I thought I made a big mistake, but it worked for the better

Imagine this: We are in the late 2000s. You are a high school student, wanting to graduate very soon after the Great Recession and you have a plan. You are going to fight the recent financial folly (which you do not really understand – any one did you do?) By going to a big university, getting an engineering degree and finding a stable job in engineering because that's what you're good at, that's what you like, and this seems to be the most responsible thing to do.

Hi, that's me. Teenage Caroline.

And unlike many of my cohorts of teens who graduated from high school during the Great Recession, I was able to do what I had planned. I went to a big public school and I got my engineering degree and got the engineering job that I had planned to fill. Everything worked well.

But in the middle of all the means by which I had designed my life (pun intended), I finally managed every 20 years or so. this fundamental and fundamental change in the "plan" and the "program" and the skills that I have chosen to leave of of my resume.

I was good at other things, and the problem was, I really love these other things.

Everyone was skeptical when I changed my career

I therefore did what I considered (and generally considered) a huge quarter-of-life crisis level error. Financially, it was unstable. Culturally, it was unacceptable, but personally, it was so necessary. I was not happy, which for me can simply come from the fact that I did not sleep enough and that I lived very little outside of my work. It is a secular story, but I was suffocating and when I found a way out, I took it.

My departure was this magical unicorn that you all see on Instagram and that you might even want to have: the life of the freelance writer. Let's just be realistic – it was not really what I planned when I left my engineering job, but it finally gave me the freedom and flexibility I wanted in my life.

But the number one mistake I see people make when they have a glimpse of my life is to think that it's an easy change, and that everything happened overnight. Not the least; In fact, I had to take a lot of debt so I could continue to support myself.

Several years later, I have an MBA (the MBA was my insurance policy in case my freelance career would not work) and I found a way to fully support myself in freelance work.

Writing on credit cards and traveling became the career I did not expect

Until now, this article probably reads as an Instagram legend. you know, one of those "I did it and you too! There is nothing different in our lives and our privileges!" The influencer bends at best to attract attention and at worst to attract a member of the audience who really believes it. I understood. It's boring and absolutely useless, not to mention problem.

So, here is the why and the how and the facts for your pleasure.

My decision to start freelancing started with my love for travel and writing skills (and a very bad separation), but perhaps more importantly, it has a lot to do with my travel prowess.

I've spent the last eight years researching and keeping abad of the fundamentals of our US credit-based economy and learning how to do exactly what banks hate: understanding how to use reward credit cards in ways that responsible and in a beneficial way. It's pretty much the result of my eager data-hungry engineer brain applied to the everyday basic economy.

Once I began to understand how to take advantage of my debts and debts in order to take advantage of them, I started earning points and miles and earning money. in every way possible. It meant paying attention to bonus point categories, learning how to pay bills with credit cards (and paying them as soon as possible) and leveraging my biggest bills to meet the minimum spending requirements to get huge bonus. Reading the fine print and making the most of the benefits is the most important thing to do when opening a new reward card.

When traveling became even more accessible to me, I started collecting as many experiences as possible to feed my life and work. Writing cards of points and miles took second breath, and telling stories about my travels has become a fundamental joy. My extensive skills allowed me to successfully target a wide range of clients, which allowed me to finally get an idea of ​​the durability that I've been trying to develop since I've been in business. left my engineering position.

With freelance writing, it is unlikely that I will immediately lose all my clientele if something happens. This means that I always work one way or another with work, and things have stabilized over the past two years to become a sustainable routine.

While travel writing is done do not means that I am always on vacation, it simply means that I work (a lot) to pay rent in many different places instead of just one. And sometimes, taking a financial risk can really work.