Free-Lancing versus Steady Job

Both have their pros and cons.   Steady work is...STEADY.  You agree to work a set amount of hours every week and they agree to pay you a set salary.  You take whatever deal (salary) they offer and resign yourself that a set block of time every week is unavailable to do any other kind of work--that job demands and deserves your full attention.  Bcause that job occupies at least 40 hours a week, there is very little if any time to do anything else; therefore your income is limited to that one job, and, should you be laid off, because all your time and energy has been devoted to that one employer, you are now completely out of work and have to find another employer (if available) to make up the income lost from the first one.  Therefore, the salary needs to be high enough that it justifies the time sacrifice and total, unflinching commitment to that one employer.  Free-lancing gives you free time and the freedom to negotiate your salary, per hour, per day, per project, according to the client vendor and their budget.  Because free-lancing gives you flexible time and a much higher rate for the time you're putting in, you can whore yourself out to as many different client vendors (employers) as time and your energy level allows, giving each project your full attention but taking on other projects as well, as the first project is close to completion, knowing that you're going to have to line yourself up with other work as soon as this project is completed.  Free-lancing allows you to work from home, so there's no supervisor looking over your shoulder to check whether you're doing your job or are surfing the web looking for others or simply having fun. Free-lancing gives you the leverage and flexibility of working for several employers instead of just one, so that, if one employer runs out of work and has to "lay you off", hopefully the others have enough work lined up to pick up the slack...no need to peruse classifieds or do a job hunt, because the work is (hopefully) already there. Free-lancing has been working quite well for me up to '09.  The economic recession has certainly hurt not only the steady job market but my free-lance work market as well, because, naturally, as people lose their jobs, they don't have discretionary money to pay for niceties and luxuries like my video and photography services.  My goal at this point (if it's possible) is to create some kind of "hybrid income structure" including BOTH a steady job AND free-lance activities.  In this crummy job market, this means working more hours for less money.  We all have to make sacrifices. X income Mon.-Fri. eery week guaranteed (or as long as the steady employer has work) PLUS sporadic income on weekends could be very lucrative indeed.  A couple promising leads in the free-lance arena (BrightStar Credit Union wants me to do their four-part video project for their marketing show again--$3,500 worth of work last year for a month-long project--and Broken Sound Country Club I've worked at presented me with a $225 per day cooking show every week, which only takes 2 hours to shoot and put on DVD-!  Free-lance flexibility AND steady income--interesting!--a photographer presented me with the concept of "love story" videos for hsi wedding clients, which I've done in the past, which show the bride and groom chatting it up about how they met, interspersed with some walking shots in a romantic setting--$300 for an hour of shooting and 2 hours of editing!, in addition to the usual wedding shoots), but they don't pay well enough to offset the time I've been on reduced free-lance income.  Time to peruse the classifieds and net again for steady work...stay tuned...