Frugal Side Hustle: Freelance Writing with Miranda Marquit

My name is Jen, my name is Jill. And today we have another episode in our Frugal Side Hustle series, and today is all about freelance writing, which was the way that I was able to not get another job when I was laid off at seven and a half months pregnant with your first baby, with my first baby, and I was able to make a really good living really quickly. So this is a side hustle, and you don't have to do it full time to start making money.

We'll find that out later, but this is a really good side hustle to start if you want to achieve eventual income, flexibility, or maybe you're forced into needing it. Yeah, it's something that I've not done as a side hustle, but it was really interesting talking with Miranda hearing what her journey was like. The areas that are just excellent tips for other people who might want to consider this and I think it just opened my eyes to the

level of accessibility. This could be two people from a variety of backgrounds, Like you don't just have to be one thing to do this, although you do have to have the skill set of writing, but even within that, there's all sorts of different types of writing people could do. So my horizons were broadened in talking with Miranda, so I hope yours are too, and that this could be something you consider and find the resources you need from

Miranda in this episode. If this is what you want to do, yes, But first, this episode is brought to you by fire. No, not financial independence or the dumpster fire that describes life sometimes, but the fire that burns within you to know more. This year's listener special is coming up. We do one every year around the end of the year, either November December, and we want to know and this one it's different every year, but this

one we want to know your burning questions. So anything that you want to know that we haven't answered, So maybe something about investing, shoot go for it. Got a specific question about debt that is maybe a little more specific than a general episode might answer. Come at us. I want to know more about our personal lives. We are open books up until the chapter on social Security numbers. We are accepting questions for our listeners special through November.

So if you have a burning question and one and answered by the Frugal Friends, head to Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash special to submit it before November and you can submit it with your name or anonymously. We just want to answer it and for the right price, I might give you my social Security number. That's unwise. If you love side hustles, then here are a few

good episodes to cue after this. Our first episode in our Frugal side Hustle series Digital Products with Elie Diepp got to meet her in person recently, such a gem of human being. Love her and that's episode two forty two. And then also episode on how to make more money with a side business. Any side hustle we are going to talk about in this series is something you can start on the side of your job, but could eventually

grow into a business if you wanted to. So in this Frugal side Hustle series, it's got to be frugal, low cost startup also has to be sustainable with room for growth. So those are two priorities in the side Hustle series, and we have episode. We have really good side hustles lined up for you, guys. I am very excited. We're doing it every other month. We're going to do one.

I'm very excited for this series. Buckle up. And I wanted to start with um or continue with one of my favorite probably arguably my most favorite side hustle freelance writing. And this is something that anybody can start as long as you enjoy writing and are competent at writing. You do not need a degree in it. You don't need to be a good speller or have great grammar. Trust me,

that's what editors are for. That's a different episode. Uh but you can take a lot of the same You can take a lot of the same tips Miranda gives and use it to become a freelance editor too. I

am not an editor. I'm a writer. Uh So I don't have great grammar, but it is it saved my life, honestly, Jill, Like you remember that time in my life because we were doing the podcast, yeah, which wasn't making a ton of money, and man, what a convergence of difficult things for you at that time, almost about to give birth laid off. But yet, thank goodness, you had already begun

aside hustle. You had something that maybe it forced you to lead into it sooner than you would have anticipated, but you had already had that thing, which is almost like an emergency fund in a way, right, Like we save up money in an emergency fund, and I think investing in our skill set and expanding that and having a variety of things that we set our hands to is a different version of an urgency fund. And I'm so grateful that you had that, and and it was

adjacent to the work that you were doing. Right, It's not this complete departure. It was something that was in line with the thing that you already doing already interested in. So I just I think side hustles are great. And even after talking with Miranda, did I think freelance writing is something worth considering for anybody looking for a good

side hustle. Absolutely. For me, freelance writing was a direct conflict of interest with what I was doing because I was writing, so I was able to make I just used that time to make connections with people and to meet other people in the industry. For you, you might not be in writing that is a direct conflict with

what you want to do. So you could maybe do one or two articles a month and just start building something that gets you paid maybe a couple hundred bucks a month, we work up to a thousand, et cetera. So so this is something that if you enjoy writing, definitely, definitely consider. And there's almost no one better to talk about freelance writing with than Miranda Marquet. She's an award

