
Freelancing: A 6-Month Retrospective - llambda
http://mrooney.github.com/blog/2012/07/01/freelancing-a-6-month-retrospective/#content
======
nolok
I've always wanted to turn to freelancing, mostly because my girlfriend has
visa issues and it would allow me to go live with her full time and take
better care of my family, but my biggest drawback and what stopped me was that
I didn't know how to start getting decent projects.

I'm a webdev, I mostly feel confident to start with PHP where I have lots of
experience and worked on websites with millions uniques and things like that;
and am able to setup/debug most part of the stack, but every single time I
find that either I can't find any good opportunities, or people want to see
"previous experience" and they don't consider what I did at my jobs as
counting because it's not websites I did from top to bottom.

When I ask on various websites, people tell me to compete on the various
freelancing sites but it feels like so much bullshit with all those 20$ offers
getting the upper hands even if it's obvious it will fail ...

Does anybody on HN have any idea on how I can help myself in that area ? I
have absolutely no design skill so I can't just do dummy websites by myself,
or they would look terrible.

(for the sake of the question, please just assume I know how to do my job well
and my problem is mostly image/marketing myself)

~~~
brandall10
I would say get involved in your local community... go to meet-ups, tech
talks, Startup Weekends, etc, and become a known entity.

The real benefit to this is you get to meet people who are already
established, as usually those are the people who tend to do these things and
sometimes they work in teams. I did a pro-bono project with a local known dev,
he liked the work and invited me to come along on a long-term paid gig which
was sufficient enough for me to quit my day job.

~~~
capsule_toy
I do this a lot. A couple things I've realized: \- Quite a few of the people
you meet aren't going to lead to much. A few of them will lead to something
but not until further down the road. Basically, not everyone is looking for
freelance developers.

\- You have to know a bit about sales. If I'm talking to someone non-technical
looking for an online store, I'm an expert in e-commerce, but if I was talking
to someone in the industry, I'm less likely to throw out the term expert and
more likely to try and talk about specifics.

\- This is culture dependent but in the States, I've found being too modest is
a negative and people seem to interpret it as either disinterest, lack of
confidence, or lack of skills.

\- I once overheard a discussion that went something like this, "I'm looking
for a developer." "If you can get <that person> that would be great." I'm not
there yet but I want to be <that person>.

~~~
GFischer
"in the States, I've found being too modest is a negative"

A Uruguayan delegation went to Silicon Valley recently, and one colleague
mentioned one takeaway was that most americans are very "aggressive" selling
themselves and outspoken, it came out as a bit of bullshitting to him, as we
come from a more modest culture.

------
theoj
>> So as an example, a $100K salary, which corresponds to roughly $50 per hour
working 40 hours a week, requires a freelancing rate of $56-58/hour to pay for
healthcare and time off.

Cringe -- this is bad advice for setting your consulting rate. In the US, the
full cost of an $100K employee is not $100K. It's $100K salary + paid vacation
time + employment taxes paid by employer + healthcare + office space & pro-
rated related expenses (like cleaning of said office space). This metric is
called the "fully loaded cost" of an employee and ends up being 1.3x-1.5x of
the salary.

But even this calculation fails to capture the flexibility advantages that
your clients get from hiring short term. It ignores the fact that as a
consultant you are hired only when you are needed and are 100% utilized, while
a yearly employee may not be fully utilized every day of the year.
Essentially, an employer that hires a full time employee agrees to "buy in
bulk" and pay for time that may or may not be fully utilized. By necessity
this means that your rate should be higher to account for the additional value
provided plus provide cushion for those in-between project times when you are
looking for work or doing proposals.

Two quick and dirty metrics I have seen for determining rate per hour are 1)
yearly salary / 1000 and 2) 2x full time employee hourly rate. Both of these
converge on about $100/hr. Un-official data from HN seems to confirm a median
freelance rate in that range (about $90/hr):
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3420203>

~~~
patio11
Keep in mind that those guesstimations are for determining the _floor rate_
one would ask for to maintain an expected standard of living, rather than
determining the rate one would actually ask for. Your rate should be whatever
you can convince people to pay you, and that can be a number well north of
$90/hr.

