How Much $$$ Am I Worth?
by Mallory McPherson-Wehan
Our theme this month on F*ck Wellness is money and it has been really hard for me to fully process everything. I’ve always been someone who doesn’t think about money too much, both because of my financial privilege to have basic needs meet but also because I hate thinking about money.
I’ve always joked semi-seriously that I’ll never make more than $100,000 a year in my life. In my head, that seems like a ridiculously large amount of money to make. I think part of me is afraid of making more? I’ve realized recently that I am terrified of being seen as “rich” or “wealthy,” not that I currently would categorize myself at those (shoutout to the $311 in my checking account right now), but I feel like perceptions of you change when you have money. People expect more of you (understandably) and you are judged more harshly. I recognize that those fears are mostly in my head, but I see the way people talk about rich people as if they are the scum of the earth (and some are definitely awful) and I never think “wow, sign me up for that!” This Weeds episode called “What it means to be a ‘good’ rich person” explains this concept so well, way better than I ever could. Also the irony here being that I feel like people with little financial means are also judged and seen as scum of the earth by some certain politicians so anyway it’s a weird world out there.
Honestly even writing a newsletter about money is making me uncomfortable. I feel like you would all laugh at how many sentences I’ve written and then deleted because I’m so worried about how they would sound.
One area of the money conversation that I’ve been really struggling with is my business. I hate pricing my services. How am I supposed to know how much one hour with me is worth??? When I worked at GW, an hour of personal training with me was $79 (though I only got $32 of that ). When I started my own private coaching and training business last year, I literally had no idea what to charge. $20 an hour? $30 an hour? $200 an hour? Someone help! I started at $60 an hour because idk it sounded safe and good? Ryan would remind me that I have a master’s degree in public health, multiple nationally-recognized certifications in fitness and wellness, and 6 years of experience in the field. Why was I underselling myself?
When I would get to the part in consultations where I would have to lay out my prices, I would think of ways I could give them discounts without it sounding weird. I was so nervous they would scoff at my prices or tell me how I was charging way too much. Until last week, that hadn’t happened. I had a consultation with a family last week and the conversation went really well. When we got to pricing, I explained my rate and their faces dropped. “That was way more than we were expecting,” the father told me. I didn’t know what to say. My knee-jerk reaction was to backtrack and give it to them for free. I stayed silent instead. “We’ll discuss it and get back to you,” the father said after many moments of awkward silence. He texted me a few days later saying I was out of their price range.
I think about that conversation a lot. I don’t want to be inaccessible to people, but I also put a lot of energy and effort into each session. How do you possibly balance that? It’s something I don’t have a perfect answer for. I haven’t figured it out. I want to feel good about my prices. I don’t want to get nervous every time I tell someone how much I charge.
To be completely honest with you all, I’ve been thinking of monetizing this newsletter. I put hours into making it every week and it would be great to have some extra consistent income. But I don’t want to lose readers or make people feel like they can’t afford the information I share. I haven’t decided anything yet, but it’s something that’s been on my mind.
I still don’t know how to talk about money in a completely healthy way. I’m not even sure there is a “completely healthy way” to talk about money in a capitalist society tbh. But I really do recommend our F*ck Wellness episode with Brooke Benson. She talked about money in a way that really connected with me. Definitely listen if you are working through some of these concepts as well.