winning freelancer UM. She covers primarily now exclusively financial stuff, but a few other things thrown in there that we'll talk about later. And but she has written for Forbes, Time, The Hill, NPR, Huff Post, Yahoo, Money, Everything, Um, and she does personal finance, investing, college planning, student loans so runs the gamut um. She loves coming on podcasts uh. She is a co host of the Money Talks news podcast. She holds a master's degree in journalism from Syracuse University,

which helped her get started. But, as you will find out, isn't necessary in the landscape today, and she will explain why. So out further ado. Here's Miranda. Let's go, Miranda, Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. We are so delighted to have you. I am delighted to be here. This is fun. Well, I assume it's going to be fun. Well, let's see how this goes. It's not frugal friends. Yeah, that's our motto. So fingers crossed, you will have fun. If you don't,

we will. That's fine. Somebody needs to have on This is a topic I am particularly passionate about and excited to share with everyone. Yeah, and equally for me, mostly because I esteem what you do. I have not written for a living in my life. I'm not like that. That concept of here's the topic, pump out articles is overwhelming to me. But I know many people are so good at it, including yourself, and there's a lot of people who are interested in this as a side hustle.

One of the things that we like to introduce our community too is all types of different ways that you could make money as a side hustle or maybe even a main hustle moving into business ownership. So I know you've got so much to say on this, So if we could kind of go back to the beginning of your own freelance writing, how did you get started? Are you willing to talk to us about some of the monetary gains in those early days. What did that all look like? Yeah, so first of all, I did it

all wrong. Um, I didn't have a real job. So so so basically I graduated from college. And by the time I graduated from college, I was, um pregnant. I got married between the fall semester and spring semester of my senior year in college, so twenty two, getting married a couple of months later, pregnant, graduated with a little baby bump, and then went to work because my my now ex there's there's a lot that just came out right there, but like there's a lot there. But he

was still finishing school. He was a couple of years behind me in school and because of religious mission reasons, not because he's a slacker or anything, but anyway, but he was a couple of years behind me in school. So I started working and uh, you know, had the baby, had jobs whatever. And then when my my ex husband finished his undergrad degree, we both decided to do grad school together. Might as well with the toddler. You know, let's just do this work. Let's just do it, let's

make it work. And so I did. I got my master's degree. Uh, he started a PhD program. And what we decided after I finished my master's degree, which was in journalism, was one good way to do this was I could freelance. So instead of getting a real job, just went all in on freelancing with my shiny new journalism degree and went ahead and used student loans that

he got for his PhD program. We went ahead to use student loans as our basis for a living so that I could start my freelance career, so that I would be able to stay home with our son most of the time and and then grow the freelancing and and kind of support us that way until he finished his PhD and he got his real job and then we could be the perfect gender role family anyway, And none of that happened, and here we are actually really like my X. My X is actually fabulous. He is

one of my favorite people. But yeah, so so yeah, So basically, I kind of I got startarted because I wanted a way to stay home most of the time with my son and provide some support for our family while my X was still in school. And it just sort of snowballed into something that went from the first year I sort of started ramping up and that first year.

By the end of that first year freelancing, we were able to be like, Okay, we can cut back on the amount of student loans were taking for school, because I make enough for us to cover our rent and our instruence needs, and we'll just take a little bit of student loans to cover the cost of my ex's PhD program, plus maybe some food would be nice. And so we kind of figured that out. By the end of the second year, we no longer had to do

student loans for my ex. He by that time he was on a research grant, so he had a fellowship and a small stipend. And I was making close to forty or fifty thousand dollars a year, So that's enough for a full time like that's that's full time. That's a full time salary. And in the seconds year, in my second year, and then by by the time i'd reached year five, I was making six figures and um and just kind of went from there. And so so it just sort of kind of ramped up, but it

did take sometimes sort of build that in. And part of the reason I did get to ramp it up and build it in was the fact that, you know, by the time I got to my second year, my son was old enough to be in preschool, and so he was in preschool, and so I had a little more time to focus. And then the fact that we went ahead and made that choice to take student loans to help us supplement our living so that I could

focus on building my freelance. So I always have to talk about that, because there was a lot of privilege there that allowed me to ramp up my freelance business faster than what might have otherwise been. And then having that master's degree in journalism from Syracuse also helped me in terms of being able to market myself for higher paying gigs because I could say, hey, I held a fancy degree from a fancy school, and and that helped

a lot too. So there's there's a lot there. Um And today I do look at round though, and Jening can probably tell you depending on your niche, depending on what you're writing about, depending on what your focus is. Um, there are people who, like I mean, I remember just starting out and being like I'm getting five dollars for a three hundred word article on bamboo flooring, Like I mean, this is this is beautiful right, this is two This is two thousand five, my friends, this is the early

days of online marketing. A lot of what I was doing at first was basically helping companies, websites, whatever, just build content online. That nobody had content online, right except for a few things, and so so a lot of what I was doing was like, like I'd be translating stuff from like, well, here's a catalog full of our blind options of Venetian blinds, you know whatever, Like here's here's our catalog of blinds. Now translate that all for online.

