I did this for about 5 or so years, earnt great money building corporate web services, general business automation stuff, and web sites. I stopped as I grew bored of dealing with large enterprises and general depression from the repetition and changed tact. Seriously considering returning to doing though just for the amount of freedom you get.
Just yesterday I was feeling jealous that a friend posted on facebook he has locked in a contract with the Tonga tourism board and is currently sailing his yatch to Tonga to start the contract. After sailing to New Zealand for the Hobbit premier. I met this guy wiring up financial web services between banking mainframes in Singapore and some reporting companies. Not exactly what I'd call scummy side of the internet.. unless you have a very low opinion of financial traders LOL.
Once while on a diving boat in the Red Sea I was chatting talking to the others divers before our next dive and it turned out 3 out around 7 of us where free lancer software developers. I have been told by people that Britain does have an unusaly high work from home rate for IT workers (never verified that statement though).
As for rich though... I used to get paid a hell of a lot, but in all reality I burnt a hell of a lot of cash really quick. I think the aforementioned diving trip was £2000 for 8 days for example. And there was a lot of down time as well. I had some contracts that took over a year to finalise.
Loneliness was never an issue either. I was doing all this around the age of 25, and particularly working in London you could literally waltz down to a pub, use the free wifi and chat to the locals. If you choose a decent pub the culture there is amazing and the local bar flies will introduce you to every person in the neighborhood.
The only time I ever suffer from loneliness was living in Northern Ireland, anyone that knows the history of NI can piece together why that place can be a harsh on strangers.
Being from Belfast that last line makes me pretty sad. For what it's worth there are plenty of good people and somewhat frequent meetups/tech talks etc. Usually organised through various groups like ruby users.
There's also Laverys..
Its all good I definitely don't hold the place or the people to blame. I was living in Cookstown at the time traveling around meeting long lost relatives. I met more than a few good people, but also some of the worst (a few fisticuff incidents stories not appropriate for here, and being questioned as to why I had just wandered into a local pub). It just took a long time to gain peoples trust after that you where treated like royalty.
Just yesterday I was feeling jealous that a friend posted on facebook he has locked in a contract with the Tonga tourism board and is currently sailing his yatch to Tonga to start the contract. After sailing to New Zealand for the Hobbit premier. I met this guy wiring up financial web services between banking mainframes in Singapore and some reporting companies. Not exactly what I'd call scummy side of the internet.. unless you have a very low opinion of financial traders LOL.
Once while on a diving boat in the Red Sea I was chatting talking to the others divers before our next dive and it turned out 3 out around 7 of us where free lancer software developers. I have been told by people that Britain does have an unusaly high work from home rate for IT workers (never verified that statement though).
As for rich though... I used to get paid a hell of a lot, but in all reality I burnt a hell of a lot of cash really quick. I think the aforementioned diving trip was £2000 for 8 days for example. And there was a lot of down time as well. I had some contracts that took over a year to finalise.
Loneliness was never an issue either. I was doing all this around the age of 25, and particularly working in London you could literally waltz down to a pub, use the free wifi and chat to the locals. If you choose a decent pub the culture there is amazing and the local bar flies will introduce you to every person in the neighborhood.
The only time I ever suffer from loneliness was living in Northern Ireland, anyone that knows the history of NI can piece together why that place can be a harsh on strangers.