Hi Aivars. Great video. I think it is important that people understand the many expenses and downsides of freelancing, and you have expressed them very well. I have been full time freelancing for about 2 years now and have followed a similar path. I did upwork for 1-2 years while working full time and then finally transitioned to freelancing full time. It is VERY important to calculate your rate and generate proposals based on your time and associated risk. If you take a 3 month project in lieu of a 6 month project, then the rate should be increased. If they are only giving you 30hrs per week of work, then the rate should be increased. If they want you to be available for overtime, rate should be increased. Setting expectations with the client is extremely important. I have found that once you build an honest relationship in client they will keep you around even if the project is over as hiring is a chore. I find that a good rule of thumb when calculating your rate is to take that first number that you calculate and double it. Napkin math typically suggests that a 100k/year iOS job would net 50$ per hour, so 100$/hr would be a good rate to push towards. If they can guarantee you a 12 month 40/hr contract, then something like 75$/hr would be reasonable. Like you have mentioned, in US, we pay about 25-40% tax depending on payscale even if you establish yourself as a corporation. But of course we can expense all of our toys :). I find that after all expenses I am able to pocket about 60% income, with 5% being expensable toys, and 30% being taxes, investments, insurance, etc. It makes me happy that you are working towards a proper work life balance. I find myself taking every contract I can and working all the time...just because I can. I feel like this will lead to burnout. Again, this is another downside to freelancing. I also obsess over my setup and have a pretty similar workspace. Right now I have 3 monitors but all these videos are making me like the idea of a single 49" with a reference monitor. :)
Thanks for the input, Steven! I'm still not charging enough, but agree that your numbers look about right. I'm trying to move the focus a bit more to own product development, but with "fast" money from freelancing that's kind of hard to prioritize. Spending time on RU-vid does not help as well, but we need hobbies. 49" is a great screen for development and luckily we can buy our gadgets before taxes :)
@@AivarsMeijers 100% agreed Aivars. I find myself in the same boat where I am not incentivized to do anything but get the "fast" money. Side note, do you have any issues with your eGPU? I find that I have to open and close my lid to wake my MacBook up as opposed to using my keyboard.
@@stevensbaxter I'm on macOS 11 beta now, so that can be different stable version, but for my eGPU wake up works fine. Sometimes I see glitches when I connect it especially if was used it closed, but connect with opened lid. macOS manage to forget resolution and arrangement for screens. Happens once in a while, but could be more annoying if I disconnect MBP multiple times in a day. For a few times in a week, that's kind of fine.
@@AivarsMeijers. thank you for that. For some reason I can't wake my mac up with my bluetooth peripherals. I had the same issue with displays and use displayplacer (github.com/jakehilborn/displayplacer) to resolve. I just put this on a hotkey using bettertouchtools as it happens to me a few times a week. This, betterTouchTools, and Moom for all the display issues.
Subscribed after looking at your 3 videos , you are creating great content, can you please create video on VS Code and it’s best top 10 must have plugins
@@ivanskorokhod2959 My native language is Latvian. I know Russian quite well and can speak fluently as almost everyone born in USSR. Guess that almost anyone at age 30+ and living in Riga can speak Russian. English is my third language
This was recorded at the night, while all the family is sleeping. I kind of like dark mood, but will see if find how to improve lighting latter. Anyways, there is just a wall and couch behind me :)
Is iOS freelancer supposed to design the UI and write back end code of the app also, or they outsource those 2 tasks and focus in just writing front end code.
prasanna kumar that really depends on market and projects where you work. I did all the listed for a few projects. UI, FireBase as backend + ios front end. That’s interesting to jump between different roles, but usually only ios role means bigger and better paid project. What’s interesting, I see that cross platform development projects usually are cheapest ones. Customers like to have cross platform mobile app + web for low price. I’m running from them :)
In India the culture has almost completely shifted to react native . The only reason is , everyone wants quick results in less price. Native Mobile app development is slowly dying here. Most of the companies will get heart attack with the iOS hourly prices you shared .
@@prasannakumar-hh7cc That's why you would like to find a way to work for US and European markets. React native is ok if you like to build fast and cheap to get MVP out to the market. For high-quality product, most of the companies invest in native development.