And here's some s c O terms we want. Like that's what I was doing six hours a day today today freelancers. I sort of envy the young freelancers of today who are just like, well, yes, I am going to get paid two hundred dollars to write eight hundred words on this nice financial topic and hurrah. And I'm like, that must be nice. But I don't I don't begrudge them. I do feel a little jealous sometimes, but I don't ever, I don't ever feel like, well, you must toil because

I did. I am happy that, you know, online content has moved in a direction where if you know where to look, and you have those tools, then you can find good paying gigs to start with, and it's not as difficult it used to be to like get to that, like even just a thousand dollars a month, depending on your niche and everything. You can do that with five articles.

So yeah, I have to say that though sometimes between writing about a state tax and life insurance companies, I might have been enjoyed a five hundred word article on Venetian blinds. There are days. There are days like I had a thing. I had a thing where like I was going through this whole thing where like all the content I was writing was how to do X wedding.

So it's like how to do a Western wedding, how to do a winter wedding, how to do a medieval wedding, how to do a spring wedding, how to do a summer wedding, how to do a fall wedding, how did you a mermaid theme wedding? How did you like? And I was just talking like how to do all of these theme weddings, and I was just like, Okay, let's do that's get in the zone. Well, I know you're

saying that maybe you didn't do it right. Quote unquote from the start, but it sounds as though you found your own pathway forward in it and to some degree have achieved. You've you've achieved in the midst of it. And and I think that there are some really helpful things in your story for those who might be interested in this, and that it is something that can be done from home or even potentially on the road as long as you've got internet connection. It has the ability

to have flexibility. Of course, you do need skill and talent in being able to write, and clearly being able to write over and over and over and over and over again, sometimes on the same thing but like a different lens, and so that can become monotonous. But for someone who feels as though they do have a skill set in writing, they want some of that flexibility. I think this is a really great option to be able

to build upon. And I think the unique thing about what we're talking here in freelance writing is you there's you can write on anything. You can write on whatever area you feel expert in. I know, Jen, you ended up writing on the area you said you weren't expert in, but you became under you know, you had a good then base and understanding and knowledge because of them making

you right on that. But I think this is a sphere that someone in any type of profession could do if you have the skill set to write on whatever area of expertise you have. So there's a lot here that I think is accessible for people. Yeah, And I think one of the things to remember too is even though I talk, I joke about doing it the wrong way, the same time made very intentional choices. We're very intentional

about how we went about this. We said, Okay, we know that I need time to ramp up, and we know that I want to be able to stay home. So we went ahead and wade those pros and cons and decided, okay, student loans for the PhD program is the way to go. And even though the plans changed over time, even though life always changes no matter what five year plan you make, the reality situation is we did go into this intentionally and really think through, Okay,

what do we need? What needs to happen in order for us to start working towards these goals that we have. And I think that's part of it too. Right when you're when you're if you're going to decide to do any side hustle or freelance right or anything like that. You need to look at where you want to be. And as um Joe saw Sea High from Stacking, Benjamin says, you look at where you want to be and then you kind of if you begin with the end in mind,

you look at that end and you kind of work backward. Yeah. And alternatively, you can just get laid off eight weeks before you give birth and then decide, Okay, I have a freelance writing career now. Ye perfect, I mean absolutely perfect, no masters in journalism, but no formal training in finance, and just say okay, I'm a I'm a personal finance

freelancer now. But it did help that I had one year of full time writing in personal finance already, so I just used that to my advantage and use my My network was actually what helped me get started was that I had spent time building a network, not even a network, I hate that word. Really. I had just spent time like making friends with other people who were in personal finance as writers, editors, website owners, and that

paid off in the end. But if you're not going to just decide you have this career after getting right off, what are some of the questions people should ask themselves before getting into this, because it's not the four hour work week glamour nomad beauty that some people make it

out to be. Well and actually so one of the things I do like about freelance writing so at this point in my career, so, like I said, I started doing this two five, I really started writing about finances and two six, so I've been doing this for almost

