At 10:14 AM 1/3/02 EST, you wrote: 

>>>>

<excerpt><fontfamily><param>Arial</param><smaller>In a message dated
1/3/02 10:05:30 AM Eastern Standard Time, Simone89 writes:



<excerpt>HI,

I make garb etc for a living. Your labor should be a minimum of $8 per
hour. Double the cost of your materials and add labor. Example: 3 hours
labor $24.00 plus $40.00 for fabric and materials. Minimum $64.00 and
actually I would recommend you should get around $80-100 for linen shirts
finished the way you describe...(i.e. quality labor at $12-16 per hour)

Simone

</excerpt>


Hahaha, i could never charge that much!!! Do people really pay that
mmuch?? by the way i've found different materials (and had some extra
expenses for the first batch of shirts) that will bring the material cost
down to $10. i think $45 sounds like much more appropriate. :)

</smaller></fontfamily><smaller><bold><fontfamily><param>Lucida
Calligraphy</param><color><param>0000,8080,0000</param>Laura</color></fontfamily></bold></smaller><fontfamily><param>arial</param> 

</fontfamily></excerpt><fontfamily><param>arial</param><<<<<<<<


</fontfamily>It's strange, I've met so many new craftsmen who are so
afraid of "cheating" their customers, that they cheat themselves.  I've
written a couple of articles on the science of how to price your work,
but continually meet those who discount the good sense it provides,
because it's "easier" to choose an arbitrary price that has little logic
behind it.


It's not difficult, and it only requires a little bit of math.  Materials
+ Labor + Overhead = Wholesale Price.  Materials is the cost to you of
everything that went into your peice.  For you, that would be fabric,
thread, etc.  Labor is exactly the length of time that it took to make
the peice times your hourly wage.  Overhead is the wear and tear to your
scissors, sewing machine, etc.  The Wholesale Price is what you'd be
charging a shop to sell your stuff (or in your case, what you'd be
charging your customer directly.)


It can be as simple as that, if you are doing this just as a hobby.  If
you were doing this as a business then it would have to become much more
complicated, but for this discussion we can ignore that.


If you want to stick to saying that, "my work isn't worth more than 40 or
50 dollars," fine, but don't be surprised when you are sick and tired of
doing this in six months.  You have been treating yourself like you are a
minimum wage worker, after all.  And don't be surprised if your customers
treat your work like taiwanese crap, to most customers minds, cheap
prices means cheap work.


There _are_ skilled workers who charge appropriate prices for their
skilled labor, and there _are_ customers who appreciate the work and buy
from them.  I've noticed that those businesses are usually the ones that
stay around for more than a few months.  You can draw your own
conclusions.


Serving the Society,


Frederich Von Teufel