Episode threeh eight Frugal Side Hustle Virtual Assistant with Shatoria Smith.
Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to save money, embrace simplicity, and live a life. Here your hosts Jen and Jill.
Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. My name is Jen, my name is Jill, and today is a special episode for a few reasons.
Super special.
First, we have the wonderful Shatoria Smith on here to talk about virtual assisting, not like from somebody who's hawking a two thousand dollars course and says that this is the solution to all of your problems and you'll never be sad again.
But we don't make those kinds of no, we don't.
She has a full time job and she's successfully side hustling as a virtual assistant with three young kids, three kids under five, and planning a wedding, and she's amazing. So that is the first and main reason why this is a special episode. The second reason is that if you are listening to this on the day it airs, it is my birthday.
Happy birthday.
No, no, no, get that, get that out of here. The third is that this is actually my last episode, just for three weeks.
Oh my god, there's so many like taking me to a peak just dropping.
Jill was like, what this is your last episode? We didn't talk about this, So for the next three weeks, Jill's going to have surprise guest co.
Hosts oh I did it before when Jen gave birth the first time around. Here we are again. It's old hat, folks.
Yeah, I wanted to stay, to stay through to my birthday episode. That was my goal, and here we are.
Here we are.
So there are many reasons that today's episode is special, and those are just some of them.
The special too, because I'm still here. This is Jill.
Jill tell you'll hear about.
Our other sponsor, virtually impossible here to challenge that assumption. Virtually impossible is really just saying there's a chance. So whether you want that virtual assistant job or you want to become debt free, just know it is possible. And to prove it's possible to become debt free at least, check out season one of Debt Free Stories on YouTube.
We've got ten interviews with listeners just like you who've taken the principles we talk about on the show and use them to pay off over eight hundred thousand dollars of debt combined, like collectively, between the ten interviews, it represents eight hundred thousand dollars of debt, which is amazing. So head to YouTube dot com slash frugal Friends to figure out how they did it. Be inspired, make the most of frugality and just do it. It's not virtually
virtually possible. Virtually possible, which actually kind of seems like that implies impossible. Just adding virtually means like there's a chance.
There's a chance, and there's a chance that you could make money as a virtual assistant or VA as we'll call it a lot for those of you who are unfamiliar with what a VA is. It is a assistant in some sort. It offers some kind of service virtually, So a lot of the time that's just like inbox
management or data transfer or customer service. So like tasks that a business owner can do but doesn't want to do, they'll hire a virtual assistant and they'll start very general, and you can get more and more niche as you progress as a business, as you progress as an assistant, when you find what you like to do. So there are virtual assistants for everything, proofreading, editing, graphic design, which is a little different than a graphic designer like light
graphic design. There's for podcasting. You could just work with podcasters, you could just work with YouTubers, you can just work with bloggers. You can just work with authors, like self published authors. So there are so many niches, and then so many niches within the niches that there are a lot of opportunities with virtual assisting and we're very excited
to talk about those with Shatoria. But if you are looking for a side hustle and maybe you listen to this episode and it's not one hundred percent for you, we do this series every other month, so we have a lot of other options for you. So we've got episode two seventy eight where we talk about Salesforce. Two fifty seven, we talk about how to get into freelance writing.
Episode two forty two we talk about selling dish products online. Obviously, so we do have quite a few options for you, and this is just another one on the list.
I love this series that we're doing, and here we are with Shatoria, who's going to talk to us about being a virtual assistant. She is the creator of coin count and Mama a blog that focuses on family finance and her journey towards debt freedom. So she is just a fellow frugal shit. Shatoria has a bachelor's degree in accounting and an MBA in finance, just crushing it, and now she's teaching women how to become a virtual assistant so they can start making money from the comforts of
their own home. And as you'll learn, as a side hustle too. It doesn't have to be your main hustle. So here's Shatoria.
Shatoria, thank you so much for joining us on the Frugal Friends podcast. We are excited to talk about how people can make money as a virtual assistant.
Thanks so much for being here. We've been talking about side hustles and all different types of side hustles, and I think this one will be really interesting and accessible to a lot of our listeners. So thanks for being here. Shatria. Thank you.
I'm happy to be here and I want to be able to be a resource for a lot of women and some mental who are interested in learning about virtual assistant.
Awesome, Well, let's dive in. So what are some of the services a virtual assistant can offer and which of those are really in demand today.
