Last April my husband received a job offer for a position he really wanted. The pay was about the same per hour as the job he had then but since he had been getting overtime and a shift differential, the result was that when he took the new position, we had to deal with a 30% pay cut. He began the job last June and since then, we’ve been really working on roping in our spending. Sometimes we’re successful (like when the car burned to the ground and he started taking the bus) and sometimes we’re not so successful (like when he bought me a brand new bike for my birthday).
At first I felt it was his problem to deal with. I’m happy he has a job that is a career instead of just a position. I’m glad he has advancement opportunities and I know that in the long run this job is the best financial decision we’ve made since we got married and for all of us (four kids along with we two) financial security is important. But I still felt it was his problem to solve since he was the one who took the pay cut.
So he solved it. A friend told him about the many possibilities that blogging holds for supplementing your income and he began this blog. One day he asked if I could help him out with a post. I said I hate blogs and would have nothing to do with it. A few days later he asked again. He had hit a writing wall and really needed an idea. I jumped in to save the day and wrote a post about a movie I had seen (National Treasure: Book of Secrets) and raved about the Disney short that opened it. Is it too ridiculous to write here that I got hooked? Too late, I already did.
I gradually took over the blogging. Well, not that gradually – I started the next day getting opps and writing posts. If an idea struk me for a blog post, I would write it down. I had an endless supply of ideas – and I went through every single one. The blogging has been a great boon for us. Realistically, we would not have made out as well financially if this chance had not been presented to us. Realistically we would not have made it this long without someone in the family getting a second job and realistically (due to scheduling and a decided lack of paying employment on my part) that someone would have been me. (I hate being realistic. Can’t I live in the world of naive optimism?)
So now I’m a stay at home mom and a stay at home blogger. I get to contribute financially to the household (which I’ve always felt a need to do but not in a ‘May I take your order’ kind of way) and I get to see my husband more than if either of us had gotten a job outside the house.
Maybe you think that blogging isn’t for you. I would say that blogging is what you make of it.
Maybe you think that this is pie in the sky money that you’ll never see. I would chime in with my salesperson pitch and say I felt just the same way when I started. Except I’m not a salesperson (as evidenced by my lack of a mint green satin jacket and greased back hair) and I really did feel suspicious of the idea when we began. Turns out the internet is not old enough to be as jaded as I am and I get to pay the bills with the new income.
If you have a blog already going, you can probably start right away by just signing up with some different sites like the up and coming SocialSpark.
If you haven’t started you blog yet, get one going where you rave about your genius children. (My 1st grader can use rectum in a sentence.) There’s no WAY you’ll run low on ideas. Then sign up and see where your blog takes you.
