My official last day at my day job was October 11, 2013, but that’s a Saturday this year so I am posting my first annual self-employment update a few days early.
As a little refresher, I left my day job last year to pursue my online business full-time.
I honestly cannot believe it has been one year since I left my day job. My day job wasn’t a horrible one, but it also wasn’t the greatest. I didn’t look forward to working and I dreaded every Sunday because it meant I would have to go into a stressful job the next day.
Here are some related articles that will fill you in or help you out if you are new here:
- $15,272 in September Online Income – Outsourcing and Passive Income
- How To Prepare for Self-Employment
- How To Quit Your Job And Become Self-Employed
Now, life is amazing. I love everything about self-employment and this has possibly been the best year of my life. Below is my update after being self-employed for ONE FULL YEAR.
I still love what I do.
Many people told me that I would grow to hate freelancing if I started doing it full-time as my main source of income.
Well, that is just not true!
I still love freelancing, self-employment, and everything else. Our lives have never been better, and we often find ourselves saying throughout the day “I cannot believe how much our lives have improved over the past year since we quit our jobs.”
Yes, there have been some extremely busy times, dealing with health insurance hasn’t been pleasant, and I have to pay self-employment tax now too, but overall everything has been wonderful.
I have no regrets, and I thoroughly enjoy self-employment. I know it’s not for everyone, but self-employment is definitely for me.
Being able to just wake up and work from home in the morning is great.
One great thing about working from home is that I don’t have a commute. I can just wake up in the morning and start working. I don’t have to spend an hour getting ready and then more time to actually drive to work.
Since I enjoy what I do as well, waking up in the morning is no longer a problem. I enjoy waking up each morning to work!
Having endless access to my fridge isn’t killing me.
I was afraid that I would eat far too much when working from home. Thankfully, I haven’t been too bad. We have been cooking very healthy, but I do still need to improve on working out more.
My main thing now is that I don’t really buy too many unhealthy food items anymore, and if I do I make sure they are in small quantities.
I love having a flexible schedule.
Having a flexible schedule is a BIG positive of working for yourself and being self-employed. I can create a schedule that works best for me. This means if I need to run an errand or go out for lunch with a friend during the day, I can.
I can work at night, I can work in the morning, I can work on the weekends, I can work whenever.
Location independence is wonderful.
Since I left my day job and started being fully self-employed, I have been able to travel a decent amount. We didn’t travel at all from January to the beginning of May of 2014 because we were planning our wedding, but the other seven months were full of travel.
With my business, all I really need is an internet connection and my laptop, so it makes being able to work very easy. The only downside to this is that it can be hard to STOP working when I am on vacation.
In the past seven months we have traveled to:
- Gulf Shores, Alabama – We vacationed here right after we both quit our jobs. We spent one week in a beach house that we rented. It was a lot of fun and I hope we can go back one day.
- St. Thomas, Virgin Islands – We went to St. Thomas three times in a 12 month period (only once when I was technically full-time self-employed). Yup, I was addicted last year!
- Las Vegas – I went to Las Vegas for my bachelorette party and it was a ton of fun.
- Colorado/Utah road trip – We went on a two week long road trip in June of 2014 right after our wedding. The photo above is from that trip 🙂
- Caribbean cruise – We went on an eight day cruise to the Caribbean in July of 2014.
- Colorado – I didn’t go on this trip, but Wes went with a friend in August of 2014 and they hiked a part of the Colorado Trail.
- Colorado – We went on a seven day road trip to Colorado again in September of 2014.
- New Orleans – We went to New Orleans in September of 2014 for about four days.
- Memphis – We visited Wes’s family both before and after New Orleans for a total of two days.
Pajamas are still my best friend.
I am still guilty of wearing yoga clothing pretty much all day long unless I leave my house to go somewhere. It’s super comfy, but I’m sure Wes will never stop laughing at me each and every day. It’s a habit that will be hard to change!
At least I’m saving money on clothing by being self-employed… 🙂
Do you have any questions for me? Are you planning on working for yourself one day?
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Wow, I can’t believe it’s been a year already! Great to hear things are still going well!
Thanks Andy!
FIVE YEARS of self-employment here: I LOVE IT.
Losing my job in2009 was a blessing in disguise, it was the kick I needed in my behind. 5 years have passed: I have traveled the world, earn WAY more than before, am my own boss (so I can really schedule work and fun) and now I can take care of my 8 month old and also earn money. LOVE IT!
Congratulations and keep up the great work. The sky is the limit!
Wow what an awesome story! Congrats on five year!
Congrats, Michelle! I cannot believe it’s been a year already! I’m so glad everything has worked out for the better. I’m also a sucker for yoga pants and comfy clothes, but I do sometimes find that dressing “normally” helps me be a little more productive. Funny, I also don’t eat nearly as much as I thought I would. I think I snacked more working in an office!
I agree! I think I snacked a lot more when I worked in my old office.
Congratulations on your achievement. It’s very inspiring.
Thank you!
Congrats on an awesome year of self-employment!
Thanks!
Congratulations on reaching the first-year milestone, Michelle. The thing I love about working for myself is the flexibility to work when and where I choose: freedom!
Yes, freedom is amazing!
I wish i could do what you do :/ I just never have time… with three kids, work, and homeschooling….verrrrry difficult! Congratulations on reaching your first year milestone 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
Thank you Marisol 🙂
The sweatpants image is hilarious! Congrats on having a great year of self employment. I am working my way towards that goal too. Nice to hear positive stories of people hitting their goals.
Congrats again 🙂
Thank you!
I still have issues with the unlimited access to our fridge! haha, Glad its all working out great for you!
Thank you Anna!
Great to finally be on your main site and thanks for referring me to here. First of all congratulations on the 1 year! How does it feel, sounds like you are loving it?
I’d love to embrace self employment and am considering moving from what I am currently blogging about into a travel/lifestyle blog. Have an ambition of getting to 100 countries by 40 and helping others achieve their travel goals as well or generally travel some more, doing the things they love!
A few questions that I do have are do you use VA’s, if yes how did you hire these and what are you getting them to do for you? Also are you aware of good blogger carnival type websites for travel bloggers?
Let me know if there is anything I can help you with, although it seems like you’re doing very well, and I’d be happy to help out
Hey Jef!
Sounds like a great goal! Hope you get to do that 🙂
I have a few VAs but my main one is my sister (she blogs at http://www.FITnancials.com). I mainly have her staff write.
Sorry, I’m not aware of any carnivals for travel bloggers 🙁
Thanks for the encouraging words and advice Michelle..
Looking forward to sticking around a bit longer and watching you grow and growing with you! 🙂
Thanks Jef!
Congrats! Nothing like being your own boss and working in pajamas!
Yes!
Congrats girl! I would love to be able to work for myself one day, I just need to figure out what that means exactly! In the meantime, the job I have right now is pretty good, so I’m in no rush to leave just yet.
Thank you Lisa!
Hi Can we do the same, i have not that much confidence but current employment is getting boring.
Yes, anyone can start a blog 🙂 https://fund-rise.live/2014/08/how-to-start-a-wordpress-blog-on-bluehost.html%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
I love your article! I’ve been self-employed for a year now ( I run a mini online shop) but I had to quit it so I can practice my degree– I’m actually starting tomorrow (oh how I wish I could cancel tomorrow) I wish it’s already Apr. 2017 so that I could quit and re-start my mini business. How I love being self-employed, they said it’s boring, for me it’s not! That 1 year of being self-employed has been one of the amazing year I had so far. Can’t wait to be my own boss again 🙂