twenty years. I'm an internet dinosaur anyway, So like, but I think one of the things to kind of think about is is once you start building that and you start getting better paying gigs and you start getting think your financial feed under you with this is you do have a lot of freedom and flexibility. I'm to the point now where I can sustain my personal the conditions that I prefer to live live in. I can sustain that working somewhere between ten and fifteen hours a week

on client work, like on client writing. So I can sustain that on that amount of client writing because of what I get paid for article and how much time it takes me to write them, which is not very much, and the kinds of clients that I choose, which aren't super labor intensive and so so I do kind of have that flexibility to It's not exactly a four hour week work week, but to be able to make six figures working ten to fifteen hours a week is I mean to me, I mean, that's as close to the

dream as you're gonna get. But it takes, but it takes. You do have to work to that, like you said, and you yeah, and and there are there are times like early in my career where I was working four year, fifty hours a week and I was, you know, just trying to churn out as many of these like keyword articles as humanly possible bowl and you know when when my son was in first grade, you know, being like, okay, I got six hours, like as much as I could do in six hours, and just cram it all in.

And so there were those times, and so you kind of have to be ready for that because any time you start any side hustle, the first part of it is just grueling and it's a slog and you have to kind of be realistic about it. Now, almost twenty years later, I have a lot more freedom, a lot more flexibility. I do this on the road A lot of the time. I'll travel and I can travel for a week or two at a time, which gives me a day or two in there to just set up work and just do work and then go site see

or go eat delicious food. So it really is flexible and it really does have freedom. But like you said at the beginning, sometimes you really are It's sometimes it feels like a slog and my goodness if I have to write another credit card review, which I will probably

too again. But yeah, like you're not writing if you're a jobbing I called a jobbing writer, Like you have a job, it's your job, I call like, if you're a jobbing writer, you are not writing amazing, high flown treatises on whatever it is you want to write about. You do that on your own time, like after you've made the money, right, the boring stuff, and then you can write what you want to write with whatever's left. Yeah, that's so true. It's not like the glamorous like investigative journalism.

You're not going to be, you know, writing the narratives you hear on podcasts. A lot of it is kind of boring stuff. Um that you have to really be able to focus and write for several hours and at a time to finish. But then but those are the ones that tend to pay the best too. You don't need my fancy degree to do this. If you have reasonably good writing skills, and you have the capability to

improve your writing skills, then you can do that. And it doesn't matter what sort of degree you have, what sort of qualifications you have. When I started writing about money, I had no clue. And I mean I was I wanted to write about science. I was writing. I was writing for physics dot com and then doing a whole bunch of this like bamboo flooring and everything else to like you know whatever. And then and then I had like a couple of articles a month from physics dot com,

which I really enjoyed. I really enjoyed the science writing. But you know, an opportunity came up to start writing about money, and that's that's what happened. I just sort of kind of shifted tracks. And because they're gonna be niches that pay better, and money is one of those niches that pays probably the best. You might get paid a little bit more and like entertainment and celebrity gossip news, but that can be harder to break into because everybody

wants to do that. Uh, and then you need to have a certain amount of access depending on where you're writing. So for one of the niches to break into, writing about money is probably one of the most profitable for those who are considering this freelance writing as a side hustle or their main business. Do you have any tips for them, Miranda on how to set themselves up to

get some of the better jobs. Yeah, So it kind of starts with So I personally think it's a good idea to just te your own website, have a blog that you can write some things on, especially if you don't have any clips from anywhere else, so that at least you have something that you can send, and then you know, hit the job hit the job boards. Um, the pro Blogger job board is a good place to start.

Media Bistro offers some places to start, and then journalism jobs and then um, I actually got my first jobs on up work. I know that's like the lowest place to start, but that was helpful, Like I was, I got some of my first like I know, I know, but it is. It was super easy and it was my first like bylines that weren't on my block. But I did get an actual, like full time writing job only based on the writing on my personal blog. So yeah,

definitely have your own website. Yeah, so your on website helps UM and you can find like anymore they have um. LinkedIn actually does a bunch of jobs that you can do. You can set up. That's where I got this and one, yeah, is LinkedIn, and so I do a lot of you know, LinkedIn. Put a little open to work thing on there when you're doing your LinkedIn profile, like identify yourself as a

freelance writer. Also if you want to be in a specific niche, the kind of niche you want to do, like my LinkedIn and says I'm a freelance financial writer, so that people can find that. So you can find those and it really, I mean it just it kind of helps. So I did. I had a whole process where I would I would get started in the day, like if I had something to do that day, I would write what I needed to write. But then I would spend two hours looking for jobs, like I would

