How I 15X my freelancing income

When folks talk about nearly quitting their side hustle, business, or entrepreneurial venture, take it with a grain of salt. Some do, but many are looking for attention or angling for a selling point.

Well, I really did just about quit.

See, in 2020, the whole world went stupid. But it was a heckuva a year for my wife and I; my salary was over $70k working for the U.S. government, and my wife was cleaning almost that much for a multi-level marketing biz. You know, like a Mary Kay sort of thing. People were cooped up and spending money, and her fingernail polish strips were flying off the shelf.

We have always lived modestly. My newest vehicle right now? A 2014 Nissan passenger van because we outgrew our 2000 Ford Excursion! We don't travel all that much, and I am a former mechanic by trade, so we don't waste our money on cars. And we live in a really cheap state, so earning over $150k in a year went a long way. Some people call this location arbitrage, and I’m all for it. Why pay $2,800 for rent in SoCal when you could pay $1,200 monthly for a mortgage in Oklahoma? But I digress.

But at this point in my writing career, I'd been writing for about four years and never cleared much more than $5k-$7k in a year. It was a good little side hustle for a bit of spending cash but nothing more. I could never quite get into the groove of loving to write, though. I did it because somebody paid me for it, and my high-paying clients were only in the $0.10 per word range, with most quite a lot lower.

The trouble wasn't so much that I didn't like it; the problem was my lack of vision of what freelance writing could become. And bless my wife's heart; she has never been so blind to it. She knew it could and would replace my government job, even though I couldn't see it.

So I left my little side hustle to languish in 2020 and only earned about $900. Thankfully for me, though, the demand for content writers, blog writers, and copywriters has done anything but diminish; with all this talk of a recession, I cannot imagine a more recession-resistant NON-TRADE job. As a mechanic in a past life who uses that skill set for my current work, you will never hear me talk down on the trades. Never.

The point is twofold: first, pay attention to your significant other, especially if you are married to them. They see blind spots you cannot. Second, don't let whatever you're building die unless it is clearly not making you money or has no future. My writing had a clear and bright future, but I didn't want to put in the work, so that was on me.

If you have something started that has proven profitable, keep going! It's not easy, but it's awesome when it comes together. I made the real gains when I realized that not quitting is about 90% of success.

Of course, if you struggle with where to get started, check out my guide. It's cheap, it's no-fluff, and it's how I started making dough.