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I quit my 120K job for a long-term $75/hr gig. Turns out I'm making way less than I used to. Taxes are way higher and take too long, no benefits or vacation,

by daxfohl 10y ago

I quit my 120K job for a long-term $75/hr gig. Turns out I'm making way less than I used to. Taxes are way higher and take too long, no benefits or vacation, have to spend more time on non-billable work. Client is a startup that's now running into financial issues of its own, so a raise is unlikely. This is in Kalamazoo. I have young kids and so can't put in a ton of hours to make up the difference. Haven't spent enough time marketing, or really just don't know how to go about it. Living in small-town midwest it seems hard to make contacts. Everyone I've talked to wants to offer like $5000 flat fee for a week of work they need done (and we all know "a week of work" always turns into a month). Nothing long-term and nothing very profitable, so I've turned everything down. In all likelihood I'll be back on the job market soon.

eatplayrove 10y ago
I mean, don't get me wrong, everyone makes mistakes, but you quitting cannot be a financial decision right? To make 120k, you need 15k day*rates to go. At 75$ for your rate, that's 200 days. With ~260 actual available days to work, you expect 77% efficiency? With the taxes, insurance and most importantly, the presumed availability of work .. There is no way. I have been doing consulting for a while and as an advice, I would take the efficiency to be at most 50% so in OP's case would not accept less than $115/hour to quit my $120k job.
- daxfohl 10y ago
  No, I figured I'd be closer to 90% efficiency. Little did I know. Also I was thinking I'd be able to bring on new clients at higher and higher rates, but it hasn't worked out that way. Haven't spent enough time looking for new work, and whenever I get a new client it seems like my primary client suddenly has a big deluge of work that I don't want to forfeit. There were other "life" considerations as well, but I thought the financial would be better than it is.

by daxfohl 10y ago

eatplayrove 10y ago

I mean, don't get me wrong, everyone makes mistakes, but you quitting cannot be a financial decision right? To make 120k, you need 15k day*rates to go. At 75$ for your rate, that's 200 days. With ~260 actual available days to work, you expect 77% efficiency? With the taxes, insurance and most importantly, the presumed availability of work .. There is no way. I have been doing consulting for a while and as an advice, I would take the efficiency to be at most 50% so in OP's case would not accept less than $115/hour to quit my $120k job.

daxfohl 10y ago
No, I figured I'd be closer to 90% efficiency. Little did I know. Also I was thinking I'd be able to bring on new clients at higher and higher rates, but it hasn't worked out that way. Haven't spent enough time looking for new work, and whenever I get a new client it seems like my primary client suddenly has a big deluge of work that I don't want to forfeit. There were other "life" considerations as well, but I thought the financial would be better than it is.