine with them saying no. This
(26:41):
isn't a flat number. It really does kind of come
down to a lot of things. However, there are things
that you can take into account when you are setting
that up. So you want to make sure that you
are thinking about not just what am I worth for
an hour of work? An hour of work is your
(27:03):
billable rate, but you're not billing for every hour in
your day. You deserve time off, right, You deserve vacation time,
sick time, just like full time people do. To my
earlier point, you might be willing to do a little
extra work for a client you love, and you might
want to be paid for that extra work for a
client you don't love or don't know, and so you
(27:26):
want to be able to take those things into account
and you can sort of back your way into a
what I call your rack rate, and then you can
adjust from there. But to your point, it's often really
important to make clear what your rack rate is, even
if you're giving someone a discount, so they understand kind
(27:47):
of where you exist in the market and what you
might charge them in the future if they want to
come back for more. I love that expression rack rate.
I've never heard that before. Oh yeah, it's from the
hotel and just tree. That's sort of like, what are
your published rates? And then we have a free room
and you're standing in front of me, and I'm going
to get zero dollars if I don't give it to you.
(28:08):
So here's what I'm willing to charge you tonight. That's
where that comes from. Oh my gosh, that's amazing, and
it's just the term itself sounds very badass in a
way that but you know, Christina, you also brought up
an important point about ownership as well when you were
mentioning are you videotaping this? What are you using this? Right?
Certainly we could talk and may talk in a full
(28:28):
episode about ownership as well, but that also comes into play.
Where is this living You're going to build a website
for a client and that's going to really exist for
a very very long time. That's this idea of value
based pricing, like really figuring out what is the true
value of what I'm giving you. If I'm writing some
(28:50):
words that are showing up in one email, that's different
from if I'm writing words that are going to be
warned by thousands of people on a T shirt. Again,
a lot of factors to think about, and Christina, this
article actually mentions is its last point if you're still
lost that there's a quick formula you can try as well.
If you think about if you were full time at
(29:10):
a salaried position, it is not correct to take that
number divided by fifty two weeks, divide that by forty hours,
and that becomes your hourly rate because you're not working
and getting paid for every hour, every day, every week,
and that means you get no time off and ps.
You have to pay taxes as a freelancer in a
(29:31):
very different way than if you were a W two employee.
So the best way to do this is take that
sort of number that you would like to be making
if you were salaried at a job. Let's just come
up with a pretend number, a hundred thousand dollars a year.
Now move the decimal point three places so that hundred
(29:52):
thousand dollars a year becomes a hundred dollars an hour. Right,
moved the decimal three spots. Then imagine and you want
call it four weeks of paid vacation or time off.
You deserve time off just like everyone else does. So
instead of fifty two weeks in a year, you're doing
forty eight weeks in a year, and you're not going
(30:14):
to be billable every single hour. You have to have
time for writing emails, sending invoices, doing your fine administrative
jack up so much of the clock it really really can.
So then imagine, I don't know, thirty thirty five billable hours,
forty eight weeks a hundred dollars an hour. When you
(30:35):
do that math out, you end up getting a salary
number for the year that's about forty percent greater than
what you will actually take home. And that's forty percent
buffer covers your taxes, maybe some insurance if you want
health insurance. Right, all of those extra things that administrative time,
(30:57):
that time off that gives you that buffer that people
who are salaried don't see, but their employers are are
buffering for that. Yes, let's say this once more for
the people in the back. You have time off and
health insurance, and these are things that you pay for
as a self employed worker if that is in fact
(31:21):
what you are. You know, this has been very helpful
for me in moments when I've gotten pushed back about
my rate, to say, hey, just so you know, I
don't take home that full rate. This amount goes to taxes.
This E meant like to really show that this has
a breakdown that ultimately when I pay myself from my rate,
it ends up being about of what that actual rate was.
(31:45):
So I think that's so important. And the other point,
just to stress again is that if you are doing
highly creative work, right, this is work that you do
need to build some time in. We talked about this
an episode one oh six, which is what kind of
time do you need in order to be able to
do this really heavy creative lifting, so that while you're
(32:07):
doing that lifting, yes, that's billable, but think about what
you need to do to make sure you can deliver.
Because when you're getting paid hourly, you are really getting
paid for the amount that your brain can put on
a page, or on a screen or wherever it lives. Right. Absolutely,
the key to get uncomfortable with all of this is
to just talk to your network, talk to your friends,
(32:30):
talk to the people in your industry, and be transparent.
You know, our generation is very comfortable talking about sex, politics,
and religion, but somehow money makes us really uncomfortable, and
I would say it's time to get over that. There
was a great article in The New York Times back
in January. Jessica Bennett wrote it about how she is
(32:51):
getting more comfortable talking to all of her friends about
how much they get paid. Because the only way that
you are going to get more is to know that
there's more money on the table that you are currently
leaving behind. So that is my PEP talk for you
to go and and to really have these vulnerable conversations.
(33:14):
And I would add just that it takes a ton
of courage to do the things that we are discussing, right,
to even talk about money in a transparent way. We
have generations and generations and a lot of cultural programming
that we are swimming upstream against, right, So so just
take it one step at a time, be good to yourself,
(33:37):
be kind to yourself, and if it feels clunky, that
probably means that you're doing it right. You know. A
lot of this progress, too, is progress with yourself of
continuing to evolve your identity as you get more experienced
under your belt to say yes, I am I am
worth this much and I can say that with confidence.
(34:08):
So Christina, speaking about brass tax finances, we are less
than a month away from tax day, so taxes, I
have to tell you, I truly consider my accountant in
the same group as a therapist. So we thought it
(34:28):
would be really valuable to just you know, pretty quickly, again,
this is a huge topic, but to share some helpful
takeaways if you are in the mode of getting your
taxes in order. Christina, as the member of our partnership,
who does our podcast taxes kicking off with some helpful
(34:49):
tools and strategies that you employ. Sure, So I'm going
to make this very quick, and I will say up front,
I have a math degree, I have a Harvard m
b A. I almost became a tax lawyer. That the
true story, I didn't. And I find all of this
absolutely maddening. All of the people who should be able
(35:10):
to do their own taxes, except for c p A.
I should be that person, and I still scream things
at the tax software while I'm doing it because this
is a ridiculous system. So I just want to put
this out there. Do not be down on yourself. If
this feels hard. It is hard. It was designed that
way for a reason. We can talk about why that
(35:32):
is some other day. Also, don't feel bad if you
want to hire a c p A an accountant to
do this for you. I am raising my hand. I
do fabulous c p A who I'll talk about it
in a minute. That is kind of the bare minimum
that I wanted to start with. But here's my quick tip.
Because I do my own taxes. I do now my
husband and my taxes. I do our LLC taxes, and
(35:54):
particularly for me, My taxes are complicated because I have
typically had a full time job at W two, and
I also have lots of ten ninety nine from all
of these other forms of side hustle income, and your
W two withholding is not taking out taxes for all
of your ten ninety nine, and in some cases, your
(36:14):
ten ninety nine might actually bump you up to a
higher tax bracket, which also means you're not taking out
enough from your W two job. So interesting, Yeah, this
is where it gets tricky. This is my hack. So
I have two different turbo tax accounts. I have one
that's the actual account that I file my taxes with
(36:34):
every year, and so it will import last year's data
into this year's etcetera, etcetera. And then I have a
separate one of fake account where I use basically last
year's tax return set up to estimate this year's taxes.
And it's not perfect in years like you know, a
big tax overhaul like the tax bill a few years ago.
(36:57):
It is not a good system because the roles are changing,
but generally from one year to the next it works
pretty well. So I can put in what I expect
on my W two. Here are all of my ten
ninety nine. Here's what I think I'm going to be
putting aside for quarterly estimated taxes. It will run the
numbers and say, actually, you o X number of dollars still,
(37:19):
and I'm like, oh okay, and that becomes the adjustment
that I make to my estimated taxes. So I do
quarterly taxes federal, state, and city, Thank you, New York.
And so I'll use basically that shadow account to estimate
what I think I'm going to have to pay, because
to do the straightforward math is absolutely insane. To hear
(37:43):
you say that is very empowering because I have deep,
deep rooted shame around taxes that I can trace right
back to my first tax season in New York. I
wrote about this, which I will post the article, but essentially,
I showed up to this accountant's apartment on the Upper
East Side with my stack of I think there were
(38:06):
a couple of W twos in there from acting jobs,
or a bunch of ten ninety nine's, probably some other
stuff I don't remember. But she just looked at me
and she was like, this cannot go on. And it
was just the opposite of a vote of confidence. And
you know what, I have turned that shame into is
a lot of self empathy and a lot of grays,
(38:27):
and I really have asked for help. You know, I
have a wonderful accountant who I found through a fellow actress.
I just reached out and was like, who knows somebody
who is cool with someone's taxes that look different every
single year because mine have some years I have a
stack of ten ninety nine. Some years I've had three
(38:47):
W two's always a couple of ten nines alongside of that.
