"Dollar, dollar bills ya'll!"

Facing the money “stuff” when you work for yourself can be challenging, to say the least. But, at some point – if you want to keep working for yourself, it must be addressed. Or maybe not? Check this out…

So, here’s a post about a man who gifts his website services and then his clients gift him some money – kind of like what it was worth to them. I also have another friend who did something similar for a while and she had a rigorous screening process for her clients. She eventually got burned out, and she had to stop.

Now, I seriously thought it was the coolest idea when I first heard this concept. So idealistic. So how I thought the world “should” be.

Kind of like Amanda Palmer (which has an amazing TED talk if you haven’t heard it). Amanda Palmer, is an artist who asks people for donations for her work.

But, I don’t think creating a website for free and asking people to decide the value of it by gifting you an amount they see fit is truly appropriate, at least for me it’s not. (Glad it works for that guy though.)

While I may still have a hard time placing a value on what I do, I don’t think that means I should not assign a value to it and I definitely should not be handing that responsibility to my client.

After all, money is not really about money. You know what I mean?

It’s a trade. When I’ve loved making something for someone and then that person has agreed to give me something for that creation. We’re trading energy. I’ll go even further – we’re exchanging love.

If I can not own up that I am giving someone something valuable, then I cannot ask for something for it. But, when I take responsibility for giving something valuable, it’s more than okay ask for something in exchange.