So virtual assistants can offer a wide array of services from creating Google word documents, transcribing podcasts, virtual bookkeeping, light graphic design and CANVA copywriting, blog editing, swapping out just images on blogs, proofreading. There are so many avenues that you can go down, but I think people tend to like, oh, I don't have the experience, so I can't do it.
And what I try to relate to people is you just have to be resourceful and use the skills that you acquired, whether it was in school or if you volunteer for any charitable organizations nonprofit or even at church, if you typed up meeting minutes, or if you typed emails like the sky's the limit. But a lot of VA tasks that I see that are in demand are
administrative because you have business owners. They're like, I can do it, but I just don't have the time to do it, such as customer service, responding to emails, following up with leads, or even outreach reaching out to brands or podcasts that you want to work with. So that's one area that I see in high demand.
It sounds like a wide array of skill set, but not super complicated skills something like you said you may have done in another role maybe peripherally, or was a part of it of the things that you listed off. Would you say it's usually kind of a massive combination of all of those things, or do you find like someone could really get into like a niche and only transcribe podcasts or is it usually a smattering?
It could be both. I think it depends on like the niche, depending if you want to go that route or if you just want to be a general VA and say, well, I can do these five tasks and it doesn't matter if I work with content creators or attorneys or nutritionists, like I can offer those services to whomever I decide to reach out to or vice versa if they decide to reach out to me, So it can work both ways.
Yeah, I feel so like that was what you just said, was like the first thing we hired out for the podcast is responding to emails customer service like our inbox just like got out of control. And then also some of the light graphic designs, so like pictures in blog posts or like Pinterest images. That was a while ago, right, But yeah, so that's exactly what. That was our first hire, and then we started hiring more specific roles. So like we have Goldie. Shout out to Goldie.
She's great.
She's like our podcast manager and she's like specific for podcasts. She works with podcasters just in podcasts, and so we obviously like pay her more because she knows exactly like what when I ask her to do something, she knows exactly why I'm asking her to do it. She doesn't need me to explain why it's important. So yeah, like we that's the experience that we've had as people people hiring vas.
Are people when they do hire, are they generally is this like a subcontract or position or do you see many companies who are hiring virtual assistance as an employee? Like what what do you see in the space?
So it's more of a subcontractor type of position. Now there are some like for instance, I work with an accountant doing virtual book keeping for her and she's her business has grown like at a rapid pace, and although I still have my full time job, she was looking for somebody who could come on board as a senior
accountant in her business. So she did have an opportunity for someone to become full time in her business, but she still has those subcon tracting opportunities for those of us who just want to work an extra twenty or thirty hours a month.
Man, I really love the flexibility and varying degrees of skill set and virtual assistant. And we're kind of assuming everyone knows what we mean by this, But like not going into an offense, being able to work from home, working primarily from the computer, how much could someone as a beginner virtual assistant expect to make? This sounds really great, but is there is there money in it especially for a beginner and then income trajectory from there? What are you what are you seeing?
Absolutely so, I personally believe that an entry level virtual assistant should start at twenty or twenty five dollars an hour, no less than that. And it also depends on the skill set or that they're the service that they're offering to a potential client. So let's use the bookkeeping for
an example. If you're going in and you're doing a lot of analyzing reports and pulling in data and interpreting what these reports mean, and you have that accounting background, I would assume or hope you would make a little more than twenty five dollars an hour, Whereas if it's somebody who says, well, you know, like I'll use myself. Yeah, I have the financial background, but I was often tasked at work to create a lot of SOPs and forums
and emails and things of that nature. But I never looked at myself as a set secretary or someone with
that administrative background, like that experience. So when I took on a task, they were like, oh, well, we can offer you twenty dollars an hour to meet Okay, you know, because I probably would have came in much lower than that, but looking at the amount of work that I had to do, and you also have to do like education, because there's some platforms you may not know how to use, and so some business owners will teach you how to use it, or they can say, hey, you know, there
is a site you can go to to learn how to use this X, Y, and z. And once I ended up learning how to use a particular software and I felt that I mastered it, then at that point it's like, Okay, it doesn't take me as long to do this task as it initially did, so I'm going to increase my rate or you may find that the demand is starting to grow for clients, because I was telling someone yesterday that word of mouth referrals is huge, and so if you've worked with several clients and you've
done except great job working with those clients, they're going to go ahead and refer you to someone else. And when you see that demand come in, it's like, hey, you know, let me bump my rate up, you know, to let people know, like, I'll provide this quality service and I want to get paid for this service as well. But there are a lot of entry level virtual assistants who have been able to quit their jobs, like within the first six months because of the demand and the
services that they have provided. So there, I like to tell people the opportunity is there. You just have to in some cases be patient. Everything's not going to fall in your lab immediately, but you will be surprised how quickly you can find that entry level position if you just market yourself, network and just be confident in yourself and in your abilities.
