That's a really good question Warren. As to whether people were
balking at my previous rate, yes, but mostly just New Zealand clients.
Now, typically I haven't bothered much with NZ clients, because a
weaker dollar here just means that they don't have the buying power
compared to Australian ones, or traditionally clients paying in US$ or
Euros. However, the US clients are much quieter these days (I used to
get an email a week or so from folks in the US).
When I look at my new rate in Australian dollars, it seems really low
($64 at present I think), particularly this week as there's a strong
currency disparity. I used to charge $50 about four years ago for PHP
work, and I thought I'd left that behind. However, in NZ dollars it's
now more in line with what a contractor here can expect to earn, and
makes me accessible to local clients for the first time since I moved
here a couple of years ago. I could have gone for different rates for
local clients, but that would have removed my ability to publicly
notify people of my rates, which I wanted to do as I suspect that many
clients in 2009 are going to sometimes filter their candidates with
something like:
contractors_ive_heard_of.select(&:looks_affordable?)
...before applying the usual sorting by quality and reliability.
Regarding fixed costs that aren't going down, that's the tough one.
One reason why many kiwis move to Australia is that despite the
currency disparity which affects earnings, cost of living isn't
proportionally cheaper here. That's probably a comparable situation to
the one you mention, where a freelancer in 2009 might earn less than
in 2007, but have fix costs that are at least as high.
Of course, that's what a recession means. It's not just some abstract
point about GDP shrinking rather than growing. It means that we have
less money. Generation X isn't good at frugality, and I'm not
exception. I'm trying really hard to fight the urge to constantly eat
out when I have perfectly good food at home, and it's a slow and
painful mind shift. Intellectually, I don't much like being part of a
generation defined primarily by our levels of consumerism and
previously unheard of levels of personal debt, but in practice I'm as
addicted to it as the rest of us (not speaking for anyone in
particular, you may not have any trouble with this stuff).
Your final paragraph is of course the scary one Warren. I'm betting
(literally) that it doesn't work that way, but if I'm proven wrong and
it all goes bad, at least I have a big veggie garden. :)
I'm not meaning to sound full of doom and gloom, I'm actually a rather
cheerful guy. If this discussion is getting a bit much for anyone,
here's a picture of a unicorn with kittens:
http://rinics.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/sue_dawe_unicorn_and_kittens.jpg
cheers,
Craig
-----
Craig Ambrose
Cogent Consulting
http://www.craigambrose.com
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby
or Rails Oceania" group.
To post to this group, send email to [email protected]
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
[email protected]
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/rails-oceania?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
