The reason I left...

Other than a year in the army, due to conscription, I have always worked for a reasonably sized company. Either a corporate or in one case a corporate dependant - i.e. a company that is almost entirely dependant on a single corporate for its survival.

I developed my "business case" over the last 3 years, because I simply did not have the balls to do this any earlier. But it goes like this:

flexibility + variety = lifestyle choice

The two contracts that I have agreed to and signed amount to 145 hrs a month, but the difference is substantial.

a) 45 hrs are an operation support agreement to monitor batches, backups etc. and I can do this in my underwear if I wish
b) the remaining 100 hrs are spread over 4 days a week and 6hrs per day. Not too hard to see the advantages there.

I currently do all of the above and more and generally work more in the region of 200hrs pm of which I am only paid for 160 hrs.

Plus I have opened myself up to other opportunities including some afterhours development for additional cash.

This gives me the flexibility to structure my work day around my kids and the 4 days thing. The other aspect of flexibility is that you free yourself from the "ball-and-chain" effect that permanent employment has (blog freely, work for whom ever you wish to, do anything that may or may not bring in income). The work consists of enough variety in terms of some development, some consulting, some project management and analysis as well as time to explore other avenues - like sales and marketing (I have an offer from a software distributor to take up some slack / and I have made a proposition to a wine farm to be a local CT distributor to get some experience), but also the time to park off and read my growing list of important books that have been gathering dust at home. It also gives me the opporunity to get on my bike when it is not raining and when it is light enough to ride (Cape Town in winter has some awesome weather, but it can also pour with rain like there's no tomorrow which means you have to pick your days carefully).

As already mentioned, the decision has lightened my stress load hugely.

PS. An important consideration is who you choose as your partner going forward. I have found the greatest small consultancy to work for. Certainly you can go a contract through an agency - particularly if you are shy of the marketing aspect - but remember you pay - a good percentage of your billing goes to your agent. Not a bad thing if they do stuff for you...