How I Make a Full-Time Income Working From Home

I am a stay-at-home mom to two beautiful little boys. I also go to school and work from home full-time. It’s an amazing experience, but it may seem confusing for someone who hasn’t attempted working from home before.

Now that I have a fairly decent following, I decided it may be time to properly introduce myself, and explain how I got to this point in the first place. After all, why should you trust some rando on the internet talking about how to make money online just because they say they know what they’re talking about?

So today I’m going to share a little bit of my story, and how I started to earn a full-time income working from home. So grab a tea or coffee, and sit with me for a moment or two.

Why I Started Freelance Writing

I started freelancing before the pandemic hit, so not many companies were offering options for work-from-home positions. I also didn’t have the option of leaving the house to find work thanks to childcare costs being over $200 per week per child, and I didn’t have any family in the area to help. So if I had found a job outside of the home, I wouldn’t have even been covering the cost of childcare.

But I had to find a job, my husband’s income alone wasn’t covering our bills. We didn’t have a savings to cushion us should something of happened to my husband’s job.

So after feeling very defeated for a while, I finally decided to figure out how to start my own online business. I didn’t have a clue what I was going to do considering the only work I had done was as a server, bartender, and retail manager.

Research, Refine, Repeat

When you search Google for “Work From Home Jobs” there are a whole lot of links that provide absolutely no value to someone looking for options to work from home. Between the scammy “Data entry” positions and MLM schemes, I was drawing a blank. Then the city of Muscle Shoals Al. posted an incentive for freelancers to move to the area on their Facebook page.

So I started looking into what freelancing was, and what skills I had that could be profitable. Searching freelancing for beginners brings up sites like Upwork, Fivver, and other job boards. I noticed a lot of the listings were for writers and editors.

I already had a background in writing and editing thanks to working on the school newspaper and the literary magazine in high school, and almost all of my electives in college were some kind of writing class. So I started looking into freelance writing for beginners.

Finding Work

So I figured out what I could make money with, now I just needed someone to give me a chance to get my foot in the door. I found a lot of great resources like blogs written by other freelance writers, IAPWE (Internation Association of Professional Writers and Editors), the Freelancers Union, and more.

To start my job search I wrote a few content samples, they weren’t very long and had absolutely nothing to do with the niche I’m in now, but they were enough. Then I started applying for jobs on the IAPWE job board and pitching clients. It was from the job board that I had finally landed a paying gig.

I received an invitation to do a paid writing test for an SEO agency as a blog writer. This was pretty much a content mill, but they paid decently considering I was a new writer with no experience. I could work as little or as much as I wanted with them as long as I completed 5 articles per week.

It wasn’t long before I was making a decent weekly wage with them. Most weeks I was averaging between $175-$250 depending on how much I was writing.

Growing Pains

Not too long after I started writing for the agency the pandemic hit. Work slowed down to a complete standstill and I lost my income. So I had to start looking for more work.

I pitched to jobs on sites like Upwork and Fivver, I found a little work but nothing substantial. I also started cold-pitching companies offering my blogging skills. But no one was really interested in just a blog writer while the economy was practically shut down.

So I started to teach myself SEO, and digital marketing. With these skills, I learned to market myself and my skills and started winning clients for SEO Services, content creation, social media management, and Ad campaigns.

After adding these skills to my repertoire I started earning between $500-$700 per week with my skills. All from the comfort of my living room, my kitchen table, or even outside while my kids played in the yard.

Learn With Me

So overall, I put in a lot of time and work to get myself to the point where I was making a full-time income working from home. I had to get out of my comfort zone a few times, especially when cold-pitching, to get things moving. But overall, I’m so glad that I built myself a profitable online business.

These days my goal is to help other stay-at-home moms who may be in the same boat that I was in. So if you’re looking to start your work-from-home journey, consider following me on social media, and checking out my blog! If you need more one-on-one help reach out to me here to set up a free coaching consultation.