A Journey of Making Money Online

Lately I feel like I have just been randomly throwing darts at a dartboard and nothing sticks! You ever feel like this? Well perhaps you need a bit of reference as that's a pretty vague statement. 

Back in June I was working from home, as I had been seen late March when co-vid started. I show up to my weekly scheduled Teams meeting (it's similar to Zoom but Microsoft branded) and BOOM! Just like that I am fired, no warning, no inclination, nothing just totally and completely caught off guard. My whole office of six people are all canned. Sinora. Bye - Bye! Pack up your things and go! But not literally as you are already working from home anyways..

Needless to say spiraled a bit, and went back to bed at 10:12 in the morning with cuddling my baby Yoda stuffie and bottle of vodka. Yeah I don't promote drowning your problems with liquor but hell I gave myself the day to cry, watch netflix and just ask what the F! am I going to do with my life now? 

I was just starting to feel comfortable at 36. Finally got a good job in my northern Ontario home town which is not an easy feat! as they seem to be few and far between even more so for those of us who can't handle stressful physical jobs, yeah I'l admit I love my cushy office jobs with a stable 71 degrees daily! How my boyfriend works asphalt in the dead of summer is beyond me, but I digress. 

I finally found a job - with benefits! with pension! Yeah how often does THAT happen now a days? So now here I am jobless with 5 kids, yeah 5 in our blended family. (Insert Swear here < about the job not the kids, where's your head at?) I'm not going to say I didn't literally swear but I try to keep this blog fairly on the G rated side. 

    So then I frantically start looking for jobs, trying to get in touch with the contacts I had before they forget how great I was at my job! When my friends told me to just - Chill. Breath. Something I obviously struggle with. I still had 4 weeks of pay with my severance, and I qualified for Employment Insurance so I wouldn't be left high and drive. Apologies I have no idea how that works in other countries but in Canada, you get a percentage of your salary unless you were fired for reasons out of your control. Like this mass pandemic called CO-VID that hit us nearly a year ago now! God, has it really been that long now?

    In addition I was making $500 a month blogging. By no means am I living the rich life but it definitely helps. Also for any trolls, yes I did claim it. I have terrible luck and have been audited like 4 times since college, think my name got picked in the world's worst lottery!

Okay so now I am thinking $500 a month what if I could make 5 times that amount? Not completely impossible? Then I could make enough to live on. I have been blogging for years as a hobby which I actually like so what if I made that my job? I actually have time to focus on now. 

    So I am thinking what if I expand my sources of income? I make the bulk of my money from Google AdSence and maybe 8% from affiliates sites. Here is my current September earnings from Amazon; 

Yup, you read that graph right, I made negative 67 cents this month. NEGATIVE! How does that even happen? Okay rhetroical question someone obviously returned something from the previous month but still. STILL. Sorry I'll calm down...

I usually create designs for free printables what if I offered those on physical products?  So I stumbled upon Zazzle! Awesome now I can focus completely on just the designs and not the fulfillment of orders. 

Fast forward to two months later and 810 products designed, I have two sales - two, and to be honest one is from my last attempt at Zazzle, and my only recent one to date for a whopping $2.61 is still pending. If one of my blog readers bought this a huge thank you but still Dang! 

Feeling a bit deflated, okay more than a bit I begin looking at other options. Maybe Etsy? I heard you can list 40 products for free before you have to start paying to upload them. Okay I like Etsy but don't have a desire to physically edit each invitation, or ship physical items. 

Then found a post for Amazon Merch, so applied to that as well because at this current point I'm thinking what the hell? So now I am waiting to see if I get approved although hear you can only upload a limited designs at a time until you get more sales? I don't know. (I'll update you about that later)

Maybe I can write an e-book. Although I think I have adult ADHD, and no I'm not trying to make light of something I have a difficult time focusing, I don't usually write a lot about myself personally but when I do you can see my mind jumps from thought to thought although they often seem unrelated my mind has made 6 connections in between. So the thought of writing an e-book is a little daunting. Perhaps that's why I like blog posts... there I did it again. 

And then there is what subject to write about? How you can be somewhat successful at blogging? How to make enough money to pay your inflated monthly cell phone bill while working so many hours that if you worked it out you'd be making less than minimum wage? Cleaning and Organizing? Not unless it's a how not to book - and really I can't seeing anyone paying $9.99 for that information. 

Maybe Pinterest? It's something I am mildy good at - 3 million views isn't too terrible. Yeah it's in the works with all the other great ideas I had, and never finished following through with. Like my 183 draft blog posts - yeah that's the actual number and not inflated. Face Palm. 

I once thought about adding one of those donation buttons to my page - you know the one where it says buy the author or designer a coffee? Maybe since I offer everything for free, people would donate? No that's an actual question not rhetorical. But then, it seemed like too many steps to figure out how to actually set it up I never even went through with it. 

Well maybe I will eventually see one of these ideas come to fruition until then throwing darts at a dart board blind folded, and if we are going to be honest with each other I can't hit it with both eyes open. Metaphorically and literally people stopped letting my play as I messed up their drywall.