Freelancers: Do You Have a Hard Minimum?

A few weeks into this tour, I was out to dinner with the other two crew and somehow wages came up. While none of us actually stated what our wages are (although, as tour manager, one of them already knew what all of our wages were), we primarily discussed how low we’re willing to go when accepting work. And what can change that number. Essentially, what's your hard minimum wage? I remember both of them looking at me like I was crazy when I said that my wages right now were as low as I would go. And they are. I think that with 12 years experience, working for less than $100 a day is ludicrous. I actually think even $100 a day is pretty low, but it’s reasonably balanced out by the company covering my housing for the duration of the tour too. Well, we’re coming up on the end of tour and I’ve been rethinking that number and come to realize that in the freelance world, that kind of “I’ll only work for X amount of money” doesn’t work as well as it did when I was working for big companies. I’m still sticking to $100 a day as the minimum amount I’ll take for any long term project, but I’ve also come to realize there are definitely some things that can sway me to take not only less, but much less. The odds are good I’m going to go out on another tour with this current company, assuming they do offer me the same (or, fingers crossed, a little more) money, but that still leaves me a few months to kill before going out on the tour. The two they offered me start in mid-September and mid-December respectively. Can I weather a little less than 4 months of unemployment before the next one begins? Sure. But why do that when I can apply for summer stock positions, which definitely do pay a lot less. As I started applying for these positions, I realized that there were three things that got me to drop my number down as low as $50 a day – room and board had to be provided, it had to be in an interesting area to me and it had to be an Equity contract. Surprisingly, I’ve found several positions to apply for, that run from mid-June to late-August, which is pretty much perfect to allow me some time to visit with friends and family on either side after returning from this tour and before going out on the next. The item that stands out to me though is the opportunity to take an Equity contract without having to join Equity for two years. As soon as one of the interviewers pointed that out to me, I started scouring for exactly these kinds of jobs this summer. So while I still have my fingers crossed that my cruise ship plans will work out, since my bank account would be much happier there, I’ve got a few more fingers crossed that I’ll make next to nothing being an ASM out in Colorado where I can spend my days off rafting and fulfill all the requirements to join Equity without actually having to be able to join it yet. I guess I've also learned that I don't have a hard minimum.

How do you guys decide when you’re willing to reduce your income?