hit all of the job boards. So I spent two hours hitting the job boards, you know, make checking to see if any of my clips have been published, so that I could add them to my portfolio on my website and then updating that kind of stuff, so I would, so I did. I just had a whole thing where I spent time looking for jobs. Another good place to look as Twitter. If you look on Twitter and the hashtag freelance, hashtag writing jobs, those two hashtags can really

help you find some freelancing. A lot of people post jobs. A lot of people who are looking for one off pitches also posts. So if you don't mind making pitches, you can say, like, oh, okay, here's somebody who's looking for this article, and it can be a good way to get into a good publication and get a good byeline and get paid for it. And then, like Jen said, building your network is huge. You know, look for some freelance groups, look for like connect with other freelancers, and

that helps you as well. Like a lot of us, as we kind of go through in our in the freelance world, like we start developing like specialties even within personal finance, like I write about investing a lot in cryptocurrency and college planning and student loans. I do not like writing about insurance if I can avoid it. Nobody does, But there are people who eat. But there are people who do really well at it. So I have a friend, Yeah, my friend Cat. You you can make a lot of

money in insurance writing and so. But if somebody comes to me and like I've got an insurance gig for you, I'm like, here is Cats and so, well write your insurance for you, not not I. And and likewise, when somebody wants a Cat to write about investing, uh, somebody will come to Cat and be like, we want investing specifically cryptocur and She's like, no, no, thank you, Miranda will write about your scam crypto and so anyway, yeah, I I think the network has been It was integral

in in my like freelance writing career, and I I was similarly able to increase my income like really rapidly, but again that was because I was kind of pushed into doing it full time very quickly, and and it was because I had this network of people. And Cat you're you know, of course co author. She was like an integral part of that too, like I met her when I was writing for the Penny Order and just

all of the the networking that I've done. Again, I hate that word friendship, Like me people meeting yeah, that has been the most effective, and like yeah, being like, oh I have I don't you know, really do this, but here's this person that would be really good to talk about it, and um, you know Cat would be like, hey, I don't have any room on my plate for this? Do you think you would want to do it? And

eventually editors will know what you're known for. And and I like, I haven't written in probably over a year, like for higher and I just got an email from an editor the other day saying like, hey, we have this article, and I was like I can't. So yeah, I definitely definitely agree with that. But yeah, and you were so you went in slightly two niches, and I do think that's like when you knitche yourself down, that's where like bigger money comes in. So you mentioned like

maybe celebrity, the gossip and entertainment money. Is there anything else? Like what are maybe the top five niches that you've seen for money making? Over my minute? Yeah? So uh so, interestingly travels an interesting one because the pay for the article may not be quite as high, but if you get the right gigs, then they pay for you to do the thing, so you get so you get so so that's nice, So travels a nice one because of that.

If you can write so this isn't really a niche, but if you can write web copy, if you're good at writing web copy marketing copy, you can actually get paid higher. So being able to write that sort of web copy that converts for sales whether and and then that includes like if you can write emails, which is a different type of writing as well, but kind of under that marketing copy. But if you can do a good job at writing emails and web copy, that's probably

your top. That's probably your top. If you're a really good marketing copywriter, you can get lots of good money there. And actually white papers and case studies pay pretty well. So if you can if you have a good technical writing, a good handle on like technical rideing and explaining concepts and putting together compelling case studies, uh, than white papers

and case studies can also pay fairly well. So that's so that's kind of outside of like subject, you know, it's kind of outside of genre, but but they're types of writing that pay really well. And then kind of along with that, press releases. If you can write a good press release, you can get upwards of a dollar per word. Basically what amounts to about a dollar per word if you can write a good press release. So there's there's stuff like that that can really be helpful.

One of the things I like to do is well is so to get access to things like writing press releases, some email copy and that kind of thing is connecting with agencies and so you know agencies that do this kind of stuff, like pr agencies and whatnot, and like, I don't work for them full time, but I'm on the list of some different agencies who every couple of months have like they need extra help, they need a little bit more from somebody, and so they'll come to

me and be like, anyway, write us a press release and it needs to be turned around fast. So now now we're really getting paid because it's got to be fast and it's a press release. And so so developing like reaching out looking for agencies on LinkedIn kind of reaching out can be helpful because those kinds of things pay well. But yeah, writing about money pays well depending on well, Yeah, and then like entertainment celebrity stuff can pay well. It depends on you know where you're going

