I'm not the person you replied to, but in early 2015, after a company went down from under me three months after I started, I figured out that maybe it was a bad idea to go join another one. I've been consulting, between twenty and thirty billable hours a week, ever since.
Pay: A little less. But I'm working about half the hours. I've had time to start a little side company and to work on another I'm most of the way through, as well as explore other maybe-careers (photography, videography, audio) without impacting my cash flow. I spend a little less money, but some of that is willing: I'm not at work, I don't have to pay $10 for lunch, I can make a small salad. I've had no trouble keeping up my retirement accounts. If I retire.
Stress: much lighter overall, but the occasional terror-spike. Finding work is challenging, and there have been dry spots that made me very antsy, but I enjoy it, and the company I do most of my work through is good at keeping me busy without having to spend my time on sales. I'm moving in with my girlfriend, and that'll just about halve my expenses while placing me in a much more convenient/walkable area, so this should go down further. (She is sometimes a little miffed that I work so little. But I cook, and I cook pretty well, and I'm paying rent, so.)
If you have an in-demand skillset, you can do very well. For me, it's devops, but it's devops informed with the way that I've done everything else in a tech group, from web and mobile to databases, so I'm not approaching it either from a sysadmin point of view or some dogmatic Agile-esque one, and I can help in a lot of ways.
Also, shameless plug: i'm always willing to chat with new prospective clients. ;) Email's in my profile.
Thanks for all of the detail! Your parting parenthetical is something I find myself doing to people too, but in reality maybe we all ought to work less.
Pay: A little less. But I'm working about half the hours. I've had time to start a little side company and to work on another I'm most of the way through, as well as explore other maybe-careers (photography, videography, audio) without impacting my cash flow. I spend a little less money, but some of that is willing: I'm not at work, I don't have to pay $10 for lunch, I can make a small salad. I've had no trouble keeping up my retirement accounts. If I retire.
Stress: much lighter overall, but the occasional terror-spike. Finding work is challenging, and there have been dry spots that made me very antsy, but I enjoy it, and the company I do most of my work through is good at keeping me busy without having to spend my time on sales. I'm moving in with my girlfriend, and that'll just about halve my expenses while placing me in a much more convenient/walkable area, so this should go down further. (She is sometimes a little miffed that I work so little. But I cook, and I cook pretty well, and I'm paying rent, so.)
If you have an in-demand skillset, you can do very well. For me, it's devops, but it's devops informed with the way that I've done everything else in a tech group, from web and mobile to databases, so I'm not approaching it either from a sysadmin point of view or some dogmatic Agile-esque one, and I can help in a lot of ways.
Also, shameless plug: i'm always willing to chat with new prospective clients. ;) Email's in my profile.