No offense, but your mom is confused.

Just save your pay stubs and have someone do the work for you. Make sure you are putting money away throughout the year for this.

You'll also need to pay into Social Security.

The thing about independent contractor work is that you have no employee rights since you are technically not an employee. Nothing is guaranteed.

If I'm missing anything, hopefully someone else will chime in. I've only done independent contract work a few hours a week, typically one time jobs.