I would suggest that with 6-9 months of dedicated learning you could absolutely put yourself in a position where you could charge for freelance web development services.
A few important things to note from my (limited) experience:
- How much you are worth (per hour) as a freelancer is largely based on your existing body of work and your network of contacts. As such, you might not be able to make your stated figure straight away - instead as an average when your earning potential rises with each completed job.
- Go around your local community first. A lot of people say that you shouldn't work for friends/people you know, but when you're starting out you need portfolio pieces and people are far more likely to take the risk on someone 'green' if they get some face-face time now and then. Local restaurants and clubs was where I started.
- Contract up ... always >.<
- Specialise a bit. There seems to be a commonly held belief that freelancers should be full-stack engineers - largely because you are likely to be working solo on projects. Not only is this not realistic given your learning timescale, but I've also found it to be untrue. If a project needs work that you can't do then you sub-contract to another freelancer. They will be happy for the work and there is always the possibility of payment in kind. One caveat is that you obviously take on the risk of the contractor messing up.
A few important things to note from my (limited) experience:
- How much you are worth (per hour) as a freelancer is largely based on your existing body of work and your network of contacts. As such, you might not be able to make your stated figure straight away - instead as an average when your earning potential rises with each completed job.
- Go around your local community first. A lot of people say that you shouldn't work for friends/people you know, but when you're starting out you need portfolio pieces and people are far more likely to take the risk on someone 'green' if they get some face-face time now and then. Local restaurants and clubs was where I started.
- Contract up ... always >.<
- Specialise a bit. There seems to be a commonly held belief that freelancers should be full-stack engineers - largely because you are likely to be working solo on projects. Not only is this not realistic given your learning timescale, but I've also found it to be untrue. If a project needs work that you can't do then you sub-contract to another freelancer. They will be happy for the work and there is always the possibility of payment in kind. One caveat is that you obviously take on the risk of the contractor messing up.