Carnival of Personal Finance

Thanks to The Happy Rock for hosting this week's Carnival of Personal Finance!

Freelance and Contract Technical Writing Rates

I've always let people pay me less than I'm worth. I was recently given a raise, but it only came after I sat my supervisor down and told him I'd quit if they didn't promote me and pay me more. Despite 12% in pay increases this last four months, I'm STILL $6K a year under market value. I've decided to start looking for another job. I don't think I can dig myself out of this monetary hole--they've got me by the numbers, literally. Once you get behind your pay, it's hard to get back on your feet without a radical change.

Because I want to get the right salary this time around, I've done some research to figure out what I'm worth to the market. Here's some of my mistakes, experiences, and numbers to go with both.

MY TIME AS AN INTRO WRITER, AND WHAT I WISH I HAD KNOWN

When I first started technical writing (six years ago), I came to the market with no knowledge of what I should ask, and I was seriously taken advantage of. I was paid $17/hour by a contract house, but as a intro contract technical writer in my area (the medical device industry), I should have gotten $25-$30/hour. I was fresh out of college and didn't know my earning potential. After getting $9/hour at the movie store, $17/hour sounded great... until I realized how much the guy next to me was making, with less-relevant educational background. Because I've been around for a while, I know that six years ago, most of the contract houses in my area got $50/hour for an intro writer--that was a negotiated rate. Keep this number in mind if you're negotiating for a contract with a technical writing house.

When I was hired-on full time to my company, I started at $40K a year. This was a reasonable salary, but I probably should have tried for $45K a year. The next mistake I made was not pushing for a promotion sooner, but that's another story.

HOW MUCH SHOULD I ASK FOR AS AN INTERMEDIATE/ADVANCED LEVEL WRITER?

I have six years of experience under my belt, a science background from a top-notch college, and a ton of project management experience. I'm in a different league. My job description has me at a Level II Technical Writer. If I were to apply as that, the median is about $57K a year, and the 75th percentile is at around $64K. However, I do work that requires a specialized knowledge--it's some of the most complicated technical writing out there. If I stay in this area, and apply for Level III jobs, which I think is fair, the median salary is $68K.

Here's my problem: because I'm getting paid below market value right now, if I walk into another HR office and tell them how much I'm getting, they'll try to pay me below market value again. My thought, then, is to work with a contract house for a while, and try to wipe the record clean. I had some trouble finding out how much I should ask if I'm working for a contract house. And remember, this is where I got screwed the first time.

Freelancers with my level of experience ask between $50-$80/hour (the median seems closer to $70), but (to me) this seems different than working through a contract house, as the contract house theoretically does a lot of footwork finding you a job. Because I wasn't certain, I located a writing contract house in a different city with a similar pay-range, posed as a company looking for someone with my level of experience, and asked for a quote. Ethical? Well, they're going to try and underbid me, and what's ethical about that? They said I would cost $85-$95 an hour. That, then, gives me a real number to work with. I think my rate should be $50/hour (if they're getting me work), and starting negotiations at $65/hour seems appropriate.

This information is based off my own casual research and isn't meant to be a definitive guide--feel free to leave comments if you think I'm off, or I'm missing some information.

SOME HANDY LINKS I USED IN MY SEARCH

I can't seem to retrace all the articles I originally took notes from--if anyone has a page to add, email me or throw the link in the comments.

• - Monster's Salary Search


• - The Society For Technical Communicators (membership required, however you get access to their annual salary survey)


• - Peter Kent's Article: Making Money In Technical Writing (outdated, but helpful)


• - Writing Assistance's FAQ Page

I hope people find this helpful!

Housing Woes Force An Impulse Buy

At 7 o’clock tonight, the road was busy. Much busier than I remembered when I went by this weekend. The house was small and cramped, although it was nicely painted. Or what we could see with the flashlight seemed nice. There was no power, so some of the shades were hard to make out. It smelled of cigarette smoke, but my real estate agent was mumbling something about an ozone machine that would get the stench out. Every time a car drove passed, the rumble echoed through the empty rooms, and there were a lot of cars. My girlfriend was trying to look enthused, but it was depressing, and cold, and far away from where we wanted to live.

“I don’t think this one’s going to work, Nancy,” I told my real estate agent, who I had dragged out at 7 o’clock to see a place that I now realized had no potential.

After a long drive in which my girlfriend tried to put a positive spin on things, I dropped her off and went to a coffee shop to think. I started to feel really bad for myself. This sucked. I couldn’t afford anything.

So that’s how I found myself wandering Target at 9 o’clock. Not just wandering. For the first time in my life, I really wanted to buy something to make myself feel better. I stood there, knowing that I had enough cash on hand (or in my reserve account) to pay for anything in the store. I could afford anything. Bose stereo system? No problem. For six months, I wanted the one that hooked to my iPod. The biggest TV they had? I don’t watch TV, but what the hell. I perused the aisles and sat in the leather chair. I could do better, but this one would work. $400? A steal.

