I have been out of work since April 2009. Since then I have tried my hand at doing online work, mostly through writing assignments given by my “mentor”, a fellow work-at-home mom who quit her regular work long before I did.
Aside from the writing assignments passed on to me by Charm, I also tried sourcing for my own writing jobs through oDesk where I did get quite a lot of work. There was even a time I managed to earn P17,000 in a month, but it really took a lot out of me.
I was turning in around 15-20 500-word articles in a day. I worked night and day writing and I was starting to feel hatred for it. I was earning close to P25,000 a month (Gross) for a call center before I decided to leave. Back then, I would take home a cool P20k just working nights. Simply reporting for work on time netted me almost 1.5k a month.
Working at home I had to work doubly hard to earn P17k, and I didn’t get to spend as much time with my kid as I would have wanted because I was always busy writing. Good thing I still had a nanny, and that I could call on my mom whenever I really had a lot on my plate, which was quite often.
Trying to earn at home what I was earning before while working nights made me grew tired of writing. I was wearing myself out and soon I found myself wanting to puke at the mere thought of having to write again.
I thought if I cannot earn as much as I did when I had my old job, maybe I can cut back on our expenses some more so we will not be so financially hard put. So, I bade my son’s yaya goodbye, hid the rice cooker and started unplugging all our appliances (except for the ref) before going to sleep.
For the next 6 months or so, I did not write a single article, not even a single entry for my blogs. I still kept getting messages from oDesk buyers asking for interviews despite my inactivity, but nothing could get me out of my writing rut.
It was not until our financial situation became unbearably tight and I was getting rejected at every job interview because I’m either over-qualified or over-aged that I decided to revisit the prospects of earning online again. I considered my options and started to think really hard of my priorities and what I wanted to do in life.
I know I enjoyed being at home anyway, being present for every naughty antic my son learns…so why should I re-apply for jobs that would take me away from home again? I grew up “not knowing” my mother because she was preoccupied with trying to earn a living for us, would I want that for my own kid? No.
The only solution was to make working-at-home work. Mid-February I went back to writing again. I revisited oDesk, applied for jobs, got in touch with Charm and continued reading up on how other people managed to earn a lot online.
I did not even try to earn P17k again from getting writing jobs left and right. I feared that it will drive me back to hating having to write again if I did that.
Instead, I paced myself and accepted only jobs that “pay more”, instead of getting a lot of work to get more pay. I decided to put a value on my time online. If the job is not something that will pay me at least $1 for 100 words or $5 per hour, then I won’t take it. There are times also that if the job will only take me 15 minutes to finish, even if it pays just a $1 then I’ll do it.
Since February I have managed to earn enough to cover our monthly groceries of around P6-8k. I even managed to earn enough to have our old 2 and 3-seater sofa re-upholstered. I also got to buy a few personal stuff and pay my other credit card which had a lower monthly due. My insurance premiums were soon up to date again.
I can say the best 2 weeks I had since my return was when I was earning P1k per day courtesy of Charm and the overflow of projects she was having. The 9k (9 days worth of writing) I earned off that went to the re-upholsterer. Hahaha!
Since March, I have had this client who was paying me $32 a week to write 8 500-word articles for his business, but lately it has become $32 for 2 weeks… hey it’s not easy to write about swimming pools and pool accessories you know. Still he has been my most consistent and loyal client.
Hopefully, our Adsense problem gets fixed already so we can earn more.
The thing is I never appreciated my earnings like this before. It took another work-at-home mommy blogger to make me realize that I too have been earning quite nicely online. It might not be through this blog yet, but writing web content while sitting at home watching my baby sleep is still by all means earning online. I might not have proofs of payment or photos of adsense checks yet, but I do have bills payment receipts and a long tape receipt of the monthly groceries I purchased out of my earnings from working online. Hehehe!
This post is long enough to make up for the days I have not been posting, dont' you think? :-)
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