How did you decide to go contracting?

[FatLazyContractor]

Having inherited a massive house and some decent money, I needed some profession to keep me busy for a few months every year and contracting was the best choice

Pays my bills and "bills"

Regrets? A few. But then what are high class hookers meant for?

[Chuck]

I did it for the money plain and simple. My finances were a mess and I had to do something to get out of debt.

Regret not doing it sooner

Exactly my reason.

[unixman]

Contractor I worked with at a bank was amazed ad how quickly his debts/mortgage were being paid off, compared to when he was perm.

[jmo21]

Drifted my way through a few dev jobs at different types of places, before finally getting a great job at a big software company thinking "this is it, this is the job I've been waiting for".

Nope, just as useless a job as all the rest, with the same problems.

Took another permie job after a couple of years, working next a bunch of contractors, finally decided I should try contracting and quit.

Not regretted it even a single little bit.

[I just need to test it]

I'd gotten into a situation where I was consulting but the work my consultancy found was all down South. I was up North.

Contracting was a means of gaining a degree of control over where I worked.

Regrets - for sure. Though these could also be applied to the consultancy I had been working for.

I lost my friends - the ones I'd play 5-a-side with or go to the pub with - because when contracting I always seemed to be "somewhere else".

I've replaced those friends with contractor friends - a band of desperadoes who text me every three months to find out if there's any work going / if I'm looking for work.

[jmo21]

Having inherited a massive house and some decent money, I needed some profession to keep me busy for a few months every year and contracting was the best choice

I worked with a contractor a couple of years back, and that was his situation, plus he'd never married.

He takes a contract whenever he can be bothered, and has lots of good contacts such that he always gets repeat work.

[jbond007]

For the money. Was working as an analyst and helping the PM write a business case and got a glimpse of project resource costing sheet. Saw some contractor analyst day rates compared to my pro-rated permie day rate. No brainer

Regrets: Travelling and believing no more office politics. Permie or contractor there is always a level of office politics - sure may not have to sit through yearly/half-yearly objective review grading process but there is still stakeholder politics

[aoxomoxoa]

Took a very decent package from a Tier 1 consulting firm in 2011. Six months on couldn't decide what to do next, then got a phone call out of the blue from an ex-colleague from years before, with offer of a 12 month contract in my area of specialism. Decided I might as well do it (£800/day helped with the decision) and that was that.

[gables]

Back in 1993 money and variety were my reasons. Money was tight and one day's contracting would cover the cost of a £250 sweater in Harrods LOL, still haven't bought it

[WTFH]

Was working for a company who realised I was quite good in front of their customers, so instead of me being internal staff, I started getting pimped out. After a couple of years of that, I decided I had enough of doing the contractor role and having all the drawbacks of it, but getting none of the benefits.