As long as someone hires you, you are much better off. The clients that want "cheap" are generally not great clients. It's counter intuitive but charging more gets you better clients and more respect (in addition to more money).
Many contract shops would be happy to tell you that "no one will pay that", pay you $65 hour and then turn around and charge $130+.
or $55/$150 in my case :(
I know some people can go 30 years and not have any friends they used to work with. At the very least, you should make contact on LinkedIn for your (former) colleagues when you leave a job. Drop them a line once in a while. “Ping” them a text at Christmas, etc. You don’t want to wait until you need work to start building your network.