Working for my Airfare: October in Review

At the end of September, I quit my day job at a restaurant in New Zealand and committed to working online as a freelancer. I had a buffer, some savings, and 7 months left on my work visa if it all went badly, as well a substitute teaching gig where I could pick up shifts once or twice a week.

I haven’t worked since I left teaching in the US in June 2023. I got a taste of freedom that year that I don’t know if I can ever live without now. If there’s a way for me to work online on my own schedule, and make a decent living doing it– I’m going to find it.

So I started this period thinking that I would do some freelance writing. Articles and blogs mostly, though I hoped to work on some creative projects in my own time.

What ended up happening instead is that I became a professional beta-reader! In October I completed 6 gigs on Upwork (5 beta-reading, 1 virtual assistance) and made over $400! I got great feedback from clients and some of them invited me to work with them on future projects. I got paid for reading and helping author’s make their books the best they could be! That would’ve been a dream job for me as a child. It’s a dream job now!

Even more exciting, I decided to get back into creative writing. Articles and blog posts weren’t fueling my soul– but fiction might! I submitted to some contests and I started research on writing to market and the craft of writing in general.

For years I have said that I would love to be a smut writer! It’s fun, it’s exciting, it’s popular, and there’s a lot of money in it. It’s escapism. And now, more than ever, we all need a little escape.

So I read a lot of books, a lot of Reddit subs, and a lot of Facebook groups and I started publishing short erotica stories under a pen name on Amazon. I’m a self-published smut writer! And despite 0 marketing whatsoever (I don’t want anyone I know reading this stuff haha) I made some sales!

My first story went live on the 14th so I made almost $2/day in passive income in October.

Passive income, in American dollars, while living abroad. Now that’s the dream.

Obviously it’s not self-sustaining yet, and I’m very thankful for the substitute gig to help pay my biggest expense: rent (also, conveniently, the only one I need to pay in New Zealand dollars). But I feel very hopeful that I’m on to something here.

I have enough in savings to get me through to December, but the rest is up to me!

For the first time I feel like I’ve found meaningful work. When I’m reading or writing and getting paid for it, I feel like the ideal version of myself. Freelancing is scary and uncertain, but I really want this, and I think it could change the course of my entire life.