There are plenty of good suggestions in this thread about acquiring contacts, so I wanted to mention there is a lot of administration work with freelancing that

There are plenty of good suggestions in this thread about acquiring contacts, so I wanted to mention there is a lot of administration work with freelancing that the sooner you get started on the better. Remember, as a freelancer, you're in charge of taking care of taxes, health care, vacation days, sick days, work related costs, and unemployment time. I would try save at least half of everything you make. First, 1/3rd should be saved for taxes. Second, save at least 1/6th for misc expenses and everything else. Second, look into tax deductions, there is a lot of associated costs with running a freelance business that you can deduct and save a lot of money. So get a system together for keeping track of expenses, ie gas mileage traveling to a client, cost of new computer hardware, if you work from home then you can deduct the percentage of space your office takes up from your rent (not quite that simple), and electricity and internet, etc etc. Invoicing is another thing that is a hassle. Keep track of hours everyday and stay on top of it. The best advice I can give is to really treat freelancing like a business and get a system setup that works for you. Doing business/administrative stuff is not as fun as programming by any means, but the headaches of not doing it up front will be much bigger. Best of luck to you.