and what you're at. So it's just it's kind of

an interesting mix, but your best. But as far as stuff that's relatively easy to write without qualifications, uh and without a lot of practice, let's be honest, starting in the financial niches, like like financial stuff because because financial so I'm already listening to a financial podcast, so you have some background, right, well, and that's the thing, right if you can explain these concepts in a way that's simple and compelling, because most of the time, like companies

that are trying to make money from financial products like conversions on like credit card right, affiliate stuff like from credit cards and from insurance leads and from loans and you know, all of that stuff, and you know, from opening an investment account, like all of those things generally

pay fairly well. One of the reasons why I, like, I actually charge more when I write a credit card review, Like like a charge more when I write a credit card review than I do for like if I'm writing about investing, right, because the credit card review is written to convert, it's written specifically to do that, and they're getting a nice big fat kickback from every credit card that's you know, so so that's that's kind of something I'd take into account as well, right, like your rate

isn't your rate like your rate trying to depicts Yeah, and even still rates are kind of still kind of shrouded in secrecy to yeah, it's not. I mean, when you get in there, you can kind of find what, you know, what should I be asking for from this person and stuff like that. But yeah, so you can charge whatever. You can change your rates based on what they're asking you to do too. If there's no like standard where they're you know they're looking for, that's awesome.

Uh So, last question on this part, what are the common mistakes most new freelancers make and how can we how can they stay away from them? So, I think one of the biggest things is trying to figure out that balance between how much work do I do for free as a beginner and how much do I insist that I'm getting paid for And trying to find that a balance can be very difficult because on the one hand, you're just like, I just need my byline somewhere and so so I usually say, Okay, don't do a ton

of free work. Be kind of strategic if you can get your name out there in a network or something like that and get paid a small amount, or even just do one or two articles for somebody for exposure, as long as it doesn't take a ton of time. Because the reality of the situation is that if you're going to be building your portfolio for free, you might as well be doing it on your own website, where at least you own the content and where you control the content, and where you can send people to read

samples of your writing. So I think one of the biggest things is like doing too many free pieces. You know, kind of figure out like, Okay, I will do I will do one or two pieces for exposure so I can get at least a byeline that's not on my website to send people to, or like you said, you know, do a couple of pieces through up work. But I

wouldn't make up work my main place. I did. So before up work existed, there was this thing called Guru and went and it was like up work, but you know, anyway, and it was because when you're on these sites like that, you're basically you're competing to undercut yourself, right, You're competing to undercut yourself because you want the lowest price, because

that's what they're looking for. And so you know, do one or two to get that you know off your own site byline, like you said, and then go back to developing your own writing and your own voice and your own style on your own website. But you'll have

these other things. They're like, Okay, you can check out my writing on my website, but also here are two other places where I've been published, and then so yeah, so, But I think the biggest thing is spending so much time doing free or super low paid work that you don't have time to lead yourself open to other opportunities or to even develop your own place. I guess, yeah, yeah, that's great. I never worked for free to build somebody

else's business. The only free writing I did was in order to like, like a guest post on somebody's blog to get back links to my website. That was the only free writing I did. And otherwise, if it was not building my business, I didn't write for free. That was my rule, and I stuck to it. And even those those first upwork ones, I made like seventy five

bucks an article, and that was great. Yeah, I did that for a few months, and then I moved on and that yeah, because you you really do you can't expect to be making a couple hundred bucks an article starting out, but you you got to move through the season's at a relatively good pace if you want to keep with it, right, yeah, if you If you don't, just want to be ready to like give up immediately because like, yeah, you know, and you go through a thing where you're like, okay, now I've got to send

you know, you do with a few things on out work pretty pretty easy, do a couple of things for free, and then like you move into the pitch phase, right, So you start pitching places and if you can or going to job boards that offer to like pro Blogger isn't gonna offer you amazing pay, but it's gonna be you can find good, mediocre, low barrier to entry things

that you can try and do. One one thing you can do is like on LinkedIn that's really interesting is you look for for jobs on LinkedIn where they're looking for full time positions. And this is what my friend Cat does is show message them, shall reach out to them and say, hey, I'm not interested in full time position, but you need me to fill in temporarily until you get that position filled. And then a lot of the time, they just they're just like, oh this is this is

working out just fine. They keep sending her kill your work. And so so there's things like that you can do.