What is a good way for someone to be able to find some of these jobs, Like before the word of mouth gets out and you're just crushing it and everyone is reaching out and telling their friends about you, like how how do you find those those first few jobs?
Social media? I found a lot of mine, I'm not a lot all of them on Instagram wow, And I was finding accounts that or in a sense, honestly, I just like stories and leave genuine comments, like I wasn't out there saying like oh hi, because I'm sure you guys get people cold pitching in the DMS, leaving these
eight paragraphs about what they can do. And it's like, I don't want to do that because if there's somebody who's a business owner and they have they don't really have that much time to sit here and read this thesis statement or this this research paper. You know, it's like I just want to like something, so like Jen, if it was some I'm like, oh my gosh, what is the baby? Do you know? Things like that? Or oh I have a little boy, Like I find things
in common and I'll just engage that way. And surprisingly I've received a lot of clients that way, just from genuine interaction, and I make sure it's somebody that has something in common with me or something that I can relate to. If there's something that I really can't relate to, I don't want to just put myself out there because that's going to be awkward for me to try to come up with a conversation that I really can't relate with that person, you.
Know, amen, And as a business owner, that that is what I want to see. I want to see the short responses and the and the genuineness because you're going to be working with this person hopefully for years to come, so you want to be able to relate to them. You want to like them, and when you reach out, Like my favorite outreaches are when somebody like insults your work and says, oh, I can make it better. I
love that. But like so I know when somebody, when I see somebody respond genuinely with with genuine insight, I know that's how they're going to reach out to other people. When I ask that to outreach to get us on other podcasts or for a business partnership, I already know how they're going to outreach. And I like that because they've already put that thought, Like I know what they're thinking,
and I'm like, I like the way you're thinking. I think that way, so exactly what you said, That's what I want to see in an outreach as a business owner, for.
Sure, And I tell people like, excuse me, you don't necessarily have to wait until someone puts something in there on their stories or make create a post to say like, oh, I'm hiring, because they may in the back of their mind know like, oh, I do know at some point in time I'm going to need to hire a copywriter
or someone is to do the like graphic design. And if you've just been interacting, that genuine interaction with them, and then it's like, hey, let me go this Shatoria person and you know she says things on my post. Let me see where she's going, what's going on her page? Oh, she's a virtual assistant. Let me go through. Oh I like that, you know. And then I'll say, hey, how
can I learn more about your service? It's always happened like that, And so I just encouraged like some of the newbies, like, hey, be genuine, leave genuine comments, like if there's a post that they like that you don't like, then don't like it?
Like you don't, Yes, you don't want to work with people you don't.
Like authentic, Yeah, engaging in the world in an authentic way.
What are we saying I know.
Right, you know, it's like, I'm sure the same thing. It's somebody will like fifty posts and then it's like they finally was like, yeah, I've been following you for years. No you have not, like you just like these fifty posts and now you're dropping this in my DM's like, come on, you're.
Just emailing me with the most recent episode I just did and saying you liked it and trying to get me to give you money. I love that one too. I love that. Yeah, I everything you're saying I love because and I want to find somebody to hire before I actually put out a post that says I'm hiring honestly, So yeah, don't wait for somebody, don't look for hiring now posts, be just pursuing the people you want to
work with. Because even if they and then put like I know somebody's a VA, Like the VA is like at the end of the name or something or somewhere where I can see it in the DM before I go to the profile. And even if I don't need a VA at the second, I always know somebody else who's working for one. And if I get good vibes like I will, I'll say, oh, hey, I got good vibes from this person. I'm not sure about their work, but I got good vibes from them.
That's so true. A friend of mine we had a live yesterday and she was saying that she did the genuine interaction with a potential lead and although she wasn't able to support her, they still kept they were still cordial between each other, and as a result of that, that potential lead was able to refer three clients to her because of that. So it's like, you still don't want to burn bridges because you never know where that
next opportunity can come from. And I think that's something that's really big because so many new virtual assistants are ambitious about how can I find clients? Like my emails or my emails and my dms. I swear I get so many of those a day. I can't even keep up with them. But it's like, where can I find clients?