Right that, I have never had a year that has
looked like any other years, and that has felt really scary.
It's felt like not steady ground. I have bit by
bit figured out a way to really walk through my
(39:08):
tax prep process with confidence. And for me, the magic
word as someone who gets paid off of a lot
of ten ninety nine is deductions. So I keep track
of miles to auditions, travel expenses, equipment, rental, pieces of
wardrobe that I could only use for a job. We
all know about my wig collection, right, important deductions that
(39:32):
I have used for business expenses, and my lovely accountant
carry actually has a great blog post with a wonderful
chart for things that you can deduct if you're self employed,
so will definitely link to that in the show notes too.
Deductions are the name of the game if you're a freelancer,
but that requires you to stay organized. This can't be
a thing that you show up on April one and
(39:54):
think how much did I spend last year on things
related to my business? Like, you will not survive. So, Kate,
how do you keep track of your expenses in real time?
I have a big confession to share that until like
last year, I was stapling receipts onto pieces of paper. No, seriously,
(40:15):
paper receipts, paper receipts until I know. I actually think
we had a moment in New York when I grabbed
my receipt and you were like, Kate, expensify. I was like, Christina,
tell me everything on the show. Guess what we're here
right now, it's happening. But yeah, I literally had these
number ten envelopes, which, by the way, if you do this,
I'm still a fan. Okay, So I see you, and
(40:39):
I am with you. I was filing receipts into envelopes
and then taking them all out. Okay, So I don't
blame your cp A for at least like giving you
a look if you showed up in her office with
like fifteen envelopes stuffed to the brim of receipts. By
the way, when I was in my m f A program,
we had an accounting class in the accountant like brought
envelopes like this is what we were taught. Okay, So
(41:03):
now since then, here's what I'm currently using. I use
budgeting software. I'm a big fan of It's called you
Need a Budget. That has worked for me. This is
a big one for me. That's not about deductions, but
it's important. I use a time tracking software to really
keep track of how long I'm working on a project.
The one I use is called clock ify. It's free.
(41:24):
Will link to it in the show notes. There's a
lot of these, and some of them actually linked directly
to invoicing, so you can just put your hours directly in.
I'm a really big fan of that, and that's really
helped me with my rate. I currently use Google Sheets
to keep track of all of my tax deductions. Also,
like if I get an email receipt, I use a
lot of labeling on Gmail to say like, oh, this
(41:47):
is in my tax deduction label, so I know that
I can look back at that, but I really want
to start a regular practice, and I know I have
more to learn here. So Christina, your turn. What do
you use? So first of all, I actually loved your
point of time. I'm tracking with clockify because if you
aren't sure if your rate is profitable, if you're like, well,
this is what I've always been paid, keep track for
(42:09):
a while of how much time you think you're going
to spend on a project and then how much time
you actually spend, and do a little bit of you
know analysis at the end to say did I make
or lose money on this project based on you know,
how it actually turned out. Yeah, there can be a
huge difference, you know, Christine. For example, I used to
think that, oh, something took me an hour, and it
(42:29):
actually taken me several hours. But I was like no,
but really, you know the other thing about time tracking
is it literally reinforces the fact that I'm on the clock.
I do use my time really wisely. When I know
that that clock is running. It's good accountability. It is.
I worked on something yesterday that I put in my calendar.
I thought it would take me three hours and it
ended up taking me eight. Wow. So that was news. Okay,
(42:53):
So here's the big thing that I'm trying to get
you on board with. It's called Expensify. It is a
free app, has a website that has an app, and
basically this is how I keep track of all of
my freelance expenses. You can take a photo of a receipt,
upload that you can forward, and a receipt if you
have it in your email. This is great for all
(43:14):
of those flights and hotels or anything that you get
from like Square reader that shows up in your email,
and then you can go in and label them. I use,
basically and quote an expense report for each of my
different projects. So even if I'm not submitting expenses to
the client, even if I'm just keeping track of how
(43:34):
much did this project cost me, I will create a
project or an expense report for that and submit all
of my receipts to that a It helps me keep
track and then be for each of those receipts, you
can categorize what type is this airfare, is it a taxi,
is it a business meal, what is it? And at
the end of the year you can run a report
to say, show me how much I spent across all
(43:57):
of these expense reports in each of these categories, so
that I am not hand adding up each receipt and
having to like tally it with, you know, an adding
machine and a piece of paper. I can have all
of this in one place, and I can compare a
year over year, so it actually helps me set my
budget for the following year based on what kinds of
(44:18):
projects I think I'm going to do. That is so smart.
