I was living in Virginia for most of the period from 2000 to 2008. I had salary jobs and I had contractor jobs. I preferred contractor jobs, since they pay better (and I thought I could get by without health insurance -- always a dicey gamble). I slowly got better as a programmer during the years I was there. During the first few gigs I got, in 2000, I was a true novice, and trying to prove myself. I would charge a low, flat rate for projects, and I doubt my hourly rate was better than $20 an hour. I slowly raised that rate to $25 an hour and then $30 an hour. These seemed like huge steps forward at the time. The country was still deep in recession, and the tech sector had been hit very hard, so it wasn't a great time to get into tech with no resume. Somewhere around 2005 it became easy to raise rates, so I raised mine to $40 an hour and then $50 an hour. (Most of the work I did at this time involved websites and used the language PHP. There were a few exceptions, like a big Rails project in 2006, but PHP was the norm.) For whatever reason, I never seemed able to get more than $50 an hour while I was in Virginia. I did start picking up some freelance gigs in New York City, for which I could work for higher rates. I worked remotely. Then, in early 2009, I moved to New York City. I was working for a startup as a freelance contractor. I charged $100 an hour. For awhile New York City seemed somewhat safe from the recession. But the recession caught up with it. The startup I was with burned out, and then I had trouble finding work. Being unemployed, I tried to work on projects of my own. This is when I started wpquestions.com. I went to a lot of job interviews, but apparently the rate I wanted was too high for recession-era New York. I cut my rate to $75, and then to $70 and then to $65 and then to $60 and then to $55. Finally, I just really wanted a gig, so I cut my rate to $50 an hour. I ended up working a contract at winespectator.com. This involved diverse technologies; I was porting a Java/Oracle app to PHP/MySql, and then later I was porting a FileMaker database to PHP/MySql. I started looking for other gigs. Things had improved economically in New York City. I found I could raise my rates again. Everything I've been offered lately has been between $60 and $70 an hour. Again, all of this is contract work, with no health insurance.
I worked independently for years and health insurance can be really expensive. I eventually discovered the health savings account (HSA) / high-deductible combo. You can find packages that you pay about $300/month for which buys you access to group pricing (so you get the $30 Advil if you go the the hospital, not the rack rate $800 Advil) of which you pay all of up to a high deductible. In the end your exposure to medical bills for an emergency end up the same as or lower than what you'd be paying for low deductible coverage - e.g. $3600 / yr for premiums plus a 5K deductible puts you in the same monthly range you'd be paying for an HMO, but only if you use all the care. Email is in my profile if you want more details.