And it's like, well, what service do you offer? You know, if I go look at your Instagram page and you call yourself a virtual assistant, and I see kittens and puppies and I don't see anything else that directs me to you being a virtual assistant. You know, it's kind of like, well, how can I learn more about you?
When the first point of contact I have is this this page and there's either something on there that's not even relevant or it's just blank and you follow like two hundred people, it's like, how can I learn more about who you are? Or you know, if someone you have, somebody reach out to you potentially and they're looking for someone to write blog posts and that's not what you do, you can't get upset and be like, oh, I just want you can't do that because that opportunity wasn't for you.
But if somebody reached out, that's a good sign that you're doing something for them to reach out, and like you said, they may be able to refer you to
somebody later. So you know, just still be cordial, be yourself, and not stress over the small things, because there will be seasons when you don't have any leads or whatever, and then when that happens, just focus on what you can do on the back end of your business, you know, so that you don't have processes or things going on the back end that are just sitting there and they're stale. And then when you get a client then it's like, oh my god, oh you know things aren't working hard.
You can still be working on your business.
Mm hm, I love that. So how would somebody know if this would be a good fit for them? Because it sounds great, You're reaching out on social media, you're applying to emails like great, great, great. How is there anybody that this may not be like a good fit for How do you know if it's a fit for you?
I feel like, if you don't like being on the computer, or I don't like social media, I don't, it's not for you. You know that's writing blogs, you know, or you know it's a virtual position, So how can you not I don't like going live or I don't like showing my face, then it's not for you because you're gonna have to at some point go live and go on Zoom, Google,
Meet or whatever platform there is out there. If you're somebody who says like I don't want to learn something new it just seems like it's too much, then it's not for you because in this space there's so many learning opportunities available, Like that's the only way that you can grow and thrive in this position. So if you're reluctant or hesitant to that, then this isn't the space
for you to be in, you know. Or if you want that typical nine to five structure and it's like, well, you know, my income isn't going to be consistent or this, then it's not for you, you know. But if you're okay with the inconsistencies, you know, then hey, by all means, go for it. If you're open to meeting new people, learning about new businesses, you're resourceful, you're eager, and you're ambitious, Like I say, go for it.
What level of availability do you think someone would need to have in order to pursue us.
Ooh, that's a good question. So I think it varies. Like for someone like me, anytime I work with someone, I let them know, hey, I'm still working a nine to five, so if you need me between these hours, I'm unavailable.
Now.
There may be instances where I have a lot of downtime and I'm working from home that day and I don't really have much to do at work. I may do something, but I won't let the client know that because if I send them an email, it's like, oh, Shittori's available. So I may do something on the back end, and then the next day or that evening, I'll just go ahead and send things out saying, hey, I got
this done that. So I think it varies upon your availability and the same thing, like I have the kids as well, and so I try, like, like on Mondays, I don't really do much client work coming off of the weekend because I'm drained. My kids wear me out, so it's like I don't want to take on, you know a lot of things that are due on Monday. So I'll have like my discovery calls maybe on Tuesday, or I'll have like a client call on a Thursday, and I try to do them, you know, like about
seven o'clock for me, because that's a good time. Like my kids have ate and Eve, they've had a bath, and they're sitting in there watching you know, Bluey or whatever it is they're looking at on the TV. And I know I won't get interrupted, but I'll outline that with my clients who we're having a discovery call, saying hey, although I'm not full time yet, this is the time frame that I work in. This is when you can
expect to hear back from me. And I haven't had any pushback from that because I was up front with the expectations or the boundaries that I set for myself. I found that when people aren't really forthcoming with that information and the client's like, hey, I haven't heard from the nets when you create, we've run into a problem, you know. So it's like you got to be upfront.
And that's what really made virtual assisting appealing to me because I can still do this in addition to having my full time job, and I don't feel burnt out of overwork because I've set those boundaries in place.
It does seem to be one of the benefits of being a virtual assistant is a lot of times. Of course it depends on what jobs and clients you choose, but they can be much more project base than needing to constantly be responsive or on the computer at any given time. For Jen and I with our business, you know, we're not in the same time zone as our VA, and it works because there's certain things that it's not
time specific. It's a little bit more project based. So I think there can be flexibility and something as you're saying that you can find you're upfront about when you can be responding, what types of projects or tasks you can take on and you know, maybe you've got you set like a two day turnaround or a one week turnaround on the different things that are being asked of you. And that that level of flexibility does seem to be really nice for people with the full time jobs, for
people with kids at home, not easy. You're still doing work at some level of flexibility, but it.
