What do you find the pay difference is with contracting the way you're doing it, vs working full time?
In the late 90s, the difference was pretty large - I could get up to $80/hour W2 contracting with an agency (more average was $65/hour), whereas at that time salaries at my level were around $70K-$85K.
W2 hourlies (and 1099 hourlies, if going through an agency) have stayed about the same since then - here in San Francisco, it's hard to find anything more than $75/hour W2; salaries have topped out around $140K-$150K unless you work for a startup that REALLY needs you, or Google/Facebook/Twitter/etc. in which case you can go a bit higher.
This is if just sticking to software development; management and architecture, of course, is different.
But basically, the payoff for being a contractor has become a LOT smaller - mostly it's the independence(ish), and a tiny bit of more money, not the huge monetary difference that used to exist.
- Tim