I've done a similar setup, working part time remote doing freelance web development for the last several years. My one paragraph answer:
The book The E-Myth makes the point that people fall into this trap: I've been doing a technical skill as an employee (coding). I could just quit my job and do that skill myself! Problem is once you go out on your own, you have to become the CEO, manager, and coder of your little enterprise.
In short, you have to learn business skills. Specifically, marketing, positioning, negotiation, people skills, etc. The more you know about these the easier freelancing is. Coding chops are absolutely necessary, but not sufficient.
The reason sites like Upwork are saturated and pay low rates is because everyone on there is basically acting like an employee and Upwork is serving as a stand in for the boss. People on Upwork are "PHP developers" and "Wordpress developers" and "Javascript developers". These get commodity prices because in many ways they _are_ commodities. Valuable commodities yes. In demand commodities yes. But commodities nonetheless.
Don't compete on Upwork, build your own pipeline. This will require selecting a target market, going out and actually speaking to them, and finding out what their business problems are. Nobody needs a "Wordpress site". But lots of people need a site to sell their product, market their service, etc.
I'm relatively convinced that any person who can combine competence in programming with competence in sales can do anything they want.
One of my favorite really accessible introductions to this idea of selling something that isn't a commodity is Sean D'Souza's The Brain Audit. Read it in one sitting and then change all the copy on your website to be targeted to solving the client's problems instead of what technologies you know.
Happy to chat with more about this - my email's in my profile. Cheers!
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