My freelance contract ends next week. I know how a post that opens like that is supposed to go. There is supposed to be a villain client, a shocking invoice, a lesson paid for in tears.
Sorry to disappoint. They hired someone in house, which was the right call for them, and I am happy for them. No drama, no burned bridge. Just a calendar with a hole in it where a client used to be.
In short: I set aside 45 percent of every payment, I have about one week of runway to the last payment, and the one rule I am holding is that I do not price anything new this week. The number you say out loud when you are scared is the number you live with for a year.
The short answers, before we get into it
Should I raise my rates when a freelance contract ends?
Not that week. A rate you name while you are scared becomes the number you live with for a year. Say yes to the person, ask for the scope, and send your number a few days later. Money set aside before you need it, 45 percent of every payment for me, is what makes the wait affordable.
I’m your big sis, not your financial advisor.
The last time, I picked wrong
The engagement before this one taught me the expensive version of this lesson, and it had nothing to do with how much work there was.
The tell showed up early, and I ignored it: every time a new person joined on the client’s side, the same tension came back. Questions that had been settled got reopened. Decisions nobody owned floated around until they landed on me. Onboarding someone new should get easier each time, and instead it reset the whole room. A client who has not worked out how they absorb change will hand that unsettledness to whoever is holding the work, and that week it was me, every week.
That is a fit problem. It was never a volume problem, and I spent months treating it like one, which is why I did not fix it.
You can hear this one before you sign, by the way. On the kickoff call, ask who owns change on their side when new people come in. If the answer is a pause and a look, you have your answer too.
The 45 percent
Now the money part, because the set aside is the reason this post is calm.
I move 45 percent of every payment out of reach the day it lands. People assume a buffer like that is for emergencies, and fine, it is that too. But what it actually buys is silence. It is the reason I can sit in a call this week, get asked my rate, and say “let me get back to you on that” instead of blurting a number a scared person picked.
A week of quiet costs money. I pre paid for mine.
What I cut, in order
When income drops, I run the same sequence every time. Real sequence, not a blog sequence.
- Extra food and entertainment spend first. The doordash tax, the third streaming service of the week, the little treats. This is where the fastest money hides and cutting it hurts the least.
- Subscriptions I do not need right now. Every tool and membership gets one question: does this earn money this month? A no is a pause, not a breakup. #queen behavior is canceling from the app instead of letting it auto renew out of guilt.
And then I stop cutting. Which brings me to the part that matters more than either of those.
The thing I do not cut
I keep a baseline, and I hold it. Mine is a set amount that keeps moving into savings no matter what the month looks like. Make it $50, make it a flat $1,000, the size matters way less than the habit surviving the bad month. The month you stop is the month you teach yourself that saving is a fair weather thing, and that lesson costs more than the money.
Hold the line, even when the line is small.
The number you say when you are scared
Everyone will tell you the fix for a gap in income is to go raise your rates. Let me do you one better: do not name a rate at all this week.
Here is what pricing from that chair actually sounds like.
Me: “What did you quote them?”
Her: “The same as last time.”
Me: “You dropped it, didn’t you?”
Her: “A little.”
Me: “Why?”
Her: “Because I did not want to lose the room before I even had it.”
The whole move is one message: “Thank you, I would love to. Send me the scope and I will have a number for you Monday.” That sentence says yes to the person and no to pricing from panic.
A warm lead is not a deadline. It just feels like one.
I have priced from that chair. I took the number I picked scared, and by the end I was so worn down that the work did not feel worth it anymore. I am not above this. I just know the chair now.
A rate quoted from panic has a smell to it, and clients can smell it. Worse, you will be living with it long after the panic passes, because raising a number you just quoted is a much harder conversation than quoting right the first time. Give the fear a week to move through. The buffer is what makes the week affordable. Then price the work like the person who has done this for years, because you are her.
The honest part
Hmm, let’s run that back, because I made this sound cleaner than it is. The 45 percent did not appear the year I started freelancing. Last time around it was 25 percent of every payment. The 45 got built after the engagement that fit wrong, by the version of me who never wanted to feel that cornered again. There are two women in this post. One took the wrong fit contract and paid for the education. The other one is sitting here with a week of runway, watching a contract end, and feeling something close to peace about it.
Same person, sis. Different preparation.
If your set aside is 4 percent right now and 45 sounds like a fantasy, start where you are. The percentage is not the point this week. The habit is.
The one thing to do today
If a contract of yours is ending, do exactly one thing before you touch your rates: write down your real monthly floor, the number that keeps the lights on. Every pricing conversation you have after that happens with a floor under you instead of a void.
And when the next kickoff call comes, listen for how they handle change. You already know why.
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Grab the free money checklist below if you want the cut order, the baseline rule and the rest of it on one page you can actually use.
#bigsisenergy