How much was your warchest?

[radish2008]

Absolutely - first thing I did before contracting was cut down on all mandatory expenditure to make our baseline requirement as low as is possible. I described it to my Mrs as a Boom & Bust life style and to be honest, turns out I prefer it. Means forgoing the expensive car lease and Sky TV, but we make up for it by lots of days out, holidays, expensive hobbies etc.

I've been quite lucky that I bought a nice car but yeah, our baseline is much the same.

[Whorty]

Im already retired and its great. I can go to bed at 1 - 1:30am if I want and dont bother getting up until 9:30 in the morning most of the time. If I wake up at 7am and I feel like it, I just roll over and have a doze. Do not miss the daily commute and agent's games one bit. Maaaarvellous.

Save a deckchair on the beach for me .... I'll be there soon

[WTFH]

Statutory redundancy for the butler.

No body, no crime, no redundancy

[Networker2017]

Zero when I started. Rolled the dice. Now roughly 3 months put aside to cover bills.

Slowly going to increase this.

[Daplayer321]

I had absolutely nothing plus I had a newborn therefore went in totally exposed...payed off for me as the first contract lasted 2.5yrs

[HugeWhale]

Interesting responses. It seems that about half the people on here went contracting after months of consideration and with some kind of plan B in place, while the other half were much more swashbuckling and jumped right in.

I would be cautious about just jumping in though. How many who jumped right in ended up drowning? The people who have responded are likely to be a self-selecting group of contractors who have been successful. I doubt that anyone who set up to go contracting but never managed to land a single gig (and there are lots: my guess 50% of people who aim to go contracting, i.e. set up a business et al, never land a gig) will have responded.

[fool]

Started about 5 years ago. £4000 in my overdraft of £4300 with a mortgage payment at the end of the month. Got weekly payment terms and drove 400 miles to start the contract, with £90 a night hotel rooms being put on a credit card.

Warchest would probably last me years now if I cut expenditure, which I usually do when I'm looking for new work.

[1manshow]

I started with negative equity, I was probably overdrawn a few £thousand, plus had a new born.

Despite having several perm offers, I took the first contract beginning of this year, mainly to help me build up £££ which on a perm contract is very difficult when you have liabilities you need to pay off from years ago.

[Scruff]

...I doubt that anyone who set up to go contracting but never managed to land a single gig (and there are lots: my guess 50% of people who aim to go contracting, i.e. set up a business et al, never land a gig) will have responded...

I know quite a few who went and set up Limited Companies, engaged an Accountant, opened Company Bank Accounts, registered for VAT and Payroll (all against my advice to go Umbrella for the first 3-6 months) and got no gigs (didn't want to travel / rates too low / didn't want to do mundane work / had permie-type CV's). Went back to Permie roles.

[SeededLoaf]

About 5k in the bank. My fall back plan was some equity in the house if needed... which I sold anyway with the intention of upgrading but never did.

Now I just move about the UK, like a locust, renting as close to the gig as possible (with the hope it lasts longer than the 6 months tenancy contract )

It probably helped that I couldn't stand my last permy job and I would have walked anyway.