Oh man. I’m doing a lot. Whether you’re aware of it or not, I quit my job at the end of February. But that doesn’t mean I’m sitting on some beach sipping cocktails somewhere.
Nope, I’m not financially indepdendent yet (far from it, actually), so I’m very much still working. In fact, I’m now self-employed, which is a whole other animal compared to working for someone else.
I can see why most people wouldn’t enjoy self-employment. Before leaving my 9-5 (and especially before starting this blog), I didn’t really do anything productive after work hours. I would go home and play video games or watch TV or whatever.
Nowadays, I’m pretty much always either working – or thinking about working. (I should write this post. I should reach out to this person, etc.)
And it’s weird because I would never have considered myself a “workaholic.” However, one thing I know is that I hate working for other people. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t hate people, most of the people at my 9-5 jobs were great. Including the managers.
Fast forward to today. Things are very different now. I don’t have a “job” but I’ve never been busier. Here are some things I’m doing:
Dog Walking
This has become one of my favorite things. Though to be honest, I don’t even make that much doing it. I do it because 1. I love dogs and 2. because at my current place, I couldn’t have a dog if I wanted one (I currently live in a house with roommates).
Dogs can be a handful sometimes, but it’s totally worth it. They are so loving and affectionate and think everything is SO EXCITING!!!
Honestly, sometimes I wish people were more like dogs. Maybe with less sniffing. But we’re so hard to impress sometimes.
Freelancing
To be totally honest, I envisioned myself doing “my own thing.” In other words, never having to answer to anyone other than myself. Well, I have expenses and thus far, my blog income hasn’t been anywhere near enough to cover them.
So, at least for now, I’m doing some freelancing as well. I would love for blogging to be my only emphasis, since I think I could do so much more if it were.
Maybe one day. But I got bills to pay.
Blogging
Yeah, there’s this site called The Frugal Fellow you should check out. I hear it’s pretty sweet.
Yeah, okay, obviously I’m still blogging. But despite the fact that I’m freelancing, I’m still trying to ramp up my efforts on this site.
I’m focusing much more heavily on SEO, guest appearances/posts, and any kind of collaboration I can find. The first year I didn’t do much outside of social media promotion, but it’s incredibly important to make yourself recognizable outside of that space.
And that’s something I’m trying to do. It’s a work in progress – then again, it always will be.
Oh, and I recently started working on my new site, Blooming Wealth. Be sure to check that one out as well.
Travel
Okay, so I haven’t been doing as much travelling as I wanted to do. After my trip earlier this year where I visited Munich, Heidelberg, Prague, and Split, I haven’t done any travel outside the US.
Of course, the fact that I haven’t been travelling as much as nothing to with whether or not I’d like to be travelling. It’s mostly been not knowing what my income would actually be – plus not wanting to open up more travel credit cards without said knowledge.
However, I’m starting to get more consistent freelance work, and I’m hoping to start monetizing the blog more. If that happens, I will definitely be traveling more.
After all, the best part of the type of work I’m doing is that it doesn’t require me to physically be in any one location. And I just love that about it.
What’s Next?
I’m in the very beginning stages of some pretty exciting projects, actually. It’s so early at this point that it wouldn’t make sense to give details, but I’m very excited about it!
If you want to hear more about it, be sure to subscribe, as there will definitely be updates.
I think that’s all for now, but I’ll be updating this page as things change. Stay tuned!