Megan Hurley: From Barista to Blogger

This is a common story, but comforting to know that I’m not the only one. Originally posted at Bloggusion.com

In this post, Megan Hurley from FindingBenjamin.com talks about the future we all want for our blogs, and how we can take baby steps to achieving a happy future.

At some point in his or her life, almost everyone will land a minimum wage job. This is especially common for young adults who are looking for something to supplement their busy school schedules.

These jobs, like working at a fast food joint, restaurant, or in my case as a barista in a cafe, can be a good way to generate that much needed spending cash. Remember, though, you only have that cash because you are most likely still living under Mom and Dad’s roof, and therefore still have them to pay your big expenses. What happens when you’re done with school, looking for a “grown-up” job, and want to get away from Mom and Dad?

When I graduated from college this past spring, I thought that increasing my hours at the cafe to full-time would be all I needed to cover rent, bills, and car expenses—and still have some left-over cash—until I could land a great job that actually had something to do with my degree. I will be the first to admit that I’ve led a fairly sheltered life. Even I am surprised at how naive I was!

I quickly discovered that even on weeks that I would be scheduled for the maximum 40 hours (which was rare – the cafe was trying to conserve on hours), money was very tight. Not to mention the fact that working 8 hours, more often than not during a long and inconvenient mid-day shift, left little time for taking care of anything else in my limited social life, including searching for a “real” job. This left me with a new dilemma: drain what was left of my free time to get another, monotonous minimum wage job, or move back in with the parents to continue the job hunt, and lose any hope of independence for the time being. Neither option was appealing.

Now there’s nothing wrong with living at home and staying with that entry-level job until something better comes along.

But let’s face it, with the economy the way it is right now, opportunities won’t just find you.

Which is why you need to pump in that extra effort to create the opportunities for yourself.

For me, the opportunity was starting up a blog about money-making ideas at FindingBenjamin.com, and creating a business for myself. (The idea didn’t come completely on it own – I did have a nudge in the right direction, from my entrepreneur father.) Scary, yes. I started with average computer skills, and VERY limited knowledge of blogging and everything that goes with it. And as much as I whined and complained about working in the cafe, at least I knew what to expect there.

But you don’t win by playing it safe. Though it’s challenging, I am constantly learning new things, and with my 19-year old brother Chris coming aboard as my partner, this fledgling project is starting to grow quickly. And surprisingly, I am enjoying it!

I’m still holding on to the cafe job for now—no more than 15 hours a week—just for a little cushion, but it won’t be long before I’ll be ready to let it go for good. (I’d like to be able to enjoy my own triple-grande-extra-foam-non-fat lattes, not make them for someone else.)

Even if you’re not ready to completely forge out on your own, start thinking of ways that you could one day work for yourself and make good money doing it – even if it’s jotting your ideas down in a journal, or taking small steps like creating a personal website, or even just looking around to see how others are doing it.

There are all kinds of advice articles out there from other young entrepreneurs. Ventures like this can have very little or no cost involved, so you don’t have to worry about tapping into your hard-earned tip-jar money right away.

When you are ready to give your idea a go, know that it won’t be fun and exciting all the time—you WILL make mistakes, and you will have frustrations. But use them to your advantage. Working for your self and getting a startup going is a challenge. But because of that, it’s also so incredibly rewarding.

Think about it—the freedom to work on your terms, without anyone scolding you about cold food or bitter coffee— it’s a wonderful thing! If you work hard enough, sooner or later, that scribbled idea could become a reality. Or maybe it won’t, but by then you’ll have the experience to do it bigger and better with the next idea. What do you have to lose?

@bloggusion