| Monday, May 12, 2008 |
| Inflation hits home |
There's been a lot in the news lately about the slowing economy and inflation. However, it didn't really hit home until yesterday, when I went to Trader Joe's to buy my weekly supply of Kashi GoLean. I noticed that the price of GoLean had gone up by 50 cents! I eat a lot of the stuff, so this is a serious issue for me.
Everything is getting more expensive, from airline tickets to beer to stamps, which went up a penny today. Meanwhile, the price of gas has gone up so much that some older pumps can't handle the rising costs: "Many... pumps can only count up to $99.99 for the total sale." Joe and I were eating ham/veggie burgers at a local hangout today that is situated right next to a bicycle shop, and at one point, we observed that all four of the shop's parking spaces were occupied by SUVs. Perhaps they were looking to get a more economical form of transportation? The store seemed to be doing amazing business. We discussed getting a bike of our own, so that we could cut down even more on our car trips -- with a grocery pack, I could even ride to Trader Joe's to pick up my Kashi and rice milk, or over to the farmer's market a couple miles away.
There's one thing that hasn't gone up lately, though, and that's my hourly rate. I have taken the tentative step of quoting a higher price to prospective clients, which might explain why I haven't gotten many new ones lately. (Luckily, my current clients keep me pretty busy.) I like to think that I provide a good value, but the fact is that the people who hire me tend to be individuals, nonprofits and very small businesses, and those folks are all feeling the squeeze themselves. I don't want anyone to feel they have to cut me out of their budget.
I've never claimed to be a very savvy businessperson -- I just spent untold hours doing a site for free, because it was for one of my idols and also because the whole site needed to be built on WordPress, which was a platform I wasn't very familiar with. Now, I'm a bit more up to speed on it and might be able to actually charge people to set up WordPress sites. I'm also learning how to set up message boards and trying to get more accomplished using CSS. There is always so much to learn -- and more professional expertise, I hope, will help my business grow, and help me keep up with the high cost of living. |
posted by 125records @ 7:48 PM  |
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| 2 Comments: |
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Andy's business pricing strategy - and his customer base and the way its economic realities influence his pricing strategy - oh, and his proportion of unbilled to billed hours, and rationales thereof (learning experience, fan of customer) are much like yours. When I'm sitting down to pay the bills and reconcile the credit card statements, I have to remind myself that I profoundly admire all that stuff about him.
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My blog was an experiment to teach myself HTML. It's gone on for nearly three years and I haven't learned all that much HTML. But I'm having too much to care.
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Andy's business pricing strategy - and his customer base and the way its economic realities influence his pricing strategy - oh, and his proportion of unbilled to billed hours, and rationales thereof (learning experience, fan of customer) are much like yours. When I'm sitting down to pay the bills and reconcile the credit card statements, I have to remind myself that I profoundly admire all that stuff about him.