It's also much greener, which we know is very important.
And I also just love the idea. Like the phrase
run of report just makes me feel like I have
shoulder pads on. I am so into this, Christina. I'm
implementing it immediately because this is the key to having
a freelance lifestyle. Right. If you don't know what your
(44:40):
profitability is off of this work, if you're only focused
on that revenue number, how many dollars am I getting paid,
and you're not focused on how much is it costing
me to do this work? How many hours? How many
taxi rides am I paying for office space? Did I
buy a new computer to do this work? Right? If
you're not keeping track go all of that, you may
(45:01):
find you get to the end of the year and
be really proud of how many jobs you got, but
you didn't make any money, and or you made just
enough to pay your rent, pay your meals. But you're
not putting anything away from retirement. You're not saving, you're
not getting a vacation fund. You're not getting an f
off fund, which is my favorite fund. Uh. It's the
(45:24):
money you put aside so that if you're ever in
a job or a relationship that you feel trapped in,
you can walk away if you have your f off fund. Yes,
I relearned the value of that by not having the
fund that I wanted to have in the last year.
Like truly, you and I talked about that right Hence
I ended up moving more than one probably should in
(45:45):
a year. A huge part of being a human ven
Diagram and being innovative in terms of how you create
your income and what you do in the world is
understanding and making sense of what that is for yourself
so that you can then share that with others. And
that's no different from what we're talking about here. Doing
(46:08):
your own inventory and fact finding on a daily, weekly, monthly,
yearly basis to say where can I optimize, how can
I do this better? How Can I give myself some
more downtime and still not be worried about next month's rent? Absolutely?
This really comes down to what is the business model
(46:31):
for your life? Right? How are you bringing in money,
what is the cost of delivering that value, and what
is left over for you? And is that enough to
make this life sustainable for you? Because if it's not,
If you're working every day, every hour, fifty two weeks
a year, you're going to burn out. Just like if
(46:53):
you had taken a corporate job, you're going to get
sick and you won't have health insurance to pay for it,
you know. So this isn't about, like, I'm so not
into the hustle culture that we have been fed that
we should be doing. Right. This is not that. This
isn't about monetize every hobby you have so that you
have enough money for avocado toast. Um. I love avocado toast.
(47:16):
But that's a side point. This is about how do
you design the financial side of your life to work
for you as much as you're designing the ways that
you get to bring in all of the pieces of yourself.
And what feels scary and hard is because this is
a skill that we're never really taught. But to do
(47:38):
this in a sustainable way, you have to learn it.
And that's why we're talking about it here. That's right.
And by the way, we're often if we are taught
it at all, it often will look like one thing
that maybe you've learned, but that just doesn't work for
the way that you live your life and the way
that you make a living for yourself. So we are
here to say that is okay, that is par for
(47:59):
this worse that we are on and that we're so
excited to be on. And this is a course that
requires so much of us, so much of our creativity.
If I can say it a thousand times, I will,
which is that you are the commodity you cannot literally
afford to burn out. So it's worth the extra creativity
(48:20):
and time, and you know, rolling up sleeves to have
difficult conversations and to learn new skills to make it
work for yourself. We believe in you. We know you
can do. This is a huge topic, and we know
that we only touched on it a little bit, and
we're going to link to all of these tools and
(48:40):
articles in our show notes. It will probably be a
mile long. But if there is a topic that we
didn't touch on today that you have a burning interest in,
send us a note to put it on our social
or send us an email and we will either discuss
it in a future episode or we'll try to find
some relevant links that we can share with you on
that as lutely, if you're looking for someone to talk
(49:01):
with about this, consider us two of those people for you.
We love hearing from you, and we also love knowing
If this is helpful for you, so, you can reach
us on Twitter or Instagram at t L d n
E Pod, or you can email us at hello at
t L d NY podcast dot com. Or old school,
you can leave us a voicemail at eight three three
(49:23):
high t L d n E as eight three three
four eight five three six three. Then you get to
dial eight zero three. That's right, and you know, if
you liked the old school quality of receipts, you can
have the old school quality of voicemail as you're transitioning
over to expensive by or something similar. Thanks so much
(49:54):
to our producer Maya Coole and to you for tuning in.
As always, please subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts.
If you like what you heard, it really helps us
get the word out to fellow human ven diagrams. Until
next time, Remember the limit does not exist. The Limit
(50:15):
does not Exist is a production of I heart Radio.
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows. Yeah
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