Salary expectations: how do you answer? - what worked for you?

A recruiter asked for my salary expectations on a first call as I look for work as a dental hygienist. I have read a lot of threads here and could not find my exact situation. I also do not want to sell myself short.

Thanks for writing this out. I went through something close to it 6 months ago, and it got easier once I kept a simple log of every call and form.