The key to doing contract work is having contracts. Getting contracts is often a non-trivial task that requires substantial effort. Ongoing contracts for a few hours a month are not that common even for people with niche skills and high expertise (something that can be done in a few hours is often possible to achieve with in-house talent working longer hours).
One piece of the puzzle is that landing little contracts is not proportionally less work than landing bigger contracts, there's overhead and sales and signing and invoicing as fixed costs mostly unrelated to contract size.
My random advice from the internet is not to quit your job until you have a signed contract and the retainer check has cleared. People often consider using contractors for projects that are uncertain. They bid contractors against each other. Projects get delayed, canceled, and abandoned.
One piece of the puzzle is that landing little contracts is not proportionally less work than landing bigger contracts, there's overhead and sales and signing and invoicing as fixed costs mostly unrelated to contract size.
My random advice from the internet is not to quit your job until you have a signed contract and the retainer check has cleared. People often consider using contractors for projects that are uncertain. They bid contractors against each other. Projects get delayed, canceled, and abandoned.
Good luck.