How I Gave Myself a 25% Raise — Even Though I’m a Freelancer
The world isn’t set up to promote freelancers or give influencers raises
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“I’m going through a performance review in March,” my sister told me on the phone recently.
“Huh,” I said, thinking how lucky I was to not have to do that kind of corporate garbage anymore as I petted my cat in my comfortable home office.
“Yep. I’m angling for a promotion and a raise,” she continued.
“Oh,” I said, suddenly interested and extremely jealous. “Wow. Good luck!”
Hours after we’d finished our conversation, I found myself still thinking about the concept of a raise. My husband will be up for one in a few months. My dad has climbed the corporate ladder through promotions. My friends have leveraged their skills and experience to find new roles with a higher salary and better responsibilities.
And me? I stagnate. There’s no one I can appeal to in order to give myself a raise or promotion. What would I even be promoted to? Senior Executive Content Creator?
Just call me SEC-C.
The world isn’t set up to promote freelancers or give influencers raises
When I googled “how to give yourself a raise when you’re self-employed,” one of the top results was a blog post/ad about QuickBooks that bragged about how QuickBooks users get back money in tax savings and how that is pretty much, basically, if you squint your eyes, a raise.
But that’s like saying when I use my loyalty card at a coffee shop and get my 11th coffee for free, I’m getting a $2.50 raise. That’s not how any of this works.
There’s no accepted formula on how to give yourself a raise when you’re self-employed, or a freelancer, or an influencer. So, most of us muddle about, earning more on some months and less on others.
I wasn’t happy with that. I wanted to figure it out. So I sat down and worked out how to give myself a 25% raise, even though I’m self-employed. Here’s how I did it.
Table of Contents1. Start with what you have.
∘ How you can do this
2. Decide where you…
