10 Reasons To Quit Your Job Now and Start Freelancing
A lot of fellow web designers and developers ask me why I freelance. How do I make it through the slow periods? How do I pay bills? What happens when I have no clients? Freelancing can definitely be a scary thing, especially during recession times. You’d be crazy to quit your steady job to go into the unknown world of sitting in your office doing nothing all day right? While I hadn’t planned on quitting my job at the time (I left for medical reasons) I sat thinking yesterday if I would be happier if I was still at my job. Sure I miss the atmosphere, I miss @IsaacVanName‘s lame beer jokes and the rest of my co-workers. But given the chance to go back, I wouldn’t have changed a thing. I love freelancing and I bet you’d love it too. Here are 10 reasons for you to quit your job now and start freelancing.
1. Wake up when you want to
That’s right, when you’re freelancing you set your own hours! I tend to work better in the late afternoon and early evening, so I adjusted my coding times to that.
2. Beat traffic
You’ll no longer have to waste money and gas driving to work and/or sitting in traffic on the way home.
3. Make more money
When you’re freelancing, you’re no longer dependent on a boss to tell you what you’re worth or if they can afford a raise. The full-time web professional makes an average of $35,000 a year, that’s only $18 an hour before taxes. As a freelancer with real experience, you should be charging $30, $50 or even $100 an hour depending on the type of work and clients you’re going after. You can also decide when you want to give yourself a raise (as long as your market can bear it of course.) You can choose to work 20 hours this week, or 200 hours.
When you first start out freelancing, you might be completely dead in terms of work and clients. You may have to live off savings for a month or two – but keep it up and don’t be discouraged. You’ll eventually have a steady stream of clients.
4. You can choose the work you want to do
No longer will you be forced to do projects involving politics and values you don’t believe in. You can choose to take a project, or you can turn it down. Your goal as a freelancer should be to have enough work to be able to choose the projects you want for the money you want.
5. Pick your own teammates
I once had a job where I had to work with a guy who fought with me on everything! Not only was it annoying, it was mentally draining. When you freelance, you’ll probably need to surround yourself with other freelancers who provide services you don’t. Just like clients and projects, you can choose who you want to work with.
6. Work Anywhere
Yesterday I decide to work at Books-a-Million. I love being surrounded by books and the visuals are very inspiring. Today I’m working out of my home office and looking at the clouds. At my old job I worked in a dark cave with poor lighting, ugly walls and no windows. Do I miss that? Nope.
7. Your own equipment
Just like working anywhere, you can work on anything. You no longer have to be told to work on a PC if you’re a Mac user, to use an old CRT monitor older than you, to turn your music down, or to use outdated software. It’s up to you!
8. Say goodbye to useless meetings
Since time is money and you’re in charge, you’ll no longer have to sit through useless meetings. A very close relative of mine once told me that they would have a meeting in the morning to discuss what they would talk about in their afternoon meeting. He guessed that there was maybe only an hour or two of real work time at his job. How much money could you make if you converted all 8 hours to work time?
9. Learn new things
We tend to fall into a routine when we work full-time. We do the same things over and over and we stop learning. You have to be more versatile as a freelancer and you’ll never stop learning new ways to code or design.
10. More time for yourself
Since you no longer have to take the time to dress up, drive to work, drive home or do other things that take time away from you, you’ll be able to do more things for yourself. You can also make appointments during work hours, which means faster in and out times for your. I gave myself 30 minutes for exercise everyday after lunch, as well as 30 minutes before and after work for Yoga. It still gives me time to cook dinner before Nikita makes it home from work. Which gives us more time to spend together!
In conclusion, there was many things you’ll worry about when freelancing. But the pros definitely outweigh the cons, and if you’re really serious about web development, it can really take your skills to the next level. Always challenge yourself and never settle for the mundane, just because it’s easy or guaranteed. There’s no better time to start a business than during a recession (it’s a proven fact more businesses are started during a recession, than during any other time), our chosen careers are somewhat recession proof as everyone needs web work and can no longer ignore that the web is reaching more customers than the physical retail world. You’ll have to be disciplined and you’ll need nerves of steel, but if I can do it, anyone can!
What are some of the reasons you started freelancing or what are some reasons you haven’t started freelancing?
About the author
Amber Weinberg specializes in clean and semantic XHTML, CSS and WordPress development. She has over 10 years of coding experience and is pretty cool to work with. Amber is available for freelance work, so why not hire her for your next project?
Some year this is the dream behind learning web development for me. Right now I feel that I need more knowledge yet before I can push a freelance career seriously. I am happy at the moment with the little part time work I do in it which gains me experience and starts to build a network. The other small hold back will be myself at some point in making the actual jump.
I am taking my first step at learning to network by attending a web designer meet up group in my area this coming Tuesday.
@Keith It’s good you’re taking steps to move to what you want to do!
I’ve been at the same company for 11 years, and although it is a good place and I have continued to move up the corporate ladder I have recently realized that the ladder is leaning against the wrong building.
I am hoping to strike out on my own as a freelancer for just about every reason listed in this post. Sometimes the only way in is jumping.
Nice post, Amber.
@Chad You’re right. You can spend your whole life planning, but if you never do – you never do!
Seriously, this article preceded by the last few weeks at work almost made me quit today. I really liked it.
I unfortunately have a very narrow specialization of front end work for web apps, so website work may be a bit out of my knowledge, as I don’t know much about SEO, or how to alter wordpress or joomla or what not all the cool kids are using these days.
I’ve made the front end of some pretty cool applications IMHO(I work in the market research industry) but I don’t know if there’s enough of that kind of work to scrounge up on my own. What do you all think?
Either way I think the number one reason I don’t freelance (yet?) is because I wouldn’t know where to start. How do you get your first client?
That’s my request for your next blog post, sort of a “So you want to freelance?” style post about how to start out. I’d appreciate it at least, though if it’s good I doubt my boss would like it
.
Amber-
How did you make the jump? Did you save up or have a nest egg to begin with? Did you see a financial advisor before starting? Where did you get your clients and how did you get your name out there to begin with?
Thanks. I really want to break free of my corporate chains!
@BigAB If you write web apps, there’s a lot of work in that area. Try follow @nicholaswyoung on twitter. I’ll keep the blog post in mind, have a couple of ideas in the works for next week but I’ll definitely get to a freelance tutorial next week
@Jerry I made the jump because of medical reasons. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to give two weeks of notice or even prepare to freelance, so I kinda was just thrown in. I had some savings, but haven’t needed to use them yet. I do all of my personal and business financials myself. You don’t need to pay for someone when you’re just starting out (or ever if you’re a good budgetor)
Next week I’m writing a post Monday or Tuesday about finding clients through lessor known ways. Then I’ll write up that how to be a freelancer post so you can see completely how I got started
This was supposed to be more of a fun list than a how-to, so I promise to go into more detail on the next one 
I especially agree with point #8 – no more useless meetings.
In past jobs, meetings were the bane of my existence. I dreaded them because of how unproductive they were. It got to the point where I would simply ask if I could “opt out” and work instead.
Now, as a freelancer, I don’t really have to deal with meetings, except for occasional phone meetings, which can be managed.
Ryan
HI there!
I have been wanting to get into interior designing for a long time. Due to some health problems, i had to quit my job in a real estate firm. My friends suggested me to try freelancing my design skills.
I have absolutely no idea on how to get started. I dont own a degree in interior design nor have i worked in this field. what do you say? Should i gather up some experience before freelancing? Let me tell you that i have good drawing skills, visual skills as well great ideas on functional aspects of interior designing which i learned through keen observation. N i keep updating myself of the market and products available from time to time.
Do reply.