by Anastasia Astridge

Created on: January 13, 2009

I don't know how others do it most of successful contractors won't tell you the truth, they'll tell you a story that goes along with a public idea of how "it should be". Those who didn't succeed won't tell you the truth either mostly because they don't talk about the freelancing past or can't face the truth of their failings and blame superior forces. All I can tell you is how I did it.

As a child I had an inclination for giving things a go. My first entrepreneurial experience was at the age of four. I was selling a leave that felt off the tree to people passing by the block of flats where we lived in Moscow. My price was one rouble and a neighbour's kid offered to pay 50 kopeikas (half the price) I agreed and took the money. Well, nearly my mother stopped me at the last moment private business was not allowed in the 70s Moscow We will never know what a retail empire died there on the spot.
I didn't know what was going on until I was deep in it. Four month into my first project I realised that what I was doing was that self-employed freelancing contract thing And looking back I've done pretty well, though most of the time in a completely reversed way to the common sense advice of freelancing sites!
It started in tearsin a lot of tears I was quitting my job at a world-known bank because I could not get along with my manager and it felt like I will never ever, ever get another job ever! I didn't have a new job lined up; the only one I've applied for after handing in my notice was given to an internal candidate.

Yes, it was a very pleasant sunny April month that year but a vacation is only a vacation if it has a pre-determined end date. Anything else is not relaxing at all not for me at least.

I was three days unemployed by the time I decided to check my e-mail box. There was an email from one of the job boards I've subscribed to. I never saw anything of any use for me there before as it was quite a "techie" site and I refused to go back to my SAP past! This time around there was an agency looking for a contractor to write a training strategy for an implementation in one of the Big 4s for three months. I've submitted my CV and went shopping. Within ten minutes my telephone rung and an agent on the other end wanted to know how much I would charge per day.

Now, when you are preparing to become a freelancer you probably will visit all the clever websites and use calculators to estimate how much you should charge, you may read all sorts of advice on how to determine your

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