Then I made a purchase. Absolute top of the line. Total impulse buy, and I feel great about it. Not a speck of buyer’s remorse. Oak handles, stainless steel fittings, and almost three yards of braided nylon.

After an invigorating 100 lap test drive of this $5.37 work of art, breathing hard from excitement and flushed with adrenaline, I frivolously threw another $100 at a credit card bill. Oh, I might have to cut back for a week, I may have to pack a few lunches to work, but you know what?

I’m worth it.

Carnival of Personal Finance

Thanks to MoneyNing for this weeks Carnival of Personal Finance. Go take a look at the selections everyone posted. There's some good reads.

AMEX Paid Off!

I have now paid off my Amercian Express card. $255 and WHAM! Scared you? Sorry about that. Wham! My Amex card is now paid off. Can I say that again? Wham! My American Express card is now paid off.

Midway through May, pushed by the fair winds of determination and the helpful $600 gust from our Federal governement, I will have completed paying off my CREDIT CARDS.

All of them.

wham.

Phone Calls Saved Me $185

JD over at Get Rich Slowly recently wrote a blog article about how his friend saved $57 by making a phone call. Well, I just made three phone calls and made $185 dollars. One call was pleasant, one was eye-rolling, and one was infuriating, but they each offer a lesson.

$20 IN FEES RECOVERED FROM WELLS FARGO

I want to preface this one by saying that I've had some serious gripes with Wells Fargo in the past, and I know of one incident where a woman who overdrew her account to pay for her husband's funeral was told by a customer service rep that "cancer is not a bank error." I kid you not--the customer service rep bragged about this to me over a beer (our last beer). That said, Wells Fargo customer service has improved immensely. Within the last year, and I think within the last six months, the customer service staff has obviously gone through some serious soft-skills training. I know this, because for a while I was getting the same tag lines from each rep: "That was a very good suggestion," or "I really appreciate that input." And even though it was obviously prescribed, how much nicer is it to have a human being tell you "I appreciate your input," rather than, "I'm sorry, ma'am, but cancer is not a bank error"??? So my grudging bravo, Wells Fargo. You don't suck as much as you once did. You actually were the "pleasant" call!

So, how did I save $20? I called Wells Fargo because my account had two phantom overdrafts that the system wasn't savvy enough to pick up on, and my overdraft protection account dipped into my credit card, charging me $10 a pop. I was transferring money between two Wells Fargo accounts (a checking and a savings), I didn't carry the 2, and accidentally moved $2500 instead of $2400 from my checking to my savings. This happened at 2AM. I figured it out immediately and had the accounts straightened out by 2:05, but it still dipped into the overdraft kitty (this was only one of the two incidents, but the other was similar). The bank is supposed to figure this out automatically and correct it, I've been told, but there's a glitch in the algorithm and it never credited my account for the mistake. Anyway, I called and after a few minutes of explaining, they (pleasantly!) agreed to drop the charges. I also asked them to pass along to there tech people that this glitch exists, and they pleasantly demurred, so I doubt the glitch will get fixed, but oh well. FYI, watch out for this glitch if you're a Wells Fargo customer!

$35 IN FEES RECOVERED FROM CHASE

I cancelled a Chase credit card four years ago. I paid off the card (actually, I transferred the balance, still being in the 'dark' financial years), called the company, said See Ya!, cut the card up, and then went on my merry way. I didn't hear anything from them, until about a week ago, when I got a bill in the mail.

Huh?

I couldn't for the life of me figure out what the heck was going on. It was a $35 charge on an account I had no recollection of opening, with a horrible interest rate and a yearly fee (hence the balance). Um... no. Then something starting nagging on my memory, and I realized I was guilty of a very errant lapse in judgement. I may have screwed up the card closure, but that was years ago and I'm not going to get down on myself for that. This is where I screwed up: the last time I was looking at my credit report, I saw that damn card listed as a open account, squinted my eyes, shrugged, and didn't follow up on it. This was a serious lapse in judgement. It turned out to be a card that I opened, but it could have been a case of identity theft and should have triggered four alarm emergency action on my part. I should have called and called until I got things figured out. But I didn't. I squinted my eyes, shrugged, and congratulated myself for having such a nice credit score. Argh. How foolish was that? All is well, but it could have been disastrous.

I called the card company and got things straightened out. We don't know why my card didn't get officially cancelled, but Chase lost track of me for a few years and then my address came back up on the radar, hence the re-initiation of the account, and the odd bill. I laughed (kindly) when the guy said I was responsible for the charge, and told him (again, kindly) "not a chance in hell." His attempts to get me to pay up were kittenish (the eye-rolling call), and eventually he agreed that it was near-impossible to justify the charge. As a side note, however, I actually kept the card. Because of it's phantom status, it survived the Great Credit Card Purge of '05, where I repositioned all my old loans into cards with better interest rates, and cancelled the old cards. Because of its incognito status, it's my oldest credit card, and a surprising lynch pin in my credit history. I had them change me over to a card with better terms, and Chase and I will probably live happily ever after.

FRS and I, alas, will not.

