Why I used to hate talking about money as freelancer

And why it's now my favourite thing to talk about

Photo by Mathieu Stern on Unsplash

I’m willing to bet that when most of us first skip off into that big adventure of freelance-land, the biggest thing we’re concerned about is finding work. And that makes sense, because without clients… we’re technically unemployed. But getting work is actually the easy bit. What felt way worse was the subsequent existential crisis about the thing that makes our capitalist world spin: money. How much should I charge? What are other freelancers bringing in? How do I raise my rates? What if I get sick and can’t work?

I’ve had a horrible relationship with money most of my life. Thinking about it made me feel panicky, and talking about it – even with friends or family – made me downright nauseous. Asking other freelancers about their rates or how they made money would have felt as rude as asking them what colour underwear they were wearing. I’m not alone in this squeamishness. Most of us have deeply emotional connections with money, that have little to do with what it actually is – a barter system.

But here’s the problem with refusing to engage with money as a freelancer: whether you like it or not, every piece of work you do, no matter how much you love it, is a business transaction. Negotiating with clients means engaging with money. Deciding which clients to work with means thinking about money. Figuring out how much time to spend on a project ends up being about money, because time = money. By sticking my fingers in my ears and going la-la-la every time someone mentioned the ‘M’ word, I was effectively handing over the future of my business to my clients, allowing their decision-making to steer my career.

A few years ago, the way I thought about money radically changed, partly because I wanted to pull up my big girl pants and take charge of my finances and partly because I started seeing a coach, and then enrolled on a business course – through these, I had to bring out my dusty but deeply held beliefs about money and hold them up under the light to see if they still held true. What I found was that much of the mythology I had about my relationship with money was just that – myth – and that so much of how I felt about money had little do with me and much more about the society we live in.

MYTH 1: I’m not ‘bad with money’, I was just never educated about it

For years, I believed I was ‘bad with money’, and that I spent it like it was burning a hole in my pocket. I also believed that I was never someone who would ever earn a decent salary, own a house, or have any savings. But most of us have very little education about money growing up, and often inherit flawed beliefs from our family. I wasn’t taught about credit cards or annual interest, was flogged them at university like many other students, then berated by family for racking up a few thousand pounds of debt. Having been told repeatedly by family members that I’m bad with money, I soon internalised it, and even when I owned a house, had savings, had a retirement fund, and could support my family, I still couldn’t believe I was “good with money”, until I saw a coach who laid the evidence out in front of me.

MYTH 2: Men aren’t better at money – they’re just more confident

One of the biggest ways that the patriarchy does women dirty is withholding knowledge as knowledge is power. Knowing how to handle finance and business that govern the infrastructure of the world has always been deemed male domains. Even now, the finance industries are still mostly ruled by white men. This isn’t because our delicate female brains can’t handle maths or understand investments, but because the less we know, the less power we have. In my first marriage, as feisty as I am as a person, I let my husband make our financial decisions as he earned more, and I foolishly believed that meant he knew more. It wasn’t until we had bailiffs knocking on our door because he had messed up his tax payments that I suddenly grasped the urgency of being in control of my finances.

MYTH 3: Wanting to earn more money isn’t gauche or greedy  

As the child of immigrants growing up in England, I internalised both these beliefs simultaneously: you had to work as hard as you could to earn money, but you also shouldn’t want too much.

Working in science journalism, many of the people I’m in contact with are either researchers trying to do good for society or journalists trying to reveal the truth. In both industries, wanting to earn a lot of money is (a) considered pretty gross and (b) unachievable.

While it’s true that chasing after money can make some people compromise their ethics, and no amount of money could substitute for my kid telling me she loves me as she falls asleep, or watching a glorious sunrise and marvelling at being alive another day, the last few years have taught me that money isn’t just about material things. For many of us, money means freedom. Freedom to leave an abusive partner; freedom to spend more time with our loved ones; freedom to create art in our spare time; freedom to give to charity. Money is never just money.

If you’ve always believed you’re bad with money, I would urge you to look properly at the evidence of your life and see whether that’s really true. If you feel like you are never saving and only just keeping your head above water, remember: salaries have stagnated while the cost of living has soared, and industries spend billions on getting us to spend more money. If you want to get a better handle on your finances, there is a wealth of free information out there, increasingly aimed at women (and if you need help getting over some roadblocks, my amazing coach is here).

There is very little that human beings are born knowing inherently– we need to learn everything from how to treat other people to how to walk or talk. Money is no different, and if we’re taught badly, then it’s no wonder we resort to ‘girl maths’ for our emotional spending. It’s not rocket science, truly – if I can get a grip on money, so can you.