One Snarky Chica with Issues

A few days ago I confessed that I am addicted to buying domain names. I revealed that what I am doing is developing sites for income. The result of that is that I got to a point in February of this year where I was making more online than at my day job and did not have to stress about losing a job. (Disclosure: I also do some freelance writing.)

I have another confession. This past month I took a temporary consulting gig that has me back in corporate finance at a huge international media company.  But thankfully only on a temporary basis.

Why did I do this?

Well, I spoke before about wanting to change my life. And while money might not bring happiness it can certainly bring about change - especially if you have some debt that you are trying to pay off.

What I would really like to do is get back home and focus on my freelance writing and websites. That is what I have been doing to earn money. Instead, I took this short-term gig to earn some extra income that I can throw at debt. Fortunately there is downtime (like right now as I write this) that allows me to continue working on my own projects. While I am certain that they would rather me ‘look busy’ I am quite content to speed through my tasks and then get to work on my own stuff. I also mentioned previously that I am currently in the midst of working on a site that is rather large and requires a lot of work. In order to spend the necessary time on that I needed to cut back on some of my freelancing. That is also where this consulting gig comes into play. It allows me to make some nice income for not a lot of work and frees up time to focus on bigger things. That means I can work on other projects and not have to worry about finding income in the interim.

But it sucks.

And I do not plan on being here long. There is no motivator quite like sitting in a cubicle.

Granted, I don’t have to be here. I could be at home right now doing what I have been doing since February. However, making enough to pay the bills with a little extra is not enough for me right now. I want more. I want to change my life and this consulting gig is the sacrifice that I am making to get to that point. I think sacrifice is the key to changing your life. And this applies to everything from career to debt paydown.

Some people might not see getting a ‘real job’ or a ‘day job’ as much of a sacrifice. But for me, it is a detour from the path I charted for myself. But I am hoping that once I have finished up here that I will be further along that path than if I had stayed the course. And if not, it won’t be a huge loss. I will have gotten paid very well for my time and will have made some valuable contacts in the event that I have to return to this drudgery. And at least I will be able to say that I tried to change things for the better for myself. Can you say the same thing?