Um and like you said, you kind of you get your start and you know, do a couple of quick articles to get your byline out there real fast, get a couple of things on your own website so you have something to show, and then start applying at job boards, start doing pitches, and start really kind of looking for those long term kind of stable things like most of yeah, most of my clients now are clients that want between

four and eight articles per month from me. And that stability where I just you know more, I know I'm gonna go work every month is very very nice and helpful. Yeah, but starting somewhere and figuring out how to get take a next step in the next step, in the next step, and not staying stuck in any of these areas, but that there is so much room to grow within this type of work, which I think is really compelling. You know what else is compelling and and free sometimes low costs,

sometimes super high costs. It really runs the gamut. Very low barrier to entry, though the bill of the week. That's right, it's time for the best minute of your entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name is William. Maybe you paid off your mortgage, maybe your car died, and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore. Duck Bill, Buffalo Bills, Bill Clinton, this is the bill of the week, Miranda, it's happening. It's here, the famed bill of the week, and so we would

love to hear yours today. So does sounds really bad because most of my stuff is automatic, so I don't really know what's coming out, Like if there's anybody named

Bill that you also also the right now. No, honestly though, because I am a politician and I am running for office for me right here in the great state of Idaho, the actual bill of the week for me is the fact that we have a trigger law that we're fighting over right now in the courts and once thirty days after the Dobbs decision, pretty much almost any type of abortion. Can I say that on the show Do We Care?

It's your bill, it's your bill, pretty much ditty sort of abortion became murder and so uh so, anyway, that's my bill of the week because we're just here in Idaho, we have we have a we have a bounty law that's bigger than Texas is and um, yeah, our bounty is bigger than the Texas bounty. We were were special here. So that's my bill of the weeks. That's what's got my aunties in a twist right now. Al Right, it's our first congressional bill. And I was not even it's

not even Congress. It's like a state Oh, I was state bill. Well, I was waiting for some kind of law bill bill and politician. That's so interesting. It's exciting to have a politician and successful freelance writer on the show. Yeah, a little less than two weeks, so we'll see whether I actually won. It'll be fun. Yeah, it'll be fun.

That's amazing. Thank you, Miranda. Um, if you want to submit your bill of the week, whether it is congressional bill, state bill, your favorite politician named bill, visit Frugal Friends podcast dot com, slash bill and leave us your bill. And now it's time for pew pew. All right, so I'm excited for this question. Um, today's lightning around question. If you were to write fiction as a side hustle, what genre would your fiction be in fantasy. Oh, quick answer,

like any type of sub genre for fantasy. Um, I like adventure, fantasy, magic, fantasy. No romance up in this business. Unfortunately, that would not be mine either. UM, I have nothing against romances. If you like a do your thing Jill, tell us all the romance you're gonna write, I'm just gonna yeah, super silacious. Uh. You know this is not something I've ever dreamt about. Um, I don't and I'm real zing. I don't engage in fiction really at all in any parts of my life. I don't watch fiction,

I don't read fiction. I don't write fiction. I dreamed that you would say children's I was just going to say that, though, if I were to write anything, it'd be children's books. But I don't even know that I'd go the fiction round. I would just like help them, like utilize children's story. I mean, yeah, I guess it'd be fiction. It would be like children's versions of self help, Like how do I deal with this anger that's inside of me? How do I deal with my parents who

keep telling me no I need that. If you are a politician in Idaho who has progressive leanings, the angers inside you, all the time, and so I could use that book. So she needs an adult children's book, that is what she needs. Yes, so I okay, So I do us into fiction audio books like quite frequently, but I have never had a desire to right them. I think I would also write children's fiction because there's so much annoying like children's fiction out there that I would

like to write non annoying. I really like Sandra Boynton's board books. Uh. They are punny, they are witty, and I would like to put more of that into the world. Yeah, so that would probably be mine. M wow. She has one about emotions, happy hippo, angry ducks. Your emotions, Yeah, your your emotions can always change unless you're this duck. He's always this way. He's just angry wow and angry duck Bill. Yeah. Is that super? Is that penny enough

for you? Jim? It's amazing. You're gonna be brilliant. You're gonna be brilliant. Miranda, thank you so much for coming on. Um, where can people get more from you if they want to see maybe you're writing or maybe like, do you have anything to help freelance writers get started? Where can people find more from you? Just head on over to Miranda Marquet dot com, where you can see where I write about how I use money as a tool to live the life that I want, as well as freelancing.

I do have a lot of stuff on freelancing there and some resources and tools that I use as a freelancer, so you'll be able to get access to that as well, And then you can follow me on Twitter. It's at m Marquett. I'm very active on Twitter, and I write about freelancing and money on Twitter and share things about sometimes about politics on Twitter and specifically things where politics are affecting personal finances and life, so that's kind of

specifically what I focused on when I share politics on Twitter. Awesome, thanks for joining us today, Miranda, Yeah, thank you so much for having me on. Well, she clearly did it.

