I’m glad it’s clear to you that I have no idea what it costs to be self-employed on the west coast, since I already posted that I’ve been self-employed for 15 y

I’m glad it’s clear to you that I have no idea what it costs to be self-employed on the west coast, since I already posted that I’ve been self-employed for 15 years, on the west coast. I’ve raised three kids too. It doesn’t cost a million dollars a year. Lots of people manage on less than $100K/year, which is $50/hr working full-time. I’m not sure what you’re arguing about. I don’t have a mindset of “I can only charge $60,” you put that into my mouth. Freelancing rates for programmers and system admins range from $60 to $200/hr, across the US, higher in some regions than others, and more or less depending on skills, demand, and the freelancer’s ability to sell themselves and negotiate. Yes, I know some freelancers get a lot more than $200/hr, but they’re rare. For every one of them you can find 1,000 freelancers on Upwork competing for $25/hr gigs. I certainly could live comfortably in the Bay Area or LA on $100 - $150/hr if I could do that for 40 hrs/week — that’s $200k - $300k/year. That would include the taxes and savings and insurance too. I know because I’ve done it. With kids. You wrote that downtime is going to happen sooner or later. That hasn’t been my experience. If a freelancer has prolonged or frequent periods of downtime they’re doing something wrong, because the work is there, demand far exceeds supply. I’ve worked professionally as a programmer, system admin, and team lead for over 40 years, so I can say confidently that there’s never been as much work available as now. A professional freelancer has to maintain and constantly upgrade their skills and target the market so they can get premium rates, above $60/hr. They also have to cultivate their professional network, maintain a reputation, and do everything they can to avoid downtime and non-billable hours spent looking for customers and bidding on projects. In another post I wrote that one way to do that is to develop long-term relationships and negotiate monthly retainers, which may be a little less per hour but prevent downtime and uncertainty. While I do the math you should do the research. I have a fairly good idea of freelancer rates in the US because I’ve been doing that for a while. But don’t believe me — data is easy to find. https://www.upwork.com/resources/how-much-do-freelancers-make https://www.upwork.com/resources/how-much-do-freelancers-mak... https://hubstaff.com/time-tracking/average-hourly-rates https://hubstaff.com/time-tracking/average-hourly-rates https://www.statista.com/statistics/1181210/tech-startups-hourly-rates-freelance-developers/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1181210/tech-startups-ho... https://www.codementor.io/freelance-rates/full-stack-developers https://www.codementor.io/freelance-rates/full-stack-develop... Etc. Thanks for the math lesson and ad hominem.