(While I love HNers, one should not rely on HN salary surveys to set one's
rates. There are many factors that drag it down: HN has a global audience but
you do not have to sell to global consumers of programming talent. HN, in
other surveys, frequently skews to young and inexperienced -- you may not be
young and inexperienced. Many HNers are unsophisticated about pricing to
extract value from mutually beneficial business relationships -- you should
not be unsophisticated in this manner. Many HNers occupy positions which are
low on the value chain such as undifferentiated "web design" which do not
command high hourly rates -- you should upgrade your skillset or marketing
such that you can command higher hourly rates. etc, etc)

~~~
edanm
Where can one find good statistics on this issue?

My consultancy is now starting to take on American clients, and I'm trying to
understand what the average market condition is like to know where to start
ourselves off.

~~~
patio11
That strikes me like "Dating advice: Explain to the average woman that
accompanying you to the average restaurant followed by an average movie would
make for an average evening."

~~~
edanm
Yes, but to explain why we're worth X% more than the average
developer/freelancer, I need to know how much they make in the first place!

~~~
noahc
I'm pretty sure you don't. In fact, I'd go so far as to say, framing it terms
of another developer will hurt you if you are charging more.

If you are delivering $100,000 in business value, and you charge $20,000 for
it it is a win for the company. If another developer charges $10,000 for it.
Going with them isn't twice the win for the company.

You don't say I'm worth x% more because I work x% faster. You are worth
$20,000 (which just so happens to be x% more) because you've done this before,
helped other clients realize 5x ROI and you've worked around the nasty #2343
bug in the database that will bite them if they go with someone else.

------
skrebbel
Guys, a question about this: reading HN, I have the feeling that in USA
freelancers are a pretty common phenomenon in software. Where I work
(Netherlands), all freelancers I know are working full-time 2 year projects
anyway, not at all getting them the flexibility articles like these refer to.
They mostly get paid more than the employees, in exchange for less job
security and having to invest in education themselves.

What do US freelancers do? Are these people who make websites for local
bakeries? Can you do a 20-hr a week freelance job actually _coding_ something?
And how long do employers expect such projects to last? What kind of employers
look for freelancers like that?

Any personal anecdotes or whatever will be most appreciated!

~~~
Alan01252
Not US but UK here. And yes, in my experience, yes you can do 20 hour weeks
from freelance jobs. The people/companies who want you are simply those
companies with more work than they can currently handle.

It's not hard to see why, in the UK especially, there's a severe shortage of
good developers. I can safely say ( hopefully without coming across as
arrogant) that I'm a better developer than any other I've met whilst
freelancing thus far. Companies are willing to pay for that knowledge and
experience, even if it's on a time limited basis.

It's well understood in programming circles that a good developer can be much
more economically viable then several not so good developers working on the
same problem. I think Joel Spolsky's sums up this point quite well here
<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/HighNotes.html>.

~~~
mcdowall
I can't agree more about the standard of developers, a host of roles I've
interviewed candidates for in my past 2 positions just don't get the same
calibre of applicant for a permanent role vs contract.

------
LVB
These posts are always both inspiring and wrenching for me. I'm mid-career and
come from the mold where getting a good fulltime job out of college is what
one does. That's simply the way it was, at least in my circles (college,
family, etc), and I never considered working for myself. Fast-forward 15
years. Corporate life has actually been pretty decent to me. I've not been
jerked around too much, had some opportunity to travel, and have been
compensated reasonably well. My wife and I have had a comfortable life so far.

So, what's the problem? LACK OF TIME OFF. I've been stuck behind antiquated US
corp vacation policies for a long time, and having had my vacation "reset" due
to a job move is weighing on me a lot. 3 weeks total time off (which includes
sick leave). I'm almost 40 and have a young family, and more and more I think
the current PTO situation is BS. I actually don't mind working in an office 5
days a week, but I would like some more time out of the office.

So it's great to read someone achieving that, but I'm also incredibly jealous.
Yes I could "just do it", but that would go against very deep and well-set
views of how I need to provide for my family. I'm not able to stomach the risk
(and unfamiliarity) at this point. I suspect that it will need to get worse
(i.e. my job goes to shit), and that will force my hand and it could get much
better.

~~~
michaelochurch
LVB: you now what I think you should do? If you don't want to leave the
corporate world, and your only gripe is the lack of vacation, _negotiate_. If
your boss gives you a raise, ask if you can trade in 2% of salary for another
week: taking an 8% raise instead of 10%. If he can't give you a raise at all,
ask if you can get an additional week off instead. If you have to, offer to
have any time past your 3rd week unpaid.

People tend to think that vacation allotments are set in stone. They're not,
and you can definitely negotiate out of a "reset". If you're used to having 4
weeks, it's not unreasonable at all to ask for that in your next job.

It's weird to me that so many people do the customary +5k negotiation before
they start a job but they fail to negotiate an additional week of vacation
which would, in most cases, make them a lot happier than an extra ~$250 per
month (after tax).

