However I can attribute this to the fact I left California and moved to Tennessee. Tennessee does not have state income tax (savings). I signed up for the cheapest catastrophic health insurance I could find (TN health insurance is significantly less than CA). I pay out of pocket up until like $4.5k then the insurance covers 100% after that.
The key is in TAXES! Write offs / deductions are huge. New office desk and chair, new MacBook Pro, AWS bill, new monitors, cell phone, servers in my office closet... All write offs.
Lastly, learn about and use simplified employee pension IRA (SEP). I can contribute $58,000 a year tax deferred. That is crazy higher than the standard miniscule $6,000 with standard IRA's.
Moral of the story, I find the opposite of this article. Being self-employed you take home way more money than being employed. It just takes a six-figure baseline and then utilizing the tax write-offs and deductions to your favor.