This is 45.

On crunching the numbers of reality.

Hi everyone!

I took my birthday weekend off, so here we are, a week and a day into life as someone who has aged out of the 18-44 demographic into ad revenue invisibility.

Enjoy!

A (More Than) Midlife, (Almost) Midyear Re-evaluation

I’m not sure I’ll live to 90, nor am I sure I’d want to. So, it’s likely I have fewer years left alive than I’ve already lived.

I don’t love getting older at this age, mostly because even if I do my best to stay healthy, I’m at an age where wear and tear and breakdown is inevitable. I will soon be in perimenopause. Sun damage has done a number on my skin. I’ve got loads of silver hair. I find myself making basic spelling errors (it’s v. its, there’s v. they’re v. theirs). And the words are just a tad clearer if I hold my phone away from me.

It feels slightly harder, too, because I never really had years of peak health. When everyone else was full of energy in adolescence and early 20s, I was sick as a dog with Crohn’s Disease. So I’m not lying when I say I’m healthier now than as a teenager. And yet.

I’ve got a lot to do before I die, and I’d like to have as much energy as possible in which to do it. That’s been a struggle for me, as I’ve noted before in this newsletter. I easily sleep about 9-10 hours a day, divided between the long night sleep and daily naps.

Where Does the Time Go?

Anyway. This week’s post is more quantitative than qualitative, thanks to an excellent course on the freelancing business that I’m taking through the Institute for Independent Journalists.

In it, there’s an excellent homework assignment that requires you to crunch the numbers to understand how to get to the annual salary you want to make. And it brings a lot about daily life into relief.

In short, you’ve got to track.

Tracking the Data

It’s sobering when you actually look at the numbers that break down a year:

• total number of hours: 8,760

• total number of hours awake (estimating 9 hours of sleep a night for me): 5,475

• total number of work hours (assuming a 40 hour week): 2,080

• total number of hours remaining: 3,395

(Is it possible I’ve already fucked up this math? Ha ha, yeah. Me no make numbers good, to paraphrase David Sedaris.)

Realistically, I’m not someone who can do a 40-hour work week — especially if we’re counting every second of work as work. Most people who show up to a 9-5 job aren’t actively working every minute of those 40 hours. There’s chatting at the watercooler. Surfing the web mindlessly. Sitting in meetings where the mind wanders.

So, let’s recalculate and say that my goal is more like 20 hours of work a week. Then the calculations look like this:

• total number of hours: 8,760

• total number of hours awake (estimating 9 hours of sleep a night for me): 5,475

• total number of work hours (assuming a 20 hour week): 1,040

• total number of hours remaining: 4,435

• total number of hours per week remaining: 85+

Looking at it, that is SO MUCH TIME. So, where the fuck does it all go?

For most people my age, that’s easy to answer. It goes to family: caring for kids, chaperoning them to various events/lessons/school, dinnertime, Saturday movie nights. It goes to commuting, whether for work or errands. It goes to downtime and exercise. It goes to meal prep.

But for me, I don’t have a lot of these things. No kids. Meal prep is usually pretty minimal for me, since either someone is cooking something elaborate that I pick at or I make a salad. (That said, I recently lost time last week when I sliced my middle finger well enough with a knife that I spent about 15 minutes putting pressure on it to stop the bleeding. My plans to exercise went out the window that night, since I didn’t want it to open the wound again. Funny how time can disappear in those little accidents of life.)

Commuting is also pretty nil, unless it’s for health appointments and the occasional hangout with friends.

In short, my life is structured around sleep and work. On the whole, I like it that way!

And in crunching the numbers, I’m then left to examine how much I need to make each hour in order to make the kind of salary I’d like to make.

And that’s where it gets a bit wonky.

Financial Horror Movie

The more I think about it, I marvel that no one has made at the very least a satirical short film of people opening bills and hysterically screaming.

I don’t like facing the reality of money, but the IIJ’s course offers a clear way to break it down. If you want to make $X amount per year, and you only have X hours per year to work, then it’s easy to calculate an hourly rate.

Wisely, they advise to budget at least 30% of that time for unpaid work. In my field, that means working on pitches for editors, fellowship applications, writing this newsletter, and other activities.

So, here’s the new number breakdown:

• Total work hours (assuming 20 hours a week): 1,040

• 30% of work hours devoted to unpaid labor: 312

• 70% of work hours for paid labor: 728

• Hourly rate I would need to make to earn $40,000 this year: $55

That seems totally doable, yes?

But I’m not on track for that yet. I’ve only made about $13,000 so far. That’s….not ideal.

FYI: Though I chose $40,000, it’s a significant jump from last year’s $33,000, which in itself was a big jump due to the influx of work after Hurricane Helene.

And I need to make one thing clear before I continue: I can afford to figure things out slowly, allowing for a pace that doesn’t tax my health. I live with my parents. I don’t have kids. My biggest expense is K-pop. I’m lucky, and I’m grateful.

Okay, back to the math.

Let’s look at what I’d need to do to make $27,000 in the next six-ish months:

• Total work hours left (assuming 20 hours a week): 640

• 30% of work hours devoted to unpaid labor: 192

• 70% of work hours for paid labor: 448

• Hourly rate I would need to make to earn $40,000 this year: $89

That…still seems totally doable?

