We caught up with Kevin, a Catch user and new parent, who decided to quit his job as an attorney to pursue his true passion of financial blogging (check out his blog Financial Panther) while using side hustles to ensure he can make ends meet.
Tell us about the work you're currently doing and how you got to where you are today.
A year ago, I quit my job as an attorney to become a full-time personal finance blogger and side hustler. I made the switch from law to blogging after finding myself pretty unhappy professionally - I ended up in law school and became a lawyer, not really because it's what I wanted to do, but because I graduated during the financial crisis and didn't know what else to do.
I started my blog back in 2016 while I was a practicing attorney, working on it during lunch breaks and on evenings and weekends. The blog was building up a solid audience and generating regular revenue, and I thought that since I'm young, I could take the chance to make it on my own. And I've never been happier.
What do you love about what you're doing these days?
These days, I enjoy how I don't have a fixed schedule and can work on my time. I also really enjoy the variety I have in my day - I could be writing one hour, then off on my bike doing food deliveries the next hour, then off walking a dog the next hour. For whatever reason, there's something really invigorating to me about earning income using nothing but my own wits.
It sounds like you've got a lot going on -- what's a typical day look like for you?
It looks very different pre- and post-pandemic. Pre-pandemic, I would spend my morning at a WeWork working (writing, answering emails, etc). Around lunch, I would turn on my food delivery and grocery delivery apps and do some deliveries for an hour or two. Then I'd spend the afternoon back at the WeWork doing more work. In the evening, I would bike home and do some deliveries on my way home.
My post-pandemic world is very different. My wife and I recently had our first child (a baby boy born March 3rd!), so our life has been busy plus the whole world is in quarantine. Right now, I'm still doing food deliveries while I can - aiming to make $33 per day so that I can make $1,000 of side hustle income for the month. I try to fit in blog work while I can. A lot of the day is just figuring out how to be a parent and balance my own work things I'm trying to do.
Looking forward, what are some of your goals for the next 3-5 years?
Right now, my goal is to continue on this self-employment journey and see where it takes me. I'm only a year into it, but it's exciting to see where it goes. No matter what happens, at least I know I gave it a shot!
How is Catch helping you reach your goals?
The main thing Catch does is to give me an easy way to see all of the income I earn from my different sources and automatically set aside part of that income for my taxes. I have so many sources of income that get paid in fairly random intervals. Catch does a good job of tracking my income as it comes in and automatically setting aside money for me so I don't have any issues come tax time.
What's one piece of advice you'd give to someone who is looking to start freelancing full-time?
I'd say to be patient and work on your projects while you're working a full-time, "normal" job. I started blogging and picking up side hustles back in 2015 and 2016, doing all of this stuff in my spare time outside of work. Over time, as you put in more work into your side hustles, you'll see they start building up. The work you put into your side hustles compounds on itself.
A strategy I tell people to do is to have three sources of income - a regular job, a scalable business that you can work on outside of work that can build up over time, and a side hustle that can bring in immediate cash. For me, I had my job as an attorney, my blog that I could scale up and slowly build over time, and then my gig economy side hustles that I could easily fit into my life and that could bring in immediate income.