Part of the reason I asked is that I work freelance, but all the other programmers that I know are full-time employees. So in my small world it seems like there are not that many of us.
I'm not particularly good at chasing business (I tried in a different field for awhile). I like someone else to keep the lights on and find something for me to do. Probably why a lot of other people don't freelance.
Yeah, that's the tradeoff! I work freelance so that I can work part-time. I do Monday through Wednesday for my client. Thursday is my long bike ride day, and Friday is the day I write my own software. (And a lot of time on Sat/Sun as well.)
I've found that it's pretty easy to get clients to agree to this if they know & trust you (I always work with people that I know from my full-time career.)