But the reality is that most of my work doesn’t equate to that. Here’s an estimate of a couple of my stories:

• Charlotte Observer piece on an awesome woman cooking allergy-conscious food for Swannanoa folks: $150 for 5 hours work, $30/hour

• National Geographic piece on visa-free travel for U.S. citizens: $1000 for 5 hours work, $200/hour

• Guardian piece on Head Start cuts: $1770 for 28 hours of work, $63/hour

• News editor job for Biltmore Beacon: $25/hour (agreed-upon rate)

It bounces up and down, in other words. And that Guardian piece is more indicative of the kind of time I need for the stories I write, as opposed to the NatGeo piece.

Right now, that $27,000 feels a lot less doable because I don’t have a lot of assignments lined up right now. I do have some money I know is coming my way for the rest of the year:

• $1000 for the housing guide I helped build

• $1000 for a case study I’m writing

• at least $3,875 for Pitching Hour, a wonderful gig I have with the great Amber Petty, who helps freelancers find places to pitch and land assignments

• $1300 for a story for The Sick Times (due in October)

• at least $600 for serving as a virtual assistant for a local WNC yoga studio

• at least $2000 for serving as the news editor of the Biltmore beacon (estimating 3 hours per week at $25/hour — which might be an overestimation)

• an undetermined amount for at least one piece for Prism Reports, at $0.50/word — let’s say $1000 to be conservative

• $400 to petsit in Charleston for a few weeks ($20/pet/day — I way undercharge)

That leaves….about $15,825 left to find.

So, if I were able to get more $1000/piece assignments, that would mean I need 16 more. Doable? Possibly, yes. But that would mean doing about 2-3 pieces per month. That’s a pretty fast pace, especially since I don’t have too much lined up.

So, looking towards the rest of the year, I’ve got some priorities:

• line up more work

• finish the outstanding work I have at a faster clip

• try to land at least one piece that’s more than $1/word

• potentially lean into other sources of revenue, such as coaching or petsitting

And just like all hours of work are not valued equally by my employers or clients, so they aren’t all equally valuable or fun or demanding for me.

Some hours, like my Pitching Hour work, are genuinely a pleasure and don’t feel like work. Some professional development, like free webinars where I learn useful and interesting things. Writing this newsletter. Working on “the scoop.”

So that feels…comforting somehow. That I can stretch my bandwidth of work when it doesn’t always feel like work.

But it also takes up time that might be better used sleeping when I’m doing work that, as much as I enjoy it, can be draining. The weeks when I easily spend multiple days working at least four to six highly-focused hours writing, for instance.

And this is to make an amount of money that many people could not afford to live on.

There’s a small part of me that feels shame about that amount. Like I should be hustling harder, trying to make more.

But, well, fuck it. Some people can go from making $10,000 one year to six figures the next. I am not one of those people.

I both feel motivated and terrified. Can I make that amount? I genuinely don’t know. That’s a lot of work. Right now, the odds are against me. But it can also take just one run of good luck — a piece that pays $2/word, winning a fellowship (I need to apply for more of those), and I’d surpass it.

Not for the last time, I’m reminded how so much money last year came from the worst natural disaster to hit my region for over a century.

Anyway. I’ve got a big assignment ahead for the rest of this year. Let’s see how it turns out.

Feel like this breakdown could help someone else who’s freelancing? Send it along or restack (if you know what that is).

Hurricane Helene & Wildfires: Ways to Support Recovery

Help Catye Gowan Feed People with Dietary Needs! This chef has been out there on her own since the storm began cooking food designed for people with severe dietary issues like Celiac and dietary preferences like veganism. She’s a force for good, and every dollar helps!

Help the House of Black Cat Magic Save Black Cats! Our second cat, Mini Keeper-Moo, came from Binx’s Home for Black Cats, one of only a handful of black cat-specific rescues in the country. They opened up a gorgeous black cat lounge and magic shop last May, but since Hurricane Helene they’re struggling like every other business. They’ve only received $15,000 micro-grants since the storm to save their business — not a cent more. Please help them help black cats!

BeLoved Asheville. These folks are the best in the world — the ultimate model of mutual aid and greeting the world with love. Check out what they’ve been doing, and donate, here.

The Deep End of Hope in the Wake of Hurricane Helene: 40 Days and Nights of Survival and Transformation. A Ground Zero view of the storm’s devastation — and a community’s resilience — from a trauma chaplain who lived it.

L.A. Wildfires: Opportunities to Help

World Central Kitchen. They were unbelievable for us here after Helene. I don’t know the grassroots organizations running in LA right now — LA readers, feel free to share so I can include them! — but I can vouch for the amazing-ness of World Central Kitchen. A hot meal means everything in such difficult moments. I’ll add more links as I hear about places doing great work.

This Week’s Dose of K-Pop: 마마무 (MAMAMOO) - “고고베베(gogobebe)”

Sometimes, you just need a fun song to get you motivated, and MAMAMOO’s “gogobebe” qualifies. I particularly love the idea of letting your hair down and having fun in the process. At its best, I genuinely enjoy my work. So, I’ll try to keep that light-heartedness as I pursue my yearly financial goal.

gogobebe.

Love y’all,
Sara