Hey Strat
Speaking from the point of view of someone who went solo two years ago, sounds like you're doing the same sums. £250/day doesn't sound like much but to put in bluntly, it's a ba***rd to actually manage day in day out for year on end.
I find work tends to come in waves - flat out busy for 3 months, then a hiatus while I run around shaking trees to see what falls out, then mad again. Even with working from the back office at home to minimise overheads, your still realistically talking about £10k/year - insurance, software, subs, new PC bits (it's amazing what you'll justify to yourself when you're bored at staring at the same wall (both physical and CG!) for days on end), travel, accountants fees, books, magazines etc etc...... Much as the WDA come across as being all bundles of cash, you'll have a bugger of a time getting any hard cash out of them - email me if you want more info on that front!
You've got to be almost schitzophrenic in your attitudes - play the good boss/bad boss routine to ensure you get stuff done, but also don't freak out and fixate on the company. Best bit of advice I had recently was "go on holiday for 10 days and forget about the company - remember why you're doing this!"
If you'd be happy making £20-30K /year with relatively low levels of stress and maximum amounts of interesting work, go for it, but to make the sort of money you're talking about realistically, I reckon you're looking at taking on staff, with all the hassle and crap that involves - you get to the point where you're no longer doing any arch viz work, just chasing customers, dealing with the bank and schmoozing for new work.
I went from being paid peanuts, managing a company that was going down the drain; but couldn't give up the living in the countryside (I've just been standing outside, watching shooting stars and the Milky Way, with not another human light to be seen, freezing!).
Cardiff's a good place to be based and as the housing market eases off, hopefully the developer's will be willing to stump up a bit more cash for work, but it's a bit of a gamble to take.
Anyway, cheers for starting a thread that's cheered me up - at least I know I'm not the only CG'er in the village!
Cheers
Deri
(This post was brought to you from the village of Llandewi Brefi....)