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Comment by matthewking | Hacker News Reader

What do you do with the other 9 months of the year? side projects? travel? Id be interested to hear how your lifestyle is with all the free time.

I've considered this approach myself too but more 6 months on, 6 months off. Scala in particular seems to pay extremely well (£600-£650 /day) so easy to make the money to live a comfortable lifestyle in 3 or 6 months per year. I think other dev contracts are usually around £450 in London which is still more than enough.

Id love a permanent 2-3 day a week job too for work/life balance but those seem non existent for devs unfortunately.

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Hi Matthew, my rate is £400 a day, I'm a tech writer. Most contract developers I know are on a lot more than that. Double mostly. They do Java/Scala/Perl. That is probably just the niche I have been in though. My very first contract wasn't particularly high £260 a day, but you get known and you can charge more once you've got people who will vouch for you.

With regards the 9 months. I write code (Python), read (a lot), watch movies, relax, listen to music. The point for me is I have to do this. Many years ago (I'm 55 now) I got very, very depressed and considered suicide. I was totally and utterly burnt out due to never ending work.

I spend quite a lot of time in Philippines and Thailand - mostly for the diving. My partner and I are keen divers (she's a nurse - but only does contract work now too). I also like photography, hiking, camping, biking and so on. I am studying for mountain leader exams.

I read Hacker News too but rarely comment. Just today and yesterday. Probably today will be the last day!

p.s. I used to work with a guy who negotiated a four day week. He is still doing that to date as far as I know. You might be able to negotiate fewer days but it's not easy.

Hey zapperdapper

I'm so glad you posted. I'm a 57-year-old tech writer (UK-based) who followed a similar pattern to you for 10 years.

Then I got sick of static daily rates and now work as a permie (2 days in Birmingham, 3 days from home) for a US based tech company.

My first contract rate in 2004 was £350 a day, and now I'd probably struggle to make that again. Maybe £400, but above that, I'd need some special USPs. And from where I live, it's £50 a day to get to London, not to mention the extra 4 hour journey times!

Great to know you've found a perfect formula!

PS: Topping was also on my agenda until I reached 50.

I've worked a 6 month contract before, 3 months would have been ideal I think as after that it was starting to drag on a bit but I don't see many contracts that short. Unfortunately the company didn't really utilise my time very well until I was almost at the end of the contract. Id rather hit the ground running but I guess each contract varies.

It's hard to know what we'd all do with so much free time and I think some people would be a bit lost, but it certainly sounds like you make the most of it and live a nice lifestyle. Particularly all the outdoor activities is something id like to spend more time on myself.

Thanks for sharing!

Yeah, it's not for everyone. It wasn't an overnight transition for me - I just reduced expenses and reduced time working accordingly.

Yes, I must admit I got absolutely sick to death of sitting in a stuffy office every day staring at a screen. No wonder I nearly topped myself!

All the best!

Wow, great to hear this from you.

I’ve been doing remote consulting for the past three years - product design & development - but over the last several months I decided to bump up my work rate from the usual 2-3 days per week I had. Realizing now that I prefered the more leisurely schedule I had before.

I’ve been to the Philippines a few times and strongly considering working from there next year to avoid Canadian Winter for at least a few months of my life. Just good to hear more references about expat life there. :)

I like this - the idea has a Mr. Money Mustache vibe to it. His blog is great, if you haven't seen it already.

My question for you is how do you manage healthcare costs?

haha - I'm more like Mr. Shoestring Mustache. MMM has several hundred thousand a year coming in from his blog alone. He also had I think a million bucks in the bank before he retired. He also has a couple of rental properties I believe. I don't have anything like that.

I live in UK so healthcare is free here. Many years ago I had some mental health problems and the NHS here literally saved my life. I am so grateful for that. I also have a private medical plan that covers myself and my partner but it only costs about £1k a year, and I only have that because it can potentially reduce waiting times. I am considering just doing without it though.

> I also have a private medical plan that covers myself and my partner but it only costs about £1k a year

I know you pay for it in other taxes and what not, but... for comparison, we're paying more than half that per month, and it doesn't cover any expenses until we spend $10k in a year. We are in a really crazy situation here.

In terms of the healtcare; is it free only for native citizens? What if someone were to move there from another country such as the United States?

Free for EU citizens. For people from the US there is a small charge if you move here https://www.gov.uk/healthcare-immigration-application/how-mu...

It doesn't cover tourists anymore in theory. They'd treat and then bill you but you could probably go home and not pay.

What about preexisting conditions? Would anything prevent someone who was just diagnosed with cancer (but not bed ridden) from migrating to the UK, paying this $300/year, and receiving full coverage?

They call this "health tourism" and its a fairly regular subject that comes up whenever NHS budgets are discussed, in reality though I believe latest figures put it at about £300m /year (0.3% of the NHS budget).

I don't know how easy it is to do what you describe but some people evidently do it. I imagine if you're an EU citizen you can come right in but if you're non EU you might have some more difficulty.

Think it's ok - not sure http://talk.uk-yankee.com/index.php?topic=50455.0

You might have problems getting residence

The UK has public healthcare, so no direct costs to users.

I've got a 2.5 day a week job as a developer in the south east of the UK, but got it by originally working there full-time and then later applying for flexible working (I have kids so had a legal right to request flexible working, although employers are allowed to turn down such requests on certain grounds). I do suspect that word of mouth would be the only way to get such a job from scratch.

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