~~~
LVB
PTO was a part of my negotiation when I was looking for a new job, but it
didn't work out. The job market was worse then, and I was quite keen to make
the move out of my previous location (it was a cross country move) so it
wasn't worth not getting the new job.

That said, over the past week I've been drafting a polite but direct letter
asking for the extra week. Sure I've already had the job for a couple years
and my bargaining position is ostensible worse, but their need for employees
is a lot higher and they have repeatedly said how much they like me, I do good
work, future roles, etc. I like the idea of making them sweat a bit (there
have been a number of recent departures), and maybe it will pay off.

~~~
Daniel_Newby
What stops you from just taking a week of unpaid time off?

~~~
LVB
I would love to have that option. Unfortunately the only unpaid leave that's
allowed is FMLA, and even then you must burn up any built up PTO before it
transitions to unpaid leave.

The work, environment and people are quite good at the company, but the leave
policies are annoyingly stingy.

------
bedris
Earlier this year in the Harvard Business Review, Jody and Matt Miller wrote
about a phenomenon that is similar in spirit to that of freelancing hackers,
which they dubbed supertemping:

 _"Supertemps are top managers and professionals—from lawyers to CFOs to
consultants—who’ve been trained at top schools and companies and choose to
pursue project-based careers independent of any major firm."_

It is pretty interesting to see freelancing become a "first-class citizen" in
the high-skilled employment world, whereas previously it wasn't widely
accepted beyond a few select occupations.

URL: <http://hbr.org/2012/05/the-rise-of-the-supertemp/ar/1>

------
jagira
A well written introspective piece. I left my job a few months before you did
(Aug '11) and have a similar experience.

Here are some of the things that I've learned -

a) Set your working hours. Try to follow them, but not religiously. Having a
batch of hours as free time is much better than being occupied throughout the
day even for a 4 hour gig.

b) Get a small long term (ongoing) project. Few hours every month. Use the
income from this project to pay the bills and perform other chores.

c) Any conversation with a random (or known) person about your profession can
turn into a lead. You need to be in _sales mode_ more than before.

~~~
adrianhoward
_Set your working hours. Try to follow them, but not religiously. Having a
batch of hours as free time is much better than being occupied throughout the
day even for a 4 hour gig._

Yup. Very good lesson to learn. Setting hours for work is _much_ more useful
than timing when you work.

------
blu3jack
Would love to hear the follow up after a couple of years. I did freelancing
for six years & the benefits and drawbacks both become a lot more starkly
drawn -- & somewhat different -- over time.

~~~
osxwm
What were those starkly drawn benefits and drawbacks you discovered in your
six years of freelancing?

~~~
blu3jack
It's a big topic. To the author's point, the role of free time changes a bit
once you have been able to plan your free time over a period of years rather
than months. It takes on a very different rhythm.

Beyond that, probably the biggest single evolution was in my relationship to
the work itself. In the early months and years I loved being able to go heads
down on a project without ever worrying about the politics of the project or
the organization: I was there to get the thing done. However, I am the kind of
guy who cares about his work. Eventually I found this same experience to be
dissatisfying. I felt that I was abandoning my children into a hostile
corporate world with no one to look after them.

Moreover, as a freelancer you have much less influence over the product and
the process. You're a hired gun. Sure, you can do a great job and collect a
good paycheck, but if you love what you do it can be frustrating to have
extremely limited input into decisions outside the scope of your contract.

Back to the author's very excellent point, I also found the management of
benefits and finances to go from a source of engagement to just another
hassle. When you are setting up your system, it's fun. When you are executing
it, and occasionally screwing it up (taxes!), it's just another headache.

~~~
Alan01252
I'm keen to know whether you ever expressed these concerns?

My recent (and limited in comparison to yours) experience is that as a
freelancer demanding a certain wage my knowledge and feedback is taken in very
high regard and if I feel something needs changing it has been.

~~~
blu3jack
Sure, and some jobs I had more influence and others I had less. But at the end
of the day, it's not your baby. You don't _have_ to live with consequences,
and you don't _get_ to. I eventually went back to a full time day job. Yes, I
miss the opportunity to take a month or three off; I will probably bounce back
to the freelance life at some point; but right now I have the satisfaction of
working really hard as the true owner of a product.

The other path here is starting your own company, owning your own product. But
if what you love about the freelance life is bountiful free time, that is not
the path for you!

