These days I skip off work at every possible opportunity and to hell with anyone who can't comprehend my lack of will to bill every waking hour, partners and family included. I may not get paid as much, but there's so much more to life than work. Sure, I'm not billing when I could be and sure there's plenty enough work that I could bill 24 hours a day if I had enough energy and will power to do that, but I don't care. My mental health and my other passions need playtime or I'm going to flame out and never come back to this.
If you don't have a spouse that's supportive and encouraging of your need for downtime away from work, then you're caught in a double trap.
Recently, my son, still in primary school, had to check out a potential secondary school. My wife wasn't able to take him there, so I left early. Cost me €240 in revenue. That's a lot of money, but then again, I made more than that in the rest of the day, and I don't want to deny myself the opportunity to do these things with my son.
There's more in life than money. Sure, it's important, but only as a way to an end. Money itself is not the goal, life is. Don't sacrifice your life or happiness for mere money.
(Of course it's easy to say that when you can afford to. Not everybody can.)
Recently I've been shoveling it into a long term project that will hopefully pay dividends in the longer term, but the jury's presently out on whether that will actually come to fruition. Time will tell.
I agree, not everyone can afford to live as frivolous a lifestyle. I've been very fortunate to have had the choices and opportunities I have to be able to make headway. I try never to take that for granted, because it doesn't take too many wrong moves and you're the one trying to scrape your way to get above the poverty line again.
My professional expertise and where I've spent the majority of my career is in software engineering, systems architecture, devops and test automation. In what little spare time I have I'm co-founder and instructor for an educational organic farm which means I'm often playing carpenter, mechanic and vet as well as being a full time Dad.
Thankfully though, I'm no longer in this position. I was rather more pointing out a toxic mindset that you need to overcome not just in yourself but potentially in your spouse and the rest of your families.
This is an incredibly helpful reminder that people should not be reduced to their flaws and relationships are not the mere sum of their drawbacks.
Because people are risk-averse, it's easy to focus on what's bad and take for granted what's good. So when a relationship becomes challenging, people can reflexively give up (or throw away) rather than work with and get through.
Relationships are worth maintaining and building, even when they become difficult. In some cases, relationships are worth maintaining especially when they become difficult because the relationship becomes stronger and promotes greater well-being to the degree that it has survived hardship.
I had a very comfortable childhood and watched moderately successful parents in a place which has little entrepreneurship fall apart over time. I was protected by good skills and work performance, but in combination with the financial crisis this pushed me to a toxic place as I looked to protect me and my family.
First, my father got so ill that my mom and brother had to be his caregiver. For a while the family business continued to some success, but my brother was never invested in it. I realize now that I worked my ass off to escape and do my own thing and my brother didn't have direction. Over time with the failed economy and then my Dad's death they ended up closing down the business. My brother has drifted and my mom gets by, but it's not the life they expected.
Communicating frequently and financially planning together is a key part of a relationship. If this is lacking that does not make the spouse shitty.
The difficulty in achieving this over a long period of time is one of the things that makes the founder's over sized equity stake make a lot more sense. You're literally putting your relationships on the line to make your company work.
Entrepreneurship takes a heavy toll on relationships, and I think honestly, her lack of ability to cope with the stress had a heavy influence on my ability to cope with the stress. If it had been just me with my own thoughts, my resolve and resilience would've been far stronger. Having to balance the needs of your partner makes tough and potentially risky choices ten times harder.
Like, I am programming in professional fashion for around 10 years, and there are hours, where I make more progress than previous days. I don't want to be fighting for billable hours.
From everything others have said, the jump from "programmer" to "consultant" is the hardest leap and one I've had considerable difficulty hurdling. My existing clients are often actively working against me to make this leap because they look at me as someone who can solve their problems in minutes and want them fixed now. It's on me to help change their mindset to one of allowing me to teach them to solve these problems for themselves.
My greatest value is in teaching them to be self sufficient. It's helping them to become more than the sum of their parts so that when they call me, they're calling me to show them what they're doing wrong and show them how to fix it, I'm not fixing it for them.
