Negotiating pay when I have been out of work after 7 years as an accounts payable clerk

I have been out of work for 12 weeks and feel pressure to accept less. There are 7 people counting on me, so I am trying to be careful. I also do not want to sell myself short. How do you research fairly?

Keep everything in writing and save the confirmation numbers. It made the follow-up calls so much easier.

Thanks for writing this out. I went through something close to it 2 months ago, and it settled down once I kept a simple log of every call and form.