I mean she she started. She started from the bottom, meaning baby at home, living off of student loans, and and now she's here with yeah, really successful businesses and has really grown a career in writing, which might not be everyone's goal, but hopefully anyone who's interested in freelance writing can find themselves somewhere in her story and take some sort of tip with them and a lot of the links that Miranda mentioned will have in our show notes.

So if you're just kind of just dip in your toes in the water and trying to figure out where would I even get started, um, that's a great place as well as the resources Miranda mentioned. Yeah. Absolutely, And if you have any questions, uh, you can email me to our messages on Instagram and Paula, our social media manager, will forward it to me. But yeah, hoping that this

helps you. Guys, if you need to make extra income and you are limited by time or location, this is an absolute game changer for people and you can start making money quickly with it too. It's not a get rich quick scheme, but making six figures with freelance writing, especially in the finance niche within three to five years is not unheard of. It's actually very common. Yeah, it's not six figures and six months, but even the people who are promising that it's few and far between and

it doesn't last long. So yeah, just so to find somewhere where it is common. That's a definite Like Unicorn, and stay tuned for more from our series of other types of side hustles. If this one's not for you, then fine, keep with with us. Hopefully there'll be something in here that does pique your interest. Thank you all so much for listening, and we're deciding to go the O G route today and share a kind review that we recently received. Those kind reviews still do help us.

Those those five star, those nice words, they are very very helpful way to support the show. This one comes from Hailey Buggoogle. There's a lot of geese, but I think it's just Haley Bug and it says thank you with a heart emoji. I'm diving into budgeting and working on being debt free. I'm earning that just listening to podcasts about these topics is really helpful, even if I don't take much from it. Episode to twenty two really impacted me. I've been scared to budget because I used

to be nuts about counting calories and dieting. I restricted and said I can't because I'm on a diet. Now I have a healthy diet that is balanced and like second nature. It took about five years to get the hang of it. So I don't restrict, but I am conscious. I never thought about budgeting like this. It will take time. I'll purge, I'll restrict too much. I'll fall off track, but with slow, steady, intentional action, it will become second nature.

Thank you for the great podcast. I also loved Breaking the Cycle of Poverty. It was my first listen and I felt immediately seen and related. I'm breaking a lot of cycles. I also appreciated when you firstly mentioned your own privileges in that episode, something we should always consider when giving financial advice. Thank you, ladies Hale. I love it you feel seen and I feel seen by you

in this review, So thank you. Yeah, that episode to twenty two that she mentioned stop strict budgeting and start living in the radical middle is definitely one of my favorite episodes, so I'm glad that that I really impacted you. And the one I'm breaking the cycle poverty, we really took a lot of care with that one since it is such a hot topic with so it's a charged topic. I'll say it's a charged topic to tread lightly on it,

So thank you so much for that. Well, for all of you who are listening and might want more, I mean, there's plenty of ways to support us, like leaving us a kind review, but if you also just want to engage with us more and get help on this financial journey paying off debt. We do monthly challenges in a private community that you could join by heading to Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash club see what kind of

money challenge we have coming up. They're all aimed at helping us get better with our finances, pay down debt, increase our savings, spend more intentionally and according to our values. So if that sounds like something really helpful for you, Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash club see you next time. Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Sirian. So apparently Jen, you and I need to team up, become business partners

and write a children's book. I think maybe that's our our Maybe our second book is maybe a version for children, a children's like financial literacy, like super low level, talking about our resources, helping kids choose the radical middle is that they don't have to be all one way or all the other. Isn't that such a like life if you realized that when you were a child, how many

things would it have changed? So many? And children's fiction is a lot more profitable than adult nonfiction, So that's probably if we want to make money, where we should go The children's section at the library is the best section at the library. Well, that's probably why it makes it's It's the same in Barnes and Noble. Like the children's section is always more inviting. Even as an adult, I want to go to the colorful section with the bean bag chairs and boys. They always have good nooks. Yeah,

I think a good nuck. I love a good knook. I figured that's the right reason for the decline in adult nonfiction sales. No nooks, that's our feedback for them. Get more knooks, you'll get more sales. Amen, you don't want to know how to save Barnes and Noble knooks good knocks next to your books. Books and books, mm hmm, books and knooks. It's an indie bookstore name if I ever heard one. I'm going there. See you later, bye,