AMA: How I Make Money

I told you to ask me anything and indeed, you did.

Last month, I unveiled the first in a new, “Ask Me Anything” series, and I asked you all to send in more questions. Nothing is off limits — thrifting, writing, social media. I am not necessarily an expert in all of these fields, but I do think that hearing from others about how they’ve forged their path can be helpful to the rest of us.

In the first installment, I spoke about how I turned thrifting into a career and here, I’m elaborating on that a little bit and answering a very specific question I’ve gotten more than once: How do you make money?

Like last time, I’ve offered a shorter response in text, with a lengthier version in an audio format, below.

Thanks for your questions. Please keep them coming — just leave a comment here and I’ll get to it in a future letter. Promise.

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Q: How do you make money?

I believe it’s important, especially for women, to learn how other women make money. And let me preface this by saying that I am an unmarried woman with no real family to support me (a conversation for another time, but I was raised by my grandmother and I now take care of my mom, who is mentally disabled). I have literally nothing to fall back on other than the cushion I’ve made for myself. So making money and saving for my future is very important to me!

But let’s stick to income, because saving and investing is another conversation entirely.

I have various streams of income beneath the umbrella that is my “career:” there’s my salaried job, my art sales (prints, originals, and original commissions), my antique sales, my book sales, speaking engagements, and then newsletter subscriptions/social media revenue (those last two are admittedly very small portions of my income — the newsletter is very much a labor of love more than anything for me!) Other than my salaried job, the other streams of income fluctuate wildly. Some months, one or two of those streams are $0. Other months, they amount to more than my salaried job.

More details — i.e. a more fleshed-out answer, in audio form, below.