Full-timing on contract CAD work

Altern wrote:
Thank God my father taught me the value of property and how to make money other than working for others. It allowed me to make huge profits in various McMansions and other buildings over the years as well as living in very comfy surroundings while my earnings increased. I fail to see the romance - living my adult life in 400 sq ft of poor construction. I'll bet others here feel the same but my hats off to those who venture out & march to their own tunes. ...:B

Just because YOU have failed to see the romance does not mean that there isn’t any romance, all it means is that YOU have failed to see it. The lifestyle of a fulltime RV’er is healthier and has more intrinsic value and freedom than living in a big house and being part of the rat race. True value is not something you can buy or sell.

With all due respect to your father; the value of property, or any other material thing, is nothing, zero, zilch, when compared to the value of inner wealth; which is what I get living a simple life out here in nature traveling in my RV. The poorest man is the one who gets his comfort from money and material things.:B

Suggest your develop relationship with established firm(s) and extend that into a consulting relatioship and finally into a free lance with firms of clients whom you have worked with.
I would think a goal of $35K / yr would be a piece of cake. How much would you propose your billable rate, $100/hr; $125/hr? These are not inflated numbers at all for your work, and you would not need many hours to reach your income goal.
I am a semi-retired architect with some established clients whom I still work for, and I do considerable amount of my work while remote, and in my MH. It works very well using the web and available software, it is just not a problem.
But, first you must establish your professional relationships with clients and then you can start the remote work method.
Good Luck
CarlGeo

Altern wrote:
Thank God my father taught me the value of property and how to make money other than working for others.
It allowed me to make huge profits in various McMansions and other buildings over the years as well as living in very comfy surroundings while my earnings increased.
I fail to see the romance - living my adult life in 400 sq ft of poor construction.
I'll bet others here feel the same but my hats off to those who venture out & march to their own tunes. ...:B

WOW! I, ah, wait, what? Are you kidding? I think you need to move this post to the "I worked all my life in hopes of owning an RV someday" forum! Those who can't see the romance are blind.
To the OP, ignore the haters and join us on the road!

Altern wrote:
Thank God my father taught me the value of property and how to make money other than working for others.
It allowed me to make huge profits in various McMansions and other buildings over the years as well as living in very comfy surroundings while my earnings increased.
I fail to see the romance - living my adult life in 400 sq ft of poor construction.
I'll bet others here feel the same but my hats off to those who venture out & march to their own tunes. ...:B

I am so confused…..if you have no desire to live in "400 s.f. of poor construction", why are you on the "Full-time RVing" forum? What did I miss?

As to the OP, I hope you find what you are looking for in the CAD field. Our son is in that field now and would love to eventually be able to do it from the road.
Good Luck.

Thank God my father taught me the value of property and how to make money other than working for others.
It allowed me to make huge profits in various McMansions and other buildings over the years as well as living in very comfy surroundings while my earnings increased.
I fail to see the romance - living my adult life in 400 sq ft of poor construction.
I'll bet others here feel the same but my hats off to those who venture out & march to their own tunes. ...:B

I tend to agree with KORBE, the biggest issue with doing SolidEdge/SolidWorks on the road (telecommutting) will be the bandwidth
I would guess most employers would want a good bandwidth connection (on your dime) that they can then have you use some implementation of VPN

I know my (old) employer did. Further the PC that connected to the VPN had to be 100% (internally) encrypted.

NO LEAKS, no chance of your computer being stolen and sensitive data being leaked.

One additional issue I can see is your workstation. My main workstation has two monitors, plus accessories. Few RVs are really setup with a good work-station location. You might want one with dual recliners, so you can remove them and setup the workstation there.

Yes. Many CADD jobs do not require you to be sitting in an office. One of the issues that I have looked into is internet connection. We will often stay in places where interacting with the client for plan review is difficult because of lack of internet or wifi.

The issue of whether or not you could succeed, is a different question. If your work does not require face to face interaction, then it doesn't matter if you design from your living room or on a beach.

Well. Unlike many posters who throw out a very general question, yours is very specific. It may be a long shot finding someone with those qualifications AND is a member of this forum AND is active and willing to respond. You might have better luck looking for a CAD forum somewhere and get their opinions about working remotely and average income. Once you have that info, you can do whatever you want with the money.

I used to provide technical support to medical transcriptionists. Many of them worked from home and never visited the hospitals/doctors they supported. They have several online forums to trade info, so it's possible that CAD engineers do the same thing.

As far as the American dream goes, nobody is forcing you to chase it. Visit some of the financial websites and you'll read stories about people who live very simple lives and save most of their income and retire comfortably in their 30s and 40s. You can also read stories about the opposite end of the spectrum where people earn large sums of money and pi$$ it all away. You can do that in a house or in an RV.

Good luck.