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Freelancers only.......are you fulltime freelance, or doing projects after hours?

What's the biggest up-side [and downside if you like] of being freelance?

Me:
fulltime freelance
upside: no office politics
downside: accounting

I was fulltime freelance.

Upside: owner of your time; the money you earn is more fulfilling than a salary.
Downside: when crisis comes you have to start looking for an alternative job as most of your clients are running out of business...

fulltime freelance. just started, though.

upside: diversity of jobs. i really love that. never had that in that manner as an employee. still "waiting" for my 1st maxwell job to come though.
downside: well, it does feel strange, to know, that there will be NO money-income "automatically" on the 1st of a month, each month.

Another downside: chasing customers for them to pay (I had not many of those, but some).

Fulltime freelance as well

upside: no need to bend on gerarchies (no problems with authority, just with who beeing in a dominating position pretends to be always right), free time management.
downside: weak professional position, maximum exposure to market oscillation, weak contracting position (but these are not strictly related with beeing a freelance in itself, but just with my business scale), no real spare time...even on sunday evening you feel you are loosing time and money if you do not work...

That's everyday bread!

"Just give us some tests of what can be done" <---- I hate this sentence

To me the plus side used to be managing my own time and projects. Nothing like not having to deal with other peoples BS on a daily basis and you can be WAY more productive in a setting you've created for yourself.

The biggest downside is that when work slows down, you've sort of lost touch with the 'full time' job possibilities and you have to start digging through old contacts etc to find work. Nothing worse than worrying about what your next project will be and if it will pay the bills.

So Jason, Fernando, you're not fulltime freelance anymore?

No sir. Sorry to taint your thread

Hey ex-freelancers welcome too!

Right; crisis; well, technically speaking I am still freelance but I'm going every day to the same place to work 8hr/day (false freelance) and I get paid monthly.

Upside: owner of your time (that means the ability to decide on the sleeping time - most of the time); have some midday time for the family; being your own boss; getting more acknowledgement from business partners - especially if they don´t know much about 3d.
Downside: when crisis comes you have to start looking for an alternative job as most of your clients are running out of business... (this is a quote from fernando, but this fits to my situation at the moment. the only difference - i am still freelancing)

so it is hard - but i like it !!

Parttime Freelancer.

Upside: Fun, client communication, meeting people, learning a lot on different techniques, made my hobby a good paying income

Downside: have to work long in the evenings and find ballance between work and family, looking clients, tax

I try to do freelancework when i get my hands on them, it been very rarely now in the past few months. Income has to come from other sources..

Upside: I'm my own boss when freelancing. I can quit working as late as i want at night and not have to be limited to 8 hours per day. If i can't or don't wanna do a job i can send it off to my other freelance buddies. I get to run the applications i want to get the job done.

Downside: Pay is very irregular and low in comparison to a real job. I never know if i will earn enough to cover next month's bills and rent, this makes it a real pain!. Deadlines can sometimes be very tight. If working for a client and they decide to rip you off you can't do much about it, you're screwed.

/ Max