Essentially, you're shocking your client with price because you haven't adequately explored and quantified the value of the benefits you're providing to their business.
Anytime you are building a web application, you are actually solving a business problem for your client. For example, that problem may be more driving sales or reducing staff time spend on a particular task.
You need to spend time diving into this with them to figure out what your project is really about. Then you can ask targeted questions to the client. For example:
"So, right now you're telling me that Jan and Ella are spending 20 hours a week processing the proposals. If we could reduce that to 5 hours per week, how much would that save you?"
"If we could improve the conversion rate on your flagship product by 10%, how much would that be worth annually in new revenue"
Once you've asked some questions like this, you can then position your price relative to these other values that the client has affirmed for you.
All of a sudden, it makes it much harder for them to feign shock at paying $25k for a system which increases revenue by $250k in the first year.
If you're not working with clients who have valuable problems to solve, find clients who do.
If you're trying to work on the elliptical machine, I think you're missing some of the benefits of working out. It's a chance to unplug and let your mind drift creatively. I find that a lot of problems solve themselves while I'm running or weightlifting.
If you're really die-hard about working durning your workouts, try business audiobooks, or let Siri read you your emails.
By saying that you'll work for room and board, you're not establishing the best positioning. You're much better off separating your consulting practice from your living arrangements. Establish yourself as a credible and professional developer rather than one who "will work for food".
I've been traveling nearly continuously for the last 3 years, funded by a successful consulting practice. If you have the skills, there are plenty of well-paying offsite consulting gigs to be found. Of course, having "the skills" also means knowing how to market yourself, negotiate, and land and keep clients.
You may want to consider the possibilities of geo-arbitrage, having clients in higher cost-of-living countries, and spending some of your time in lower cost-of-living countries.
I set my own schedule, so I don't really distinguish between week and weekend. I'm often working on the weekend and you can find doing weekend-like activities during the week: surfing, mountainbiking, snowboarding, etc. I especially like having the flexibility to do these things during the week as the crowds are usually much smaller on the mountain/trail/lineup.
For me, the weekend is different primarily in that I get less email from clients and partners. This can be an advantage in that it enables me to have more uninterrupted work sessions. Of course, many of my friends do work traditional work weeks, so I often make time on the weekend to do things with them – dinners, dates, hikes, etc. The weekend is also a better time for me to make my international flights, as it minimizes the impact to my availability during the workweek.
Maxed out MacBook Air 11" (1.6Ghz, 4G RAM). It works great for my development workflow. I do mostly Python, Plone, and Django apps and a lot of sysadmin work.
I use TextMate for my editor so I don't have the crazy RAM requirements of working with the java-based editing tools like Eclipse.
Looking forward to picking up the new MacBook Air version as soon as it's released.
I had the opportunity about two years ago. I was on the Google campus for an event for the open source CMS that work on. The HR folks were very friendly and I enjoyed the time that I spent with them. At Google I'd have had some of the brightest coworkers anywhere, and that was pretty tempting. In my time at the GooglePlex I also got to experience the ample perks of working there. I realized that these were probably the best benefits I could get if I chose to work for another company.
Still, it took me less than a split second to decide. As a founder and a location-independent entrepreneur the loss of freedom and self-determination were unthinkable. With my current setup, I can jump a flight to anywhere I want, for as long as I want without having to ask permission from anyone. Likewise, my income and share of the profits I produce are determined by me alone. I wouldn't trade that for anything.
I'm actually tremendously thankful for the opportunity that I had at Google because, as potentially the world's best place to be an employee, they helped crystalize for me the realization that I am in exactly the right place.
I'd recommend the Plone CMS as a starting point into learning Python. You get a full-featured CMS that you can use from day one for lots of common use cases. With Plone, you have an application that you can take apart to see examples of mature Python development processes. You can also learn just the aspects that are useful to you at a given point in time. Plone has a community that is very friendly, mature, and open to newbies. This makes it a lot easier to get your bearings and get help when you need it. It's also welcome community if you're looking to make your first contributions to Open Source.
Personally, Plone was my first experience in programming with Python. In 2003 I was working as an environmental consultant and started experimenting with Zope and Plone to build knowledge management apps for my clients. In 2004, I made the jump to being a Plone developer full-time and have never looked back. I've found it to be an outstanding platform and have landed clients including US federal agencies, EU government ministries, Fortune 500 companies, and major universities.
Since learning Plone, I've worked with a number of other Python frameworks including Twisted, Pyramid, and Django as well as a couple of Rails projects. Much of what I've learned via Plone gave me a good foundation for working with these other tools. Somehow, I always keep coming back to Plone. It's a great platform for secure, large-scale content-intensive sites and the market for skilled developers is very favorable relative to other frameworks.
I just got back from spending 3 months in Argentina. I'd recommend the Urban Station coworking spaces as a place to meet hackers. I met some cool tech folks at their Palermo SoHo location, and I think they just opened another location closer to the Microcentro.
Anytime you are building a web application, you are actually solving a business problem for your client. For example, that problem may be more driving sales or reducing staff time spend on a particular task.
You need to spend time diving into this with them to figure out what your project is really about. Then you can ask targeted questions to the client. For example:
"So, right now you're telling me that Jan and Ella are spending 20 hours a week processing the proposals. If we could reduce that to 5 hours per week, how much would that save you?"
"If we could improve the conversion rate on your flagship product by 10%, how much would that be worth annually in new revenue"
Once you've asked some questions like this, you can then position your price relative to these other values that the client has affirmed for you.
All of a sudden, it makes it much harder for them to feign shock at paying $25k for a system which increases revenue by $250k in the first year.
If you're not working with clients who have valuable problems to solve, find clients who do.