Of course, if the underlying issue is that they want you to increase your income target, then that requires a different solution.
That's not naivete, that's considering that I'm part of something greater than myself.
Honestly I find the time-related issue as a freelancer is having too much of it, and putting it to good use rather than just lounging around.
That type of savings goes beyond "no Ferraris/Great-Gatsby-parties".
For example, let's say I increased my bi-weekly savings by $150. Because it was pre-tax, with the tax savings I was still saving $150 but my take home only went down $100.
By the time I want that money, I shouldn't have a mortgage payment so I'll need far less money than I'm making now and my income tax should be much lower, not to mention the additional gains on a higher principle.
Once you hit your number, work gets pretty depressing. You realize you're making more from passive investing, just doing nothing.
I can do 2.5k a month as a not massively well paid employee
So without giving financial advice, I'd say it's more complicated than throwing it in an index fund if your time-frame is a decade.
We aren't talking about losing sleep over volatility here. We are talking about a situation where someone specifically wants to hit $1M in a decade.
For example, I put several thousand in a Vanguard TR Fund in January of last year. It's still down 2% overall. Now on a 30 year horizon, no big deal. But for a decade that will significantly impact the compounding returns. Stocks are very volatile and may not be real desirable for a 10 year time frame.
Even a ten year average returns is typically going to require more -- a cycle longer than twenty years. Financial services are sold: caveat emptor.
Let's say a 7% annual compound interest over 10 years (which I think, is debatable). That puts you at $5,800/mo. I think my argument still stands?
> “If we’re already in the time-is-money mindset, we can reframe our leisure time as something that enables us to be more productive in the future,” says Whillan. “When we’re conditioned to think of all our time as ‘on the clock,’ leisure time feels abstract and unsatisfying. But if we tell ourselves that leisure time is another means to achieve that goal or financial outcome, that can make us more likely to take the breaks that we need, enjoy them fully, and be happier in general.”
I have been freelancing for 20+ years.
Fully agreed with OC, my clients are not paying for me to sit by the desk they're paying for solutions to problems. The more complex the problem, usually the less tapping on keyboard.
I know, some gigs are in fact just showing your face on Skype or in presence, I have come to avoid these regardless of leisure impact.
I'd like to think that, were I not salaried, I'd work only as much as i needed in order to do whatever it was that I wanted to do with the rest of my time - not relax in a way that allowed me to work as much as possible.
Of course, in reality it's a slightly harder optimisation problem than presented, since time is a factor too, and maybe you can't afford to do what you want to do leisurely for 4 days a week, working 3, but it can be done at 3.5 each way.
FYI my parent comment got 19 upvotes in a matter of just a few minutes - it clearly resonates with a lot of folks here.
That was the point of the whole article... Wrong way to look at the problem. A freelancer who get paid by project, not hourly, will never encounter this kind of problem. Hourly assignments are like being an employee but without any of the benefits.
When my son was in high school I went from full time employee to part time contractor. It was great. Since there was a clear contract I didn't have to worry about office politics or my off-work time. I focused on working hard while working and I focused on my family when not working. I took every summer off-work.
Why not just say something along the lines of, "Sorry, I work from home and I'm on the clock but just popping out for a cup of coffee - chat later.", with a smile? It's much better for your mental constitution than holding in a scream.
For time and materials projects, avoid hourly if possible; that leads to micromanagement and commodification of your skills. I recommend billing by sprints or by the week. Try to limit granularity to a day rate (w/ minimum increments of 1/2 day).
This is a statement from someone who either hasn't been freelancing that long, or who hasn't realized that "brain down time" is just as important as raw coding hours. I've worked "for myself" for almost 20 years and for the first 5 I too panicked when daytime billable hours were derailed by "distractions". Once you push beyond that, you realize that those times away from your machine are valuable, and actually contribute to your overall well being, and your ability to code with a clear head, and an efficient mindset.
Wasting away "on salary" is a hard mindset to break. The answer is not to replace 100% of your salary hours with your own freelance work. You'll find even 50% of your previous salaried time can get just as much done, and make just as much money (assuming you price your services and value properly)