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I'm fairly new to freelancing but want more experience doing different projects and more money.
I am very well prepared to put in the hours and have asked my current employer who even wants to know my hourly rate so that they can offer some work in my evenings and weekends.
What are some good tricks to balancing freelance time whilst working full-time 9am - 5pm? Is it worth it or would it be too difficult to keep up?
This depends on where you are in your life. When I was in my early 20's, I had my main day job, and 4 side jobs - one was my own Freelancing. It gave me little time with my friends, but I was making money and learning new experiences.
You're lucky you have a manager who wants to encourage you to go out on your own as well. I've never ran into one who was excited about me working for myself.
What I would suggest is to try it out on a part time basis first - maybe 3 hours every second day after dinner (you still need your basic 3 meals per day). If you can handle more, slowly increase your workload. Once you feel you've had enough, scale back slightly, and keep that limit. You will need to re-adjust as you go on, but that's part of the challenge and responsibility as a new company owner.
Heed my warning though - working 18 hour days starts to wear on people quickly. As soon as you know you'll have lots of steady work with a steady income, I'd drop my day job and work only as a Freelancer, and not stay with the one company. You don't need the stress of your day job on top of stress of being a new entrepreneur as well.
