live off of freelance work

My 4th freelance gig is coming to an end today… Editing how-to instructional videos. I’ve been an editing machine for over a month!

I was able to work from home, and the pay was amazing! It was nice to finally go out to eat and not stress over the bill. hah… but alas, I’ve come to the point where I have to start conserving again.
Bottom line is though, I never want to work in another office again.

The only downside to this is that I still don’t have health insurance. I joined the Freelancer’s union and they offer a decent individual package… I just have to get my current employer to sign off on it saying that I made over $10,000 in the past 6 months! wtf?! I’ve only been freelancing since March. So confusing.

My boyfriend pointed out that I may be able to get on his health plan. So we’ll see.

Other than that, I’m really loving this freelance thing.

Scored my first freelance gig editing video. 2nd day. Kinda stressful only because they asked that I bring my own computer to edit off of, and of course it fails me when I need it most. But took care of the problem over my lunch break and $200 later. Lesson learned:
- they pay you more because we have our own equipment and will pay out of our own pocket to fix it.

No expensing anything to the company. :-(

I’ll try it out for size. Right now everythings going pretty smoothly.

After being laid off from I job I actually really enjoyed, I’ve been home pulling my work together and getting it ready for the next interview to come. But honestly, the thought of going back to an office where I potentailly will have to work long hours and even weekends kind of makes me nauseaus.

I really am so tempted to just make a career out of freelancing and/or working from home. I like it. It’s quiet. I get to do my own thing when I want. I’m more productive. Honestly, ever since I’ve been home, I’ve accomplished so much that I normally wouldn’t have the time to do during the week. (ie, got my driver’s permit, learned some after effects, built my myspace portfolio).

Not to mention my boyfriend can’t remember the last time i’ve been so relaxed and in a good mood. I hate stress. I can’t function. I’m going to try it on for size. See where it gets me.

I spent 20-odd years (some of them odder than others!) as a freelancer.

A lot of it I loved. Some of it, not so much.

Last October, I succumbed to temptation (and my inner wisdom) and accepted an in-house job. The transition wasn’t as hard as it might have been, because for the previous four years, I’d had a contract that required me to work on-site at a client’s office for several months each summer, so I’d had a chance to get used to dressing and commuting again.

I miss being able to work with my dog at my feet, and I seriously miss being able to take a 20-minute nap in the late afternoon. In fact, when my firm conducted its annual employee satisfaction survey recently, I told ‘em that if they put in a nap room (as some other organizations have indeed done), I’d probably be up to 25% more productive.

I do not miss having to bill clients and wait for them to pay me. I don’t miss having clients book a significant chunk of my time and then call me at the last minute to say that the project isn’t ready to turn over to me, so they’ll give me a call next week or next month. (Kills fees aren’t common in my field.) And I absolutely don’t miss having to pay for (or do without) my own disability insurance, vacations, medications, dental work, and eyeglasses.

Do I want to do this again? Not at the moment, and probably not in the foreseeable future. Still, it’s good to know that it’s possible: I think it will prevent me from ever feeling so desperate to keep my job that I’m willing to put up with abuse or horrible working conditions.

Hi – I’ve been a Virtual Assistant since 2002 and really enjoy the flexibility, variety and autonomy of freelancing. It’s definitely worth a shot! Virtual Assistance means working from your own office with different clients all around the world, and helping them with various secretarial, admin, design and research work – whatever you want to offer. It’s nothing to do with envelope stuffing scams or anything like that. It’s also a booming industry, gaining in popularity. There are so many small businesses out there needing Virtual Assistants these days. Good luck! Lisa Taliga

I have now not only sustained myself – but I also am the only worker in my family and am putting my husband through college for massage therapy (his passion). :) I work from home as a tarot reader – an freelance for one company and also do readings over the phone locally I have been doing this now nearly 6 months and it is going great.

The one draw back – a lack of medical insurance… GRRRRRRR

Hi have done freelance administrative / customer support for about 2 years now. I started it as a supplemental income and I landed a great chat support gig and it snowballed from there. I have quit my job working with my family and now go at it full time. I work at least 12 hours per day, but its worth the amount of time for the money. No matter how you start its better to have it as a business if possible. There are many rewarding advantages to it especially of you work from your home. I would definatly so GO FOR IT! IT’S WORTH DOING! Job = Just Over Broke and who wants that.

...you already have at least a retainer client that can cover your basic monthly expenses.

I did freelance work for 8 months after leaving a cushy corporate job. It was fun at first, but then my savings started running out. And then the nitty gritty of dealing with the new life set in. It requires a whole new lifestyle, one where you have to take absolute responsibility in areas where, in a company, you’d have other people helping out.

Some people can handle that kind of multi-tasking. If you have the clients, the freedom can be good. But in the end it was too much for me to handle on my own, so I set up a proper company instead.

I’m a coder, I quit my job last year and since then i do freelance programming on rentacoder.com, I manage to make about 200$ a week there which is quite a handsome figure for a person living in India like me.

Keeping both my free-lance work and my job was not easy. In fact, it was very stressful.

Now I have a new job, one that pays better and covers all my bills and a bit more. This puts me in the position of choosing only free-lance projects that are really worth doing.

It seems that I’ll finally be able to save some money to buy my notebook.