I was in the exact same boat. I've charged project fees and ended up making under $10/hour. I've also undercharged ($30/hour), have agreed to work weekends on

I was in the exact same boat. I've charged project fees and ended up making under $10/hour. I've also undercharged ($30/hour), have agreed to work weekends on some contracts, and have collected payments that are MONTHS late or never even arrive. It got better. All of the above problems happened because I let it happen (charged too low, not use contracts, always saying yes for fear of losing money). Here's what I did: play the ladder game by increasing your rate slowly after every client/contract, try daily/weekly rates, avoid clients with red flags, use referrals. Read Brennan Dunn's "Double Your Freelancing Rate" and "The Wealthy Freelancer". For me, it wasn't an overnight switch to a new client that made it better. It was a lot of slow changes that built up momentum.