I am 26. Quit my job almost 1 year ago after 2 years of soul-crushing, passionless web development. After 6 months off the job, now I'm trying to figure it out

I am 26. Quit my job almost 1 year ago after 2 years of soul-crushing, passionless web development. After 6 months off the job, now I'm trying to figure it out as a web freelancer. Not making anywhere near my old salary but I'm optimistic. I'm enjoying it more for now, but it's tough. I'm broke. Blew through my meager savings in the first 6 months of unemployment, and I'm now dealing with back-to-back underestimated contracts. But I'm taking out a small loan and gonna be optimistic about it. I mean, worst case scenario I end up back in another soul-crushing job making mad stacks. In the meanwhile, since starting the freelancing journey, a couple other promising opportunities have come up. A couple friends of mine started a company selling a plugin for a popular online platform and are looking for someone to handle their support line part-time (help people when they can't install his software, fix bugs that they uncover, and help building small features that customers request). Programming just full time might actually be a good solution. I can handle a 3 day/week commitment, it'll pay enough for now and give me opportunities to do something outside of programming for a change. My other option right now centers around a couple friends who are similarly dissatisfied with the life of a corporate programmer and who are seriously considering "doing a startup". We're not American, but flights are cheap. The money seems so loose over there, and if we can manage to convince some investors to give us an even half-decent salary (hell, I'll happily work for half of what an engineer gets in Silicon Valley) it could be a great time. I'm fortunate to have some amazing friends who are willing to go on this journey as a team. No way I'd ever have the stamina to do it alone. All this to say is that there are a handful of ways to make a living as a programmer without losing your sanity, but you'll have to really keep your eyes open and ears to the ground to find them.