~~~
Alan01252
Thanks blu3jack. I'll be honest I'm not sure how I'll handle that when the
time comes. I'm hoping that as long as I always leave the job knowing I did
the best I could, even if I believe the decision made were the wrong ones,
I'll be happy.

------
pacomerh
Biggest aspects from my experience:

\- Follow your work times rigorously.

\- Just because you own your time that doesn't mean you should spend it
reading articles all day. (I personally look through HN in 1min, then save my
interests into the pocket app and read them at night)

\- Communicate with your clients a lot, sometimes all they need is to know how
you're doing, they will appreciate it.

\- BIG one, learn to automate tasks. If you code, get an application like
codebox or something, stop re-coding the same stuff over and over.

\- About the money, don't work for free, charge upfront percentage, the
separate account thing is a good idea, I do that.

\- Be an expert of your area. Basically, 'skills will set you free'

------
sneak
This guy knows what he's talking about.

He omitted the part about not having to put on pants to go to work, though.
That's worth $25k/year to me, easy.

~~~
xxbondsxx
I don't get this with developers. Are pants that uncomfortable? That much of a
terrible obligation that you'd forego 25k a year?

~~~
sneak
Specifically, it's more the "working someone else's schedule" than anything.
Also, traveling to some other physical location. Commuting is a total drag,
and it's nice sometimes in the middle of a project to postpone the shower
until _after_ work that day and sit around in your skivvies in Get Shit Done
mode until dinnertime.

Surely I can't be the only one who transitions from sleeping to awake with
some crazy architectural change or refactoring in their head? I go straight to
the keyboard and do it while it's all crystal clear in my mind.

The only time in the last five years I've _ever_ set an alarm clock is when
I've had a doctor's appointment before noon.

Home is comfy.

------
Alan01252
I'm almost at the end of my second month freelancing (post to come soon) and
find this inspiring.

My biggest struggle at the moment is what to aim for, yes working three days a
week and getting similar money to what I was earning full time is great. Yet
at the same time I'm not sure if this is enough for me personally. In fact
when I start talking to my friends in full time jobs I kinda feel guilty!

Maybe I need some more hobbies, but at the moment the draw of earning more
money by working harder is far too appealing. It seems I just can't say no to
money.

~~~
jaggederest
Do it then, and save it so you don't have to work. Part of the glory is being
able to decide for yourself.

When I was freelancing, I'd be putting in 50-60 hour weeks most of the time,
because I felt like the hustle really paid off, but any time I got burnt out,
boom, time off.

------
ZanderEarth32
Very nice look at making the move. I freelance on the side now, but I might
look to do this in a couple of years if things go (or don't go) well with my
next move.

Health insurance wise, we're you able to get coverage for yourself, or are you
participating in a COBRA plan from your previous employer? To be honest,
health insurance is probably the one thing that would keep me employed in
regular salaried position. The fear of having a medical emergency and it
wiping out my savings is a scary and totally realistic possibility.

~~~
epoxyhockey
There are a couple of options for health insurance. If you have a spouse who
has health insurance through their job, you can join their health insurance
plan. If you want to go solo, I've had good success with using
ehealthinsurance.com.

When I was laid off from a job a few years ago, I compared the COBRA price to
ehealth, and I found COBRA to be priced about 4 times higher than if I chose a
similar plan from ehealth. And, with the same brand insurer.

~~~
wtracy
I've been worried about getting labeled with "pre-existing conditions" that
won't be covered if I go that route, for things that I'm currently covered
for. Can anyone comment on that?

~~~
codenerdz
We'll see what the outcome of ObamaCare in regards to pre-existing conditions,
but the way things are right now, if you go with an individual insurance(i.e.
not part of a larger company's group plan), should you develop a medical
condition, you will eventually be priced out of cheaper "risk categories",
i.e. your insurance costs will be increasing year after year and you wont be
able to change plans into other competitive healthcare plans because they will
deny you due to these pre-existing conditions. Many states, including
california, provide special plans for those who are denied coverage elsewhere,
but they are ridiculously expensive(think over a $1k per month per person). If
you have a family and your spouse doesnt have insurance, healthcare could be
an expensive gamble...

------
zupatol
Does anyone have an idea what kind of programming jobs lend themselves best to
part-time work? The author doesn't mention the kinds of projects he works on.

