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I did the math on a commission last week. Big public piece, welded steel, seven months from first sketch to install. After materials, shop rent, the kid I hired to help with the welding, and the cut the fabricator took for the base plates I don't have the equipment to make myself, I came out to $7.50 an hour. I remember when I started out I'd have been thrilled with that. Thrilled. Now I look at it and think what the hell am I doing. The worst part is the client was happy. Paid on time, no complaints. So the price felt fair to them. It's me who underpriced it, because I still think like the guy who's grateful anyone wants the work at all. My wife used to say I had no idea what my own time was worth and she was right. Three years since she passed and I still hear her saying it. Anyone else do the math on a finished job and feel like a damn fool?

That one stung. Not because I'm entitled to their profit, but because it made me realize how badly I'm underpricing my own work. I did the math on my hours after I found out and I made about $14 an hour on that piece. Fourteen dollars. For thirty years of knowing how to make something that holds its weight and doesn't fall apart. I don't blame them. They saw the value. The problem is I didn't. Still haven't raised my prices to where they should be. Working on it. But that gap between what I charge and what something's worth keeps me up some nights.