#so 100k in 4 and a half months with working and full time school

[morganlegaye]

DFT has officially reached 100k

#sylvaina #fan fiction #diel fin'al thalas #ignore the target of 150k words because i already know thats a joke and will be moving it to 200k but #i like to live in denial right now #so #lmao #but i mean i started writing this fic on january 1st #so 100k in 4 and a half months with working and full time school? #not bad #i can probably bang out another 100k in the 3 months i'll have left until my baby is born #*straps self in and incoherently screams* #this is gonna be fun guys lmao

[dystopian-penguin]

Is this a real life story? Is this a fic concept? Who knows 🤷

But here’s a very long account of... something.

This isn't a gay disaster story. It's a gay sad ending story. It's a gay "self-homophobia is very real and realistic” story, and not in the "gay panic is kinda cute" way.

It all started 14 years ago (yes that long), when I was still deeply in the HP fandom and even more deep into reading James/Lilly fics in ff.net all day long. For the first time in my entire life I decided to sort by “all works” and not just “completed”. I know it might sound super silly, and even a bit cliche considering this is tumblr and we live and breath fics, but that single decision literally changed the course of my life. And unlike what I usually do, I am not exaggerating. I found this one fic that must have had, like, 20 chapters and almost 100k words and dived into it without looking for rocks in the bottom. Long story short: the last posted chapter ended on a huuuuuge cliffhanger, like the very next moment after the kiss, and it left me completely destroyed.

So I did what I always do, what I am known on tumblr and my small social circle in here to do: I went to scream at the author.

But I wasn’t content to just scream in the comment section, oh no. For all I knew the bitch wouldn’t even see it, the last update had been from like 8 months previously. So I stalked her ff.net profile and found her MSN email. Yes, the story is THAT old.

My literal first words to her must have been something akin to “OH MY GOD I HATE YOU SO MUCH”, which yay for the beautiful poetic irony that the universe crafts at times. She took it in stride because, let’s face it, a shitton of people had already greeted her like that by then. And we started talking, and it was easy and fun. We had a lot in common, more or less the same type of interests, the usual you’d expect if I had met her on tumblr even. We must have talked like 3 hours straight on that first day, and I left feeling pretty good cause I had made a new friend. Not only that, but right off the bat I admired her so much. Not only because she was talented as fuck (imagine writing a 100k unfinished fic at only 15 y/o), but also because the more I talked to her the more I could see just how fucking cultured she was and how intelligent and ect. She came from a wealthy family and such a different reality from me. She had been abroad, in fact she usually travelled abroad with her family like twice a year, she was fluent in english even then (at that point I was I intermediate at best), not to mention german because her family was german. She was 15 (a year older than me back then) and trilingual and could write wonderfully and I was fascinated by her instