Rate chasing

One of the fun parts about going 1099 is find opportunities to increase your billable rate.

My own billable rate progress sent from something like $85 -> $100 -> $110 -> $115 -> $160 ->$180 per hour over an eight year period.

Those early rate increases made a big differences. Actually all of them made a big financial difference.

But the thrill of bumping up your rate wears off quickly, and then you're left with figuring out how to make your work life more interesting.

So here's my recommendation for rate chasing: get to a point where you're billing enough to live a fun life and still have a good enough savings rate (maybe 20 to 30% of your take home) and then optimize for other factors. I suspect for most people this would cap out at about $200/hour on the high end.

Find more interesting projects, reduce the commute, reduce your overall work hours, start a business, read more books, or do whatever it is that you find enjoyable.

Start thinking about it now, because otherwise you'll keep playing a rate chasing game that's no longer fun.

Want the full playbook? Check out Going 1099.