I did about 5 years of not-so-successful freelancing, mostly getting paid for about 50% of the projects I wrote specs for. Then I decided to go for very long te

I did about 5 years of not-so-successful freelancing, mostly getting paid for about 50% of the projects I wrote specs for. Then I decided to go for very long term relationships. The turning point was when I finally got a couple of apps working as semi-passive income. Custom made, dedicated to each client, paid only as "rent" (no up-front money). Now I can work anything from 0 to 20 hours per week for living expenses. With the rest of the time I do wildly different things. Last year I simply wasted it, learned Clojure, did social stuff, read a whole lot. The year before it was two startups at once. Which was predictably very fun and unsuccessful.