I'm unemployed since last week and I've been trying to find a part-time
programming job for more than three months in Geneva, Switzerland. Part-time
freelancing sounds great, but I have no idea where to look for clients.

~~~
mrooney7828
See <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4215576>, but just look at what niche
skills you have and find markets where those are needed. Generally if they are
in demand, putting yourself on LinkedIn / Github with those specialties is all
you need, for example <http://mrooney.github.com/about>.

------
autarch
Without knowing what his income goals are, it's hard to know how well this
would work for others. Most people can't easily charge more than $100 per hour
for consulting, unless you have niche, in-demand skills, or are notably above-
average in skills and you can back that up somehow (like you wrote a major
FS/OSS tool that people know about).

~~~
mrooney7828
Pretty much anyone will have specific experience that they can market
themselves for. Just think about what you've done in your past few jobs, and
you probably know more than 99% of developers in those specific areas you
worked in. If you check out my About page at
<http://mrooney.github.com/about>, you can see I'm not marketing myself just
as a general web developer, as you don't stand out that way and can't charge a
good rate against all the competition.

------
MattRogish
You know, you don't have to give up the "safety and security" of a full-time
gig to have the freedom and control-your-own-schedule benefits of a
freelancer. The "Results-Only Work Environment" (<http://www.gorowe.com>) is
trying to merge the stability and benefits of a full-time job and the
flexibility and freedom of freelancing.

If more gigs embraced ROWE, perhaps folks wouldn't have to choose the lesser
of two evils.

Not saying that freelancing or consulting is bad, just that I think there's a
viable alternative. I don't know what the future looks like, but I certainly
hope the "40 hr salary work-week" goes away.

~~~
alinajaf
Only thing you're missing out on is the ability to work on and towards your
own projects.

Not sure about the average freelancer, but most technical freelancers I know
see it as a stepping stone towards getting their own little SaaS or iPhone app
business off the ground.

If you're working full-time for a company, IME contracts tend to own all
intellectual output at your time there, at home or otherwise. This doesn't
matter much if all you do is put out MIT licensed experimental programming
language parsers, but I wouldn't put many companies above executing on those
terms should a product you build in your off-time achieve success.

~~~
yourapostasy
That's just a matter of negotiation.

If you are billing significantly above $100 per hour, you are not a commodity
technical talent and have leverage in negotiations. Redline the IP clauses you
find objectionable, and supply alternate phrasing. Stress that whatever is
paid for by the project from inception to delivery remains solidly available
to the client. Lots more details for freelancers to work out, but I don't want
to hijack this discussion and just wanted to point out you don't have to
accept the standard boilerplate if you don't want to.

~~~
alinajaf
I think it's possible that you've misunderstood the comment I was replying to.
The poster is referring to _permanent_ employees under a ROWE-like system.

As you say, I would have to be in dire financial straits before I accept a
freelance contract that even casually mentioned IP outside the scope of a
given clients project.

------
kayoone
Personally i didn't like freelancing from home all that much.. i did it for 3
years but overall you feel quite lonely sitting at home most of the day
without coworkers to talk to. Work life/private life gets really mixed up and
sitting around in your undies until noon wasnt really all that exciting after
a while. Be careful to not isolate yourself too much! I love freelancing, but
today i share an office with other freelancers and try to separate
work/private life more clearly. Made me happier, YMMV

------
42_huh
Why is it that I do not see people in India freelancing? I do not know of a
single person who freelance in software development and I live in Bangalore,
touted as the Silicon Valley of India.

Is it that the developers here are not good enough, or not trustworthy enough.
Or is it that they are unwilling to take the plunge into the unknown. I do
think there surely is an inertia factor to it. But that's true anywhere else.

Maybe I just haven't looked well enough.

~~~
plinkplonk
I live in Bangalore. Did 'freelancing' for >10 years. Now doing a spot of
product dev (so not doing that anymore). I know many people who do (and drop
back into BigCo jobs for a year or two when they want to take it easy for a
while). Lots of people freelance in Bangalore. The key is to have some kind of
specialized skill (design,analytics, etc) - vs generic web stack (J2EE, RoR
etc) skills.

~~~
42_huh
Hey! Great to know that I was wrong! Do you know a lot of people doing it/did
it, or are you an exception? And who were you clients, i.e, were your clients
Indian companies or are people in the US, UK etc ready to invest in
freelancers in India.

And did it pay well enough for other people to consider it?

~~~
plinkplonk
I've worked for both Indian and US 'companies' (quotes because some were
research labs etc).My 'clients' were people who came looking for me because
they know someone who recommended me. I never did any marketing and have no
skills therin, and probably would botch it if I tried.

