What am I worth

Well after months of searching I finally get a job offer
I know what you thinking Great news right?
Well not quite
Firstly sods law dictates that it's the job ad that you respond to just because you can not because you really want it that shows interest. Sorta like getting looks from the girl you are not really interested in while her cuter friend is oblivious So there I am throwing together a half baked cover letter and standard cv and guess what they wanna interview me. So I think oh well @ least I could do with the practice. so I do the interview, do the presentation all goes well. It turns out they are interested, hey not too bad I think perhaps I can use this as a springboard to other things. Then the next week in comes the formal offer. Well lets just say I was two steps away from an angry response and one step away from a series of expletives. Continuing with the analogy its like the non cute girl trying to act like a diva after you politely entertain her attempt to chat you up. Well not quite this was much worse.
This had me thinking about how much I was worth in the market place.
Did they really believe I'd jump at this offer? They could not be serious, so in goes my measured response thinking surely they'd come up with something approaching decent. I mean mate I aint that desperate. To say that their attempt at upping their offer was laughable would be an understatement. More insulting was their attempt at trying to justify their offer saying that it was benchmarked against competitors and my figures were wrong. Lol I can understand if there is a budgetary limit but once you start trying to fob off the facts then I get really pissed off
In essence if they want me then market rate is what am going for
If they cant pay market rate bye bye
I have sold myself in cheaply before to get a job,and am living with the consequences today, not doing it again
Time to get paid