Freelance Archives - Page 3 of 5 - the frugal millionaire

Get Paid to Write From Home

Are you a stay-at-home mom looking to make some extra income for your family? Maybe you work full-time, but want to accelerate your debt payments. Or maybe you simply want extra money to save, spend or invest. Really, I can’t think of a single person who wouldn’t want to bring in extra income, regardless of their situation.

For me personally, I became a SAHM a little over three years ago right before the birth of my first daughter (I now have two daughters and another on the way!). I was working in finance prior to quitting so I could stay home with our baby. At the time, I remember wanting to just make a few hundred dollars per month. In my mind, I was thinking that could pay our electric bill plus give us some extra spending money.

I had always thought about writing from home, but didn’t really think it would ever happen. I made it known to a few close friends that I would love it if I could do a little bit of work from home. Turns out, one of my best friends at the time was working for a large online women’s website and offered to hire me on a very part-time basis to write for a few sections on the site. My first month, I made $300. By month five, I cleared over $900.

This is one of the biggest parts of becoming a freelancer — your network. Without my friend trusting me and getting my foot in the door, I would have had a harder time landing that first job (though of course, it’s totally possible to start freelancing without knowing anyone…in fact, nowadays it’s relatively easy).

If you are hoping to bring in some extra income each month, keep reading.

How Freelance Writers Can Negotiate a Raise

As most of my regular readers know, I have a goal to make $10K per month within one year, or by October 2016. However, I don’t plan on getting there by working all day every day. Instead, I plan on being strategic about how I’m earning my income. If you’re a freelance writer and want to make more money, but don’t necessarily want to add more work to your plate, it’s time to start negotiating raises.

I started out making $25 per post. Now, I get anywhere from $50 to $275, depending on the word length and the topic. If you want to make more money as a freelancer, you have to start earning more per post.

How to Be a Virtual Assistant

Do you dream of working from home one day but don’t quite know what job you want to do? Perhaps you’ve thought about freelance writing, but just don’t have the desire to write day after day on topics not chosen by you? I’m a freelance writer, and while I personally love it, I can see how writing can get old after awhile (and it does, haha).

But what about being a virtual assistant? Instead of writing everyday, you get to help someone with their day-to-day tasks. This could be anything, as a virtual assistant is a really broad job. You might answer emails, schedule out blog posts, add images to posts, go through and do a site audit, run your client’s social media accounts, help your client brainstorm new business ideas, and more. Basically, you would be a small business owner’s assistant – so your duties would be anything that they needed help with.

Being a virtual assistant is a great career choice because it doesn’t require you to do the same tasks day after day. Sure, you might have some monotony, but what job doesn’t? Most likely, your job will vary on a weekly basis.

How to Write Faster and Increase Your Productivity

I often get asked how I’m able to “do it all.” Though, sometimes it’s not so much a question but more a concern (hi mom!). Well, I’m here to tell you that while some of my days are long, I honestly think I’m doing a really good job in the work-life balance. Everybody’s busy. But the truth of the matter is if you want to accomplish something, you will make time for it in your day. That’s why I freelance and blog (and work FT and am a mom), I want to. It’s something I enjoy doing and I’m growing a business, so I put in the work.

Before I get started with today’s post, I wanted to see if anyone would have any interest in reading some sort of guide/eBook on how to better manage your time so you can accomplish all of your goals? (Title TBD.) I’m currently working on a FREE eBook as a “Thank you” for signing up for my upcoming newsletter, but after that I’d love to create an actual eBook that goes in-depth and gives readers something to learn from and take away. If you don’t mind, let me know in the comments what you think of that idea or if you think it’s too overdone.

If you’re new to blogging and freelancing, or if you’ve been at it for years but want to increase your productivity, this post is for you. The secret to getting a ton of work accomplished is by learning to write fast and focus. I’m not saying you should sacrifice quality for quantity (in fact, you should never do that), but I am saying you can learn to write quickly so you can make more money per hour, accomplish more each day and have more free time with your family.

How to Make Time for Side Hustles

I tend to have a lot on my plate, just like all of us. I’m a wife, mom to two little girls, I work full-time, I keep my house clean regularly, I cook dinner most nights of the week and more, yet I still have time to freelance write and blog. I have a goal of making $10K per month within one year (so, by October 2016) through freelancing and blogging. That’s a l.o.t. of money, which equates to a l.o.t. of work.

One of the things I get asked is how I am able to balance all of it. Interesting fact- but I don’t feel like I work all the time. I bake something usually once a week, John and I watch TV every night before bed, I go to bed early (like I’m asleep by 9:30 early), and I never work when my girls are awake and with me. Every once in a while, John will watch them for an hour or so on a weekend morning, but for the most part I like to be with them and fully engaged when they’re up.

How Blogging Changed My Life

Are you happy?

I would consider myself a pretty happy person. While I’ve had struggles just like the next person, I try to focus on the positives in my life. While I’ve always been happy, my happiness has increased significantly over the past few years and I attribute it to a few different reasons.

September Freelance Income

I set a goal a few weeks ago of making $10K a month within one year. To clarify, that is one year from October, not September, since I set the goal toward the end of September. But, it’s kind of funny (well, ironic maybe?) that this month was my lowest freelance income month in a while (and by “a while,” I mean three years).

However, I am committed to being open and honest with my readers. In a way, it’s good that I’m basically starting from nothing, as hopefully I can encourage those of you who also don’t have a huge clientele that this can be done.

So, let’s take a look at my freelance income for September.

Tips for Brand New Freelancers

Are you ready to change your life? Freelancing and blogging have 100% changed mine, even though I do it on a part-time basis and make a part-time income. No, I’m not traveling to exotic locations every month, but my life is for-sure changed. My husband and I no longer stress at all about finances. We know if times ever got tough, we could both side hustle more and bring in more money. I sleep better at night, I’m able to spend more freely, and I’m a lot happier overall. Life is good 🙂

If you’re looking to make more money – whether a few extra hundred per month to take some stress off of your finances or an extra $10,000+ per month to be able to quit your full-time job – I’m here to tell you that I promise this is possible. But, you have to get started.

Here are my very best six tips for brand new freelancers.

10K per Month in One Year Challenge

Hi everyone! How is everyone’s week going? It’s Friday, so that’s a good sign 😉

My week has been great! A week full of work with a little bit of fun mixed in (a trip to The Fresh Market for pumpkins, fresh coffee and dessert!) – nothing better. Tomorrow I’m working from home and plan on relaxing this weekend with my family. My girls have been so tired all week after daycare, so I haven’t seen too much of them and I want to make up for it this weekend with lots of quality time. Cami, my 3-year-old, has actually been asking to “go rest” when she gets home from daycare, and she usually ends up falling asleep for the night 🙁 This is at roughly 6pm, by the way. (Perhaps this is why she wakes for the day at 5am, haha.)

Today I wanted to elaborate a little bit more on my “Life Update” post from earlier this week regarding my goal of increasing my freelancing and blogging income to $10K a month within one year.

An Update: How Freelancing and Working Full Time is Going; Plus, a HUGE Goal

This past Monday marked two months at my new full-time job. I’ve still been freelancing on the side and have been able to bring in around $1200 – $1500 each month on top of my full-time job (you can read my income reports here). I thought it’d be fun to provide a sort of “life update” if you will to let you all know how it’s been going managing both.