I am not an exception.I know tonnes of people who do 'freelancing', though
most of them end up starting small companies to take care of taxes etc. (they
do much better marketing than I do) and work on a time and materials (x
$/hour) basis (I don't). They work for companies in the US/Europe. With rare
exceptions, it doesn't make economic sense to work for Indian companies,
though it depends on the value you can add. Pays much better than the BigCo
salaries (I know people making more than 100k US $).

The hard thing is establishing a reputation for competence, since with so many
body shopping companies (Infosys, TCS etc) hiring (literally) battalions of
borderline incompetents, "Indian developer" has come to be synonymous with
"incompetent fraud" in many people's minds in the west (can't blame them,
really), especially in the outsourced context. Standing out in this sea of
ultra cheap incompetence takes a lot of work. The ability to communicate well
(both oral and written) in English is critical.

All that said, here is some free advice. If you don't have any specialized
skills, are not prepared to work really really hard (much harder than in your
usual Indian Bigco), don't (personally) know any potential clients, don't jump
into freelancing. It is not _easy_.

By the time I was ready to quit the 9 to 5 BigCompany grind, I had many offers
to freelance. I just got lucky and I am really the wrong person to give advice
on how to freelance in India.

And that is all I have to say. Cheers.

------
Rodeoclash
If anyone is looking to freelance in Australia (specially Melbourne) then
please reach out to me at sam@dragonflylist.com - specially if you're a front-
end developer or mobile developer.

We don't take a percentage of your earnings (we charge a subscription to the
agencies instead) and we have WAY too many requests for positions for us to
fill at the moment.

------
osxwm
How does freelancing relate to consulting?

~~~
Danieru
Same thing, slightly different connotations.

Consulting implies a more advisory role while freelancing implies you are
working on something.

Another similar term is contracting. The implication of contracting is that
you only work on one project at a time. Often enough at the company's office
as well. Contracting is more like a temporary work situation.

'Creative' industries like web design and development have a tendency to use
freelancing. While consulting or contracting would almost always be used when
developing a java program for a bank.

~~~
mrooney7828
Indeed, I used the term freelancing as in my mind it is the parent term of
both contracting and consulting. I think "6 months of working for myself" or
"6 months of self-employment" would also be equivalent.

------
yen223
Are there any freelance jobs which aren't web-related?

I am a software engineer specializing in robotics systems, and I find it
really hard to find contract work that doesn't involve Javascript/PHP/etc, let
alone one that involves engineering systems.

~~~
mechanical_fish
There are definitely freelance jobs that don't involve the web - I know folks
who have them, doing e.g. optics design - but they're rarer, just because the
potential customer base is so much smaller. And obviously in robotics systems
it will be harder to telecommute.

The usual advice is to specialize in something that's specific but in demand.
For example, you could get really good at setting up a particularly common
_type_ of robotics system, or setting up systems for a particular type of
problem. Perhaps try approaching the sales folks for a robot company and
seeing if their customers are often looking for experienced freelancers: If
so, would they be willing to recommend you? (Of course, if the robotics
company has its own consulting division you might not have much luck with this
plan…)

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wyclif
What specifically is he using for a healthcare plan?

~~~
donw
I'm also a consultant, and use Kaiser in California. I'm paying about $160 a
month for full coverage. Although my plan does have a $2000 deductible,
preventive care is free, so other than my premiums I haven't had to cough up
anything yet.

~~~
r00fus
What about prescription drug coverage? What are your copays for non-generic
vs. generic?

~~~
donw
That I can't answer, as I haven't needed to get a prescription for anything in
awhile.

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RawData
Where do you find work? Is I just word of mouth?

~~~
mrooney7828
I tried to address this in
[http://mrooney.github.com/blog/2012/07/01/freelancing-a-6-mo...](http://mrooney.github.com/blog/2012/07/01/freelancing-a-6-month-
retrospective/#comment-574737739), but let me know you find it lacking!

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wqfeng
Are there some online sites to get a freelance job?

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dsirijus
What are the best sources to get freelance jobs?

~~~
mikescar
I've found it's networking, all the way. A lot of random work will come from
the ether once you've done good work for a few clients, and then they
recommend you to their contacts.

I quit my full-time a couple months ago and it's how I've gotten all my work.

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shocks
I'm currently trying to get into the freelancing gaming. This article and the
comments here have been very helpful! Thanks everyone. :)

