> it's a great way to stay independent while still having a more reliable income for basic needs

You should be careful with that -- you can get nastier IP agreements through consulting firms than you might at full-time employment.

Similarly, even if it's not in the contract, you probably want your contracting work to be fairly orthogonal to your side projects, so you don't get sued for something by a client. It never looks good if you work on say, a networking project, and then a month later, your networking related product appears on the market.