How You Give Things Away
Do you notice the moment you hand something over? Plenty of people don't. Sometimes it isn't even a matter of giving away for free. Sometimes you sell for far less than the thing is actually worth, and you never quite register that you did it. Ask yourself what your own worth is. Do you have something valuable to offer? And can you really afford to keep letting it go for nothing?
Once you start seeing the pattern, you get a say in it. You can decide what leaves your hands, how it leaves, and whether you can spare it at that particular moment. There's that old story about the little red hen: she planted the wheat, baked the bread, and then gave every loaf away without saving a crumb for herself. She starved. And once she was gone, nobody got bread from her at all. She enjoyed the growing and the baking, genuinely. But she couldn't keep at it with nothing coming back and her supplies running out.
Free samples are one common way things slip away. There's nothing wrong with a sample, as long as it leaves people wanting the rest. That's the point where you offer them more in exchange for something from you. And you charge above the raw cost of the ingredients, because what went into it (your training, your years of doing the work, what you know, the hours and the effort) carries a value the ingredients alone never will. To build new things, keep your services good, improve what you already make, and stay afloat, you have to put a fair price on it.
Nobody holds all the knowledge. Odds are you understand something about some subject that isn't common knowledge, something other people actually need, and that understanding can be worth real money to them.