Nope, Not This One Either

Over the past few days, I've been working on answering the questions from this article by Devon Ellington on the About.com freelancer writers page. I only have two questions left, but the last one is about the steps you need to take to reach your goals. The obsessive-compulsive in me wants to make sure I get that one just right. Meanwhile, the slacker in me came up with this entry for the question about finances ...

5. What financial goals to you want to achieve over the next year?

I’m going to skip this question, because I don’t have a great handle on my finances at this moment. I keep trying to tackle it, printing out Quicken reports and looking at last year’s taxes and trying to make a budget of income and expenses. But then I get overwhelmed. Not being flush, I also find the whole topic a little depressing. Depressing plus overwhelming … not a good combination for me.

While trying to avoid thinking about my finances, I took the online salary survey at MediaBistro. The survey asks how much you made in 2003, how much you made in 2004, and whether you expect to make more, less, or the same in 2005. Talk about getting straight to the point: I made less in 2004 than I did in 2003. In 2005 I'd like to make more.

Gee, that wasn't so hard after all.

If you are a freelance writer or full-time staffer, you should take the salary survey, too. It is completely anonymous, it's only a page long, and has the potential, if enough people do it, to produce some interesting figures on what working writers are actually earning these days. Click here to start.