The problem for me was this - I was spending more time working in an office than with my daughter or on anything I actually wanted to achieve. For 10 years I worked for various companies as a full time employee. The last company I worked for broke me - I was there for 4 years, pulled a few all-nighters, got in at 8am, left at 6pm, worked through holidays, worked some weekends - the whole &quot;good employee&quot; gambit.<p>Meanwhile, the more money I made, the more I &#x2F; my ex-wife spent. By the time I quit that job (and jobs in general) I had almost nothing to show for myself outside of knowledge and experience (which is very valuable in its own right of course).
I had very little in savings - and yes this was due to my own money management problems and not with being an employee (my daughter&#x27;s old school was almost $20k per year, rent was the same), but that&#x27;s irrelevant when life is staring you in the face.<p>Also, I had been bouncing between jobs and job titles for nearly a decade - this was prior to anyone really using the term &quot;fullstack&quot; to describe what I was doing (I can&#x27;t even count the number of conversations I had where I was told to choose either frontend or backend work), and I was constantly struggling with management who wanted to pigeonhole me and push me towards a specific career path... that of me becoming a manager.
More of my time was wasted on office politics, water cooler talk and socializing at bars with my coworkers than I care to admit as well.<p>I came to realize that I hated the lifestyle associated with being a fulltime tech employee. I hated the free meals in the kitchen, random mid-afternoon beer breaks, and all the other &quot;perks&quot; that I now view as carrots on a stick.<p>As a contractor I can easily make $12k+ per month if I find the right client (I&#x27;ve done this multiple times). In the last 9 months I made $90k (reduced my prices in order to get clients easier)... but that&#x27;s only if I&#x27;m working 8 hours a day with steady contracts which almost never happens (like I mentioned, I don&#x27;t bother looking for steady contracts)... and these types of contracts are typically for very demanding clients so they&#x27;re very stressful.<p>I value variety more than stability, and frankly I don&#x27;t want to die with the realization that I only helped upper management and owners pursue their dreams while mine died a quiet death.<p>I too want my daughter to have the best opportunity and life possible, but I&#x27;m not sure how working for $110k per year for 10 hours a day in an office with people I hate is going to give her better opportunities than what I&#x27;m doing now. She&#x27;s still getting an education, she has all the tech she could possibly want (minus a cellphone), and she&#x27;s a smart kid. I would prefer to get her out of the public education system, but it actually seems to be working better for her than her private school did.<p>side note: i only went to college for 2 years and it was to get a graphic design degree. i taught myself how to program when i was 8 years old on qbasic - video games was always the motivating factor, I fell into webdev by mistake and then got good at it.