Is encouraging to hear that you have a full time job, you have three kids, and you're still able to make money as a virtual assistant. It means that it's accessible for other people and it's not like one of these you know, oh, I have to be nine to five, full availability, put my kids in daycare if I want to succeed at this thing. No, as a beginner, you don't have to do that.
And that's what I.
Think makes your story in this you know side hustle like so accessible.
And I think another point to consider is you you're doing things that you like to do, like I enjoy doing the bookkeeping, or other people might be like, oh my god, oh, but I enjoy doing it, so it's easy for me to be like, oh, let me go show up and do dad do whatever I need to do and be done with it, versus if there's something where it's like, yeah, i'll be a virtual bookkeeper. Oh yeah,
I'm good at this. If you're good at it but you don't like it, then don't even offer that as a service because you'll find yourself dreading showing up for it. Which I always compare that to corporate. You know, sometimes there's task and responsibilities that they give you a corporate that you just don't like, but you can't say you're
not going to do it. So it's like, if I'm going to do this virtual assistant thing and make money from it, I want to show up doing things that I like because that's going to spill over in the
conversations that I have with people. It's going to spill over and the work that I produce for them, Versus showing up halfway and not doing something and you're not paying attention to the details and you're rushing to get it done, creating a lot of errors and mistakes, and it's just not it's not conducive, it's not healthy, and I just don't recommend it. So find something that you like to do, and I see that to say it's okay.
In the virtual assistant space to try something first, like oh, I think I like it, Just try it out and when you realize you know what, this isn't for me, then you don't have to offer that as a service anymore. You could take it off of your service offerings and find something else that you like and then move from there. That's the beauty of it, like, try it, if you don't like it, then kick it to the curb and try something else.
They so many good tips, and I think it's a helpful reminder that you are essentially running your own small business when you're working for yourself. That way, when you are a subcontractor, you don't have to say yes to everything you don't right, I have to keep going with one particular client or job that is not that is really just straining and depleting you.
You get to decide, yeah, you don't have to be desperate, especially when you started as a side hustle. Then you can find and what you enjoy. And like you said at the beginning, it's the tasks are so versatile, the services are are plenty, and I also I know from experience of like working with so many people that everybody is looking for somebody to do something like that. You said, like everybody's looking for something, it is out there. The
hardest part is finding those people. And I think the social media instagram like nurturing relationships, I think that is the best way to do it. There is you know, like if you're looking for some industries, you could get into LinkedIn, which is turning more into like business Instagram. But yes, I mean same concept, even if you're gonna
go over there, this is those genuine relationships. So last question, how about like training, Is there any way like that you can find training or find kind of resources to figure out what are these services I like offering and what are these services? I don't want to offer stuff like that?
So there are different trainings out there, Like there are some virtual assistants who have like oh they have courses or ebooks or even like I created an ebook because I found that there were people who just didn't know how to get started, like what's the first step? What
should I do? And so I when I realized so many people were asking me that I created this ebook just to say, hey, these are the first steps you should take, this is what you should look at, X, Y and Z and I outlined it in a manner that wasn't confusing. I wanted it just to be straightforward and to the point, because I've been victim of buying things and it's just like this isn't even what I
thought this was, Like what is this? You know? And I didn't want my followers or my community to purchase a product and walk away from it and be just as confused as they were before they bought it. I just wanted to be straightforward until the point, and that's
what I did there. But there are a lot of of other like virtual assistant mentors out there who started as virtual assistance and they found that, you know, in that initial step of getting started, people tend to get overwhelmed with things that kind of are irrelevant, like the website and the logo, Like that doesn't matter. Like go ahead and put yourself out there, create a simple logo, use a template in canvas for a logo, and then when you're at the point of evolving to the next step,
then make that investment on that logo. But don't sweat that because you have people who have a good who are able and capable of getting things done. And I would hate for somebody who's like brilliant if this one particular service offering, get hung up on the logo, because that person may be able to help a business owner grow and scale to get to where they desire to be.
But if you get hung up on that logo, you won't be able to help that person get to that next step because you're worrying about something that's not really I don't think about the logo. I might say, oh, that's cute, but then I just move on, like it doesn't really hold any weight for me. It's like, okay, you know, but develop the confidence, which is something that a lot of people lack, and I think it's just how we are brought up overall. You know, you're always
imposter syndrome. Oh her it just looks better than mine, or oh you got to stop doing that and just be confident in yourself. And if you feel that way, stop falling that person so you don't continue to feel that way. Like follow accounts that motivate you and encourage you to want to get out there and work harder and try harder.
