Thank you for your incredibly detailed reply. Tip #7 does not work for me as I am located in a country surrounded by minimum wage workers, and the kind of work I am getting locally is also quite subpar in terms or pay and expected/required quality.
If anybody on HN would like to hire a highly capable and skilled full stack freelancer, I am open to small and large scale work. Please email me at protoweek at gmail. Thank you! :)
But, I do sympathise. I'm fortunate to live in an area where a lot of small businisses are around and about, and where widespread access to the internet means websites for local firms is actually a good idea.
But that's not the only local diversification!
I once taught programming lessons, for example, to people. That was kinda fun and challenging.
If anybody on HN would like to hire a highly capable and skilled full stack freelancer, I am open to small and large scale work. Please email me at protoweek at gmail. Thank you! :)