$130 WON IN AN UGLY ARGUMENT

I ordered a sample product about a month ago from a company called FRS. Confession: I'm kind of a sucker for health gimmicks. FRS makes a drink with tons of antioxidants and a tiny amount of green tea extract (equal to half a cup of green tea). Lance Armstrong either runs the company or chairs it, I can't remember which. If you happen to order the free sample, which comes with a variety of different forms of this drink, and wonder why they have a little medicine cup firmly attached to the concentrate, it's because I didn't think it was concentrate and downed the entire container in a few gulps, and then proceeded to vomit profusely. At work. I wrote them a letter and explained the labeling issue, and they started putting those little cups on the top of the concentrate. Anyway, whereas I thought I was paying only for shipping on the free sample, it turns out I missed the fine print that said I was also agreeing to have them ship me $65 worth of product every month (unless I called to opt out). Or maybe I did read the fine print, but forgot after all the back and forth with respect to the vomiting conversation with their customer service (who weren't very nice about the whole thing--I wrote them a humorous email explaining that it was my fault, but they might want to look into the labeling issue, and they replied back that they had professionals design the original package, thanks for the input. I wrote a more pointed letter in response).

So a few weeks later I got this package in the mail and saw the bill on my credit card, and I called the company. I got an answering machine and left them a message, telling them to get back to me so that we could get this figured out. The didn't get back to me. Over the next month I called twice more, left two more messages, and didn't get a reply. I did, however, get another package in the mail and another bill on my card. I called again today and finally got an actual person, who tried to cheerfully tell me I was going to have to suck up the charges. That one degenerated into an ugly argument right from the start, with vague hints of legal action on my part and a hurried escalation to management. They said, "I'm sorry, I can't...", and I said, "I'm sorry, yes you can...". Etcetera.

Fifteen minutes later (and I seriously wasn't going to give up), they credited the money back onto my account. Then they had the nerve to ask me what I thought of their product, and would I like a discount on future purchases? I paused, breathed a few times, and said I was fine, thanks, but they should probably cancel my account.

It's a pity, really, because I like the sugar free powder drink. Awesome pick-me-up in the morning.

SO THAT'S IT!

$185 dollars. Some of it wasn't easy, but in the end, it wasn't about the money. In the last instance, I wasn't nice, but then I've run into too many customer service reps who are beyond "not nice." They smile and send you through hell, hoping you give up and go away. I understand it's not an easy job being a customer service rep, but then it's not an easy job living in an economy where companies try to take your money through technicalities, and every time you turn your back you find yourself burdened with another $5 fee or fine. So talk back, be strong, and keep an eye on your money. It is your money, no matter what they try to make you think.

Housing, Credit Cards, and Time Management!

The House Hunt
Tomorrow night I'm going out to look at another duplex. I drove by the property, a big red-brick building with nice trim, but it's not in the greatest section of town, and they don't seem to be making that much in rent so I wonder what the inside looks like. We'll see. It's only about $230k, which (with taxes and insurance) would come to about $1,700/month in payments. They only get $750 per unit, each of which has two bedrooms. That's pretty cheap, even for the area. Most two bedrooms seem to go for around $1000, so one thing I want to determine is if there's something seriously wrong inside, or if they've just miss-priced things.

Credit Card Update!
So, in about a month and a half, I should have my credit cards paid off! Okay, not ALL paid off, but the rest of the money floating on the cards is accounted for. I have about $3.1K in school loans that my company will reimburse, $2K in house earnest money that's sitting in my bank account for when I need it, and $800 for my sister's plane ticket to Singapore. The earnest money will be rolled into my home loan and returned to me when I buy the house. I'm only buying at well-below market value, so while I know this is a risk, it's calculated, and I'm willing to take it. I'm alright floating my sister the money for Singapore--it's at 0%, and she's paying it off at $120/month. She's getting BETTER with her money, but she needed some help for the trip. She works 80-100 hours a week, so she really did deserve the trip. She's 35, and as a resident in Boston, she doesn't make that much money.

May should be a good month, financially. It's one of the two "magic" months in the year where my bi-weekly pay period affords me three paychecks. That, and the big tax reimbursement will be coming, so there's another $600.

Time Accounting
I was sitting around thinking of how I've never been that good at making schedules and sticking with them. If I set a date for when something has to be completed, I procrastinate horribly, and I spend too much time worrying about the process. This has gotten worse at work because I'm in charge of several groups and multiple projects, and I don't feel like I get anything done, anymore.

I've decided to look at my time more like I look at my finances. I used to run into the same problems with finances as I do with time: I set goals as to when I wanted to be debt-free, but I never just sucked it up and started paying the debt.

At work, I'm no longer going to give people "completion" dates, because I ALWAYS blow by these. I'm just going to tell them how long I'll work on a project, then I'll hand back the project after that time has passed, no matter how far I'm into it. I think, in reality, that I'll finish up more work this way, and I won't beat myself up and spend to much time on any one assignment. I think it's going to make me more efficient. I haven't worked out the details, but I'll update you as to how this new method works for me.