Reply to: if you had opportunity to start again what mistakes would you avoid ?

[VirtualMonkey]

I really like and enjoy my life.

Definitely no regrets having gone contracting, still enjoy coding and giving users what they want, then there is Hawaii, New York, Vegas etc.... made possible by contracting £££

Contracting is a facilitator, it is not your life, it enables your life.

My whole reason for being in contracting as well.
When I think back I should have made the change a couple of years before I did but because I was worried about not having money coming in I didn't. Looking back at my looking back I realise that if I had gone contracting earlier I wouldn't be where I am now because I needed the extra few years to mature into more 'senior' roles that have added the extra value to many of my contracts.

Contracting allows myself, my wife and our two kids the freedom to not worry about the mortgage (which I still have), run a holiday caravan which we use often and have usually 2 expensive holidays a year.
Sure it's a complete b***ache that I have to be away for a number of nights a week but even that is down to 1 most weeks now and wfh the rest of the time. I'm not keen on IT anymore but it's what I'm good at and I'm making hay while the sun shines. When the idea for plan B hits me...or when the next recession comes around (a time when I should have money to take advantage of it) I should be able to go and do something less boring instead

[GreenLabel]

They are fooked, basically. Best just to explain to them that the UK has tanked economically and all the jobs have gone to India (etc.) Oh, and they have no chance of ever being able to afford a house. Best hope for them is to pack up and emmigrate.

FTFY.

[geoffreywhereveryoumaybe]

Agreed Scraggy

Some enlightening but also quite depressing responses to this thread.

As a freelancer, your are hired for your technical skills and can be bypassed when the permies are making decisions even ill-advised ones. As a contractor, I relish that I can opt out of all the office politics and concentrate on delivering and when I leave at the end of the day the work doesn't come home with me.

But for some of yesterday's posters to compare a contactor's woe with the experiene of somebody just starting out is very far of the mark.

[Scrag Meister]

I really like and enjoy my life.

Very few regrets and even those are interlinked with so many great times, you can't have one without the other.

So glad I bought that Commodore 64 in 1982. Cost me £199, a fortune in the day. Paid for itself so many times over since. Definitely 1 thing I would not change.

Definitely no regrets having gone contracting, still enjoy coding and giving users what they want, then there is Hawaii, New York, Vegas etc.... made possible by contracting £££

Contracting is a facilitator, it is not your life, it enables your life.

[nomadd]

I could be an agent.

Money for nothing and your chicks for free...

[expat]

Meh, i still enjoy it. We get a tulip ton of money and have a lot of freedom.

Respectfully disagree. It looks as if we do, which is mainly why I have kept doing it. But when I look not just at the present but at a whole life, comparing it not just with the average but with what I optimistically believe that I might have done, it doesn't look so good. That was a large part of my point.

Of course I have no-one else to blame, and I agree with Ketchup: life is what happens when you're making plans. Hence my advice to look wider and consider whether you do want to do this all your life.

Could be worse. I could be an agent.

[nomadd]

But what about the kids?

They are fooked, basically. Best just to explain to them that the UK has tanked economically and all the jobs have gone to India (etc.) Oh, and they have no chance of ever being able to afford a house. Best hope for them is to avoid I.T. at all costs.

What kids really should do is re-start the whole 60's counter-culture again. Make love, not war; don't bother with work, as it will be of no benefit to them. And do plenty of this:

[d000hg]

Yours, or in general?

[ChimpMaster]

But what about the kids?

[louie]

Life is what happens while you are making plans, so many of us spend our lives planning for the future that we do not enjoy the here and now as much as we should. I do love parts of programming, i like writing clever code and algorithms, when in reality the majority of programming jobs (in my experience only) come down to the transfer of data between a user interface and and database. There are some interesting parts, but the majority is just repetition.

I am a money motivated person, i got into IT as both my parents were very succesfull in the field and i saw it as an oppurtunity to earn a lot fo money. But now i am in the same boat as a lot of contractors where i plan on establishing a plan-b in order to leave contracting.

+1

My ultimate goal is to replace my income earned from contracting with a passive income, or one where it doesn't involve me having to be at a certain place at 9am 5 days a week. Working feels like bondage to me now. The day I know I won't have to work again will be a huge weight of my shoulders.

[nomadd]

The idea of work is horrible so i'm glad i get as much money out of it as possible.

^This, really.

If I can "steal" myself for another 2-3 years, then I become financially independent. Move out of London, by a nice little place for cash, and have enough left over to keep me ticking along for 15 years until I'd start drawing my pension.

Just have to try and motivate myself, I guess.

[Ketchup]

Life is what happens while you are making plans, so many of us spend our lives planning for the future that we do not enjoy the here and now as much as we should. I do love parts of programming, i like writing clever code and algorithms, when in reality the majority of programming jobs (in my experience only) come down to the transfer of data between a user interface and and database. There are some interesting parts, but the majority is just repetition.

I am a money motivated person, i got into IT as both my parents were very succesfull in the field and i saw it as an oppurtunity to earn a lot fo money. But now i am in the same boat as a lot of contractors where i plan on establishing a plan-b in order to leave contracting.

[Scoobos]

For the first time ever I wish I had your outlook

I need some way of feeling better about what I do.

[Robinho]

10 months here.

I don't really care about what i have achieved in a job so long as the client is happy.

The idea of work is horrible so i'm glad i get as much money out of it as possible.

[Scoobos]

Fine, for me though Money isn't anything at all , it would be nice at the end of your working life to look back and say you did things that were constructive. I can say that for the first 3 years, but now not really much at all.

I'm contracting only as I cannot handle office politics and was forced into it by the market; so perhaps I'm a bit unique. Even as a permie the longest I ever stayed anywhere was 20 months.

I'm not sure about the freedom part either. I don't get a lot of freedom , as my costs increase in line with the contracts I'm never really in a position where I can sit back and not earn for the business.

Rent for an unfurnished place is over 1000 where I am now .