Charged a church $75 for a wedding ring quilt and that was 12 years ago and I still haven't raised my price for those

I made a wedding ring quilt for a young woman at my church back in 2012. She didn't have much, her mama had passed and she wanted something of hers to carry into the marriage. I charged her $75 to cover the fabric and not a penny more. And I was glad to do it.

Problem is, now I've made about seven of them since then for folks at church and I still can't bring myself to charge what it's worth. A queen-size wedding ring quilt takes me three, four weeks of evenings. Piecing those curves, all that handwork in the ditch. I know what the materials cost now, I know what my time adds up to. But these are church people, family, people I sat next to at potluck.

I charged a woman from Atlanta $1,200 for a piece last spring and she didn't blink. And I'm sitting here hemming and hawing over whether to ask $200 from Sister RuthAnn for a baby quilt.

My granddaughter told me I'm letting the church folks take advantage and I told her hush now, it's not that simple. But she might have a point I ain't ready to sit with.

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Karen Wessel·2w

Oh I feel this in my bones. I've done the same thing with paintings for people at church, you start out wanting to help someone, and then it becomes the "going rate" even though it's nowhere near what the work actually is.

The thing is, $75 for a queen wedding ring quilt is basically supplies and a prayer. You're not doing anyone a favor by underselling yourself that hard, you know? Especially if these aren't people in crisis, they're just folks who know you'll say yes for cheap.

Could you maybe frame it as a "church member discount" and set it at something like $300? Still less than market but not insulting to the hours you're putting in. That way you're still being generous but not giving it away entirely. The people who value you and the work won't blink at that. And the ones who only want the deal? Well.

Gloria Mae JacksonOP·2w

You're not wrong, honey. And I know it, I know it in my head. $75 for a queen wedding ring quilt is almost an insult to the work, if I'm being honest with myself. It's just... these are folks I've sat next to for thirty years. I changed some of their diapers, watched their babies get baptized. Feels like I'm charging my own family.

But you're right that not all of them are in crisis. Some of them just know I'm soft. And the Lord don't call us to be a doormat, He calls us to be a steward of what we've been given. I been thinking on that a lot lately.

That discount idea, that's something I could live with. Call it a church blessing price or something, keep the heart in it but put some respect on the work too. Three hundred still feels low for what it is, but it's a heap better than seventy-five and I could sleep at night.

Kasia Nowak·2w

Oh, I get this. It's so hard to change a price once it's set with people who know you. They see you as the person who helped someone once, not as someone running a business. And it's especially hard when it's church people, there's this feeling like you're supposed to be generous, like charging what something's worth is greedy somehow.

But three or four weeks of evenings for $75? That works out to about 80 cents an hour if you're lucky. That's not generosity, that's just... burning yourself out for people who probably don't even realise it.

What helps me when I underprice something is thinking about it this way, if they respect you, they'll want you to be paid fairly. The ones who'd be upset about a reasonable price are the ones who were never going to value the work anyway. And you can always just say materials have gone up, which is true, and you have to adjust. That's not personal, that's just the world.

Gloria Mae JacksonOP·2w

You hit it square. "Burning yourself out for people who probably don't even realise it", that's the part that gets me, honey. They don't mean no harm, they just don't see all them evenings bent over the frame, the way your fingers ache from them curved seams. They see a quilt appear, that's all.

And you're right about the church part. It's like there's this extra weight on you to be good and giving, and the Lord knows I want to be. But I been thinking, the Lord gave me these hands to work, and working for nothing ain't stewardship either. I'm still wrestling with how to change it without folks looking at me different.

Gloria Mae JacksonOP·2w

That last part you wrote, I wish you'd finished it, "what helps me when I underprice something is thinki..." I wanted to hear the rest of that, honey. ❤️

But you're right. That first one, the one you did for love, it sets a trap you don't even see till you're in it. And by then folks have got used to you being the generous one and it feels like you'd be letting them down to change.

Thing I learned the hard way, generosity ain't the same as letting folks under-value you. You can give a gift when it's a gift and charge a fair price when it's work. The Lord don't ask you to set yourself on fire to keep other people warm.