Such good advice, so helpful. I feel like we've got the blueprint for beginning here.
Definitely linked to your ebook, and yeah, as you were talking, I was like, a testimony from a business owner holds way more weight from for someone than a logo does. So absolutely not for what. Yes, I don't look at I looked maybe once our vas like had like a resume, an accessible resume on the internet, but like no website or anything, but somewhere where I can see testimonies and see if we were gonna be a good fit. And that's what's more important.
Do you know what's super straightforward, always relevant, Just plenty of testimonies on this one. Absolutely never need to question 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've paid off your mortgage.
Maybe your car died and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore. Buck bills, butffalo bills, Bill Clinton, This is the bill of the.
Week, Shatoria. Every week we invite our guests our listeners to share with us their bill of the week, and we have pointed out to you how vague the parameters are, so we are excited to hear yours now.
So this is exciting. I actually did this yesterday. So I'm getting married in July of this year, and I've been wedding dress shopping, trying to be very budget conscious, like how much I spent And I found my dress and I paid for it in cash yesterday, and so I'm so excited you guys, like it's I don't feel like, I just got chills thinking about it, Like, you know, being able to walk in there not have to use my credit card and pay in cash, Like what like who does that?
You know? So, yeah, we both have really funny wedding dress stories, so we can totally get the wedding dress bill. Oh my gosh, congratulations.
Was so exciting, Tori. I mean that just an upcoming wedding is very awesome, and I'm sure there's so so much around that, But then the thrill and accomplishment of being able to pay cash for what I estimate to be one of the most important things.
Of the wedding day. I mean, who you're marrying, she thought.
Now, she thinks almost anything else can go wrong as long as you feel beautiful in the and to know you bought that thing cold hard cash, that's the exciting.
Yes, Like you know, normally in the past when you were making a big purchase like that. It's just like, okay, but I whipped my while out. Yeah I'm ready in it. You know, I had a a target price in my head, but I went to spin and so when I went drift shopping, I was just like on I got you know, I watched to say yes today dress like for years, so in my head it's like, oh if I got to see something that's not really and everything I found
phill below my budget. So it was just like maybe I just sit like this high price and these dresses aren't as high as I thought they were. I don't know, but I'm just so glad that I found one that filled below my budget and I could pay in cash. Like I just want to like run around my house and jump up and down and do cartwheels because.
Just not in the dress.
Yeah I wait, wait, you can wait.
It's so amazing if you all listening were able to buy your wedding dress or any other dress or just anything cold hard cash. You don't mind paying that bill, or you got a bill that you know really frustrated you, or you are a person named Bill just living your life. Visit Frigal friendspodcast dot com slash Bill, leave us your bill, talk about being Bill. You know the drill, and now it's time for.
Around. All right, for this week's lightning Round. For this episode's Lightning Round, we will all answer this very vulnerable and this vulnerable question that really gives insight to like who you are as a person, and you listening can judge us for yourselves. Question today is if you could be anyone in the world's virtual assistant, who would you want to be A for story? We will let you go first. You time to think of this.
So if I could be the virtual assistant for anyone, it will have to be Oprah Winfrey.
Yes, say more.
Yeah, It's just like she's like this boss girl mogul, like doing so much. It's like I just want to be a part of that, just to see how she's able to like just keep everything. Like everything she does just really intrigues me. So it's like, how can I just just sit on the sit in a chair next to you and just just be a witness of that whole movement, Like like she's like a true like girl boss.
So it's like I would love to be her.
VA. I think you'd have to call yourself a virtual Gail. Yeah right, I think that musicians should exist.
Oh yeah, I'm sure you crush it.
Gosh, I would.
That's a good one, what about you, John?
So for me, it's any of my favorite Disney bloggers, So I went really accessible on this one.
So you did. You're even like putting them in that line if you want to call them out and like tell them, none of them listen.
I'm sure because they're Disney bloggers, they do not listen to frugal friends and go to Disney. You can, you absolutely can't.
You can.
But I watch these people's videos and well maybe one of them Okay, So I love specifically like run Disney floggers, but also some just like regular Disney floggers. So I love running and makeup. She's one of my favorites. Michael does Diz and then Mammoth Club Michael.
Does Diz with the Z.
Yeah. I actually had to look that up. I was like, is it with a Z or an S? And it is a Z?
Wow.
So I'm not cut out for being a virtual assistant.
So I'd mean the only thing that would make it worth it.
For you, Yes, if I could just like we could just like talk about Disney and and yeah, and hang out at Disney.
Wow, that's a good one. I love Disney. This one's an easy one for me because it is the same answer to also the question of your celebrity crush or who would you want to have dinner with, or if you think you could be friends with someone who's a celebrity, Like it's all the same person and it's Jennifer Lawrence always and forever. I just think she'd be a blast. I would I would mostly want to be a va for her so I can watch how she moves through life.
I think, doctor, you are very I didn't know who you were going to say, but it like makes total sense to me.
Her or Paul Rudd or both of them. I think I could juggle them at the same time. Yeah, if you're a contractor mm hmm, be like I'm not available like at midnight because Jaylaw she needs me then in the middle.
Of the night. Paul during the dead day, and Jaylaw at night.
Yes, some of my guidands like that would be my virtual assistant role is just watching her and maybe sometimes weighing in and mostly laughing.
That's amazing. I think these are really really good ones.
I will call them out though, for sure, because I will leave this job for that job.
I don't under I believe you. You will leave me in a second for Jennifer Lawrence. And I'm not offended, but I believe you. But I will do everything in my power to make sure she never contacts me. Oh wow, that sounds crashing. Oh thank you so much for hanging out with us today. If people want to find more from you, we will link the e book. But where else can they find you in your wisdom?
They can find me on Instagram. I hang out there all the time, morning, noon, sometimes at night, you know, but not nope, I'm sleepings from under the bed.
But yes, yes, oh well, we will definitely link to those And thank you so much. This has been really really good.
Thanks for having me.
This was fun, that was super accessible. I'm so happy with how practical those tips were. I think if you wanted to be a VA, you could take what you have heard in this episode and have a really great starting off point.
I feel like she answered all of my questions so robustly, unlike some of our other Side Hustle episodes where I've not had a total understanding of it. A virtual assistant is one of the ones that I feel as though I think I know what that is and what they would do, but I feel like she rounded it out so much more and answered all of the things that I would want to know if it was something I was considering. So I'm so thrilled about that. I love this series. Yeah, Shatoria.
Yeah, so just know that you don't have to be an entrepreneur or have your own business or do whatever you don't want to do. You don't have to do. You can find what you are pasted about and what you enjoy doing it and dig into that and still be profitable. Obviously you you know, don't want to what is it underwater basket weaving? Hopefully that's not your passion. They use that reference a lot, just simply to say you kind of got to follow the money to an extent.
If I do say niche down and that is niche, that is damched.
Yeah, I won't say anything is too niche, but it does require having to breathe underwater, I think so.
Or hold your breath.
Yeah, but thank you so much for listening. We hope you took something away from this, and if this isn't for you, I hope you listen to one of our other side Hustle series episodes and maybe find something that is or don't focus on it at all. Don't focus on a side hustle, just do your main, main gig.
But thank you for listening. Many of you know we have a membership for our listeners who are paying off to which is most of the people that are starting side hustles, and so if that's you, we do monthly money challenges, we have accountability groups, book club, and it's just a really fun place for people who may not have a lot of people in their physical life that get what they're trying to do or can help them
in what they're trying to do. We bring everyone together virtually, and so we want to congratulate one of our members for a big win. List is from Corey. She says, since focusing on paying down my student loan in a year, which is about a five K balance, I was able to watch my balance dramatically decrease, which helped me really find out what was important to me. It takes time to narrow down the things that matter. With practice and patience, I now owe less than five hundred dollars and I
have my final payment scheduled for March second. I have created momentum to keep moving towards my next goal, and I've never been goal oriented in the past. This process has really flipped a switch for me and helped in so many areas of my life. I am grateful for this opportunity because I thought I was going to have this step for ten plus years. I've also grateful to friends who supported me and my decisions during this process
because they understand it's temporary and not permanent. Thank you, Frugal Friends Club for your support and encouragement during this process. You all are the best.
This is amazing, Corey well Don. I love it when I hear stories of people who are thinking it's going to take me forever to pay off debt, and then they surprise themselves and they learn so much about themselves, and they develop habits and behaviors that they can take with them past the debt payoff experience, and this just encapsulates all of that. I'm so thrilled that you experienced what you've experienced.
Yes, if this sounds like something you want to be saying, if you're trying to pay off debt or do a side hustle. Then check out the Frugal Friends Club at Frugal friendspodcast dot com slash clubs. We have courses, interviews, challenges friends, so definitely something to check out.
See you Next Time.
Friends is produced by Eric Sirianni.
Jill.
I think we need to expound on the wedding dress stories that we kind of touched on. Go for it, Jen, Okay, yours is better than mine, so I'm going to start. I when I bought my wedding dress, I was not engaged yet. I was about right. I was about two months away from being engaged, and I had known Travis. Let's see, I had known Travis for four months.
Did you buy it with him in mind? Well?
Yeah, obviously, I don't know.
It's like some day this is going to happen for me, and I hope that I went in with my mom, all my friends, and granted we got engaged after dating or knowing each other for six months, so I and I bought the dress before we were engaged.
We got married with only knowing each other for eleven months, so we hadn't known each other for a full year when we got married. Wow, still going strong seven years later.
You didn't know what October Travis was like until now married him.
I met him in a November and I married him in October. Wow.
Never spent Halloween, first Halloween.
Married first Halloween together yet? Scary true? But okay. So the wedding dress, though, I was between two dresses. One was this beautiful mermaid covered in tiny, tiny pearls, and it was beautiful and it was, but I couldn't couldn't dance in it. The pearls real probably not. The dress was sixteen hundred dollars though, wow, which nobody would really bat an eye at now. But I didn't choose it
because I couldn't dance well in it. But I found this other dress, flowy chiffon, had the kind of this Grecian top that was perfect for dancing in.
Yes.
And that one was one hundred and fifty dollars. Yes, And I had a fifty dollars cupon a one hundred dollars And so that's the dress I got, not even because of the price, it was truly because I could dance in it. Yeah, I found out when I was in my friend's wedding about six months later. I guess it had to have been four months later we got the dresses for the wedding. When we went into David's bridle,
I saw my dress in the bridesmaid rack. So I realized when I was going to be a bridesmaid in my friend's wedding, that what I had done was I bought a bridesmaid's dress in white.
Which is just a beautiful hat.
And it's a hack. I give a lot of people now, but I didn't know what I was doing when I did it.
That's what you did.
So you're a frugal friend.
Before you, I was even a flicker in your mind.
So true. I mean this is before I started paying off debt too. We hadn't even talked about it.
You were all you were using coupons. I was hacking.
I knew value was not beauty. You already knew it was boogie. So that's where core values began for me.
Wow, I don't even know if we've got time for my story. Your story's just gold.
You can know, you can paraphrase, we got time.
Okay. People have heard this if you listen to our wedding episodes. But if not, here you go. I was a young bride, I was of age, but I was young and I had no money, and I was looking for what type of style wedding dress do I want? When Eric and I were talking serious and I knew that the question was going to be coming soon, and I found this really beautiful dress online and I loved it,
and so then I started to look up. Before you were even a flicker of a thought in my head, Jen, is there any way to get this style of dress less expensive? Does anyone make this kind of style? I don't know. I was googling all types of stuff, and sure enough, this one website promised to be able to make this very dress at a fraction of the cost. It was going to be one hundred dollars. And I thought to myself, that sounds perfect, and it sounds like
me a one hundred dollars dress. Yeah, let's go. And of course, you know, there were some people around me who tried to sway me and say, that's a dress probably going to be made in China, and there's no guarantee for one hundred dollars it's going to be what you want. Then I lied to myself and everybody else and said, no, no, I'm going to try this thing. What's the worst that can happen. If it's not what I want, I will wear my sister's wedding dress like
it fit me. I liked it enough. I was convinced they're going to make me exactly what I want. They're gonna ship it to me, and if not, I'll wear my sisters Well. It arrives weeks later. I mean, we're about a month out from the wedding and this dress arrives and it is nowhere near the picture, nowhere near it.
I wish we had a picture. We do.
It's in our show notes of that one episode where we did Weddings Part It would have been Weddings Part one or part two. Way back in the archives you can see. I think we have a picture of what I thought I was getting and a picture of what I actually got. And it was only then that I realized I don't want to wear my sister's wedding dress. I hate it, which then sent me on a last minute scurry to find the wedding dress that I really
did love. I ended up loving my dress, but ended up dropping some cash on that she's finding it save money on reception and honeymoon. I think it would have been the first if you miss part one here, just cook that we're here for it. There it is.
Okay. So this is episode six, episode so I guess.
You probably probably have not heard this story before.
Oh yeah, that's different, and even your face and the picture is so yeah. You gotta go back into the archives episode six on our show notes.
And you'll see the pictures.
Wow. What what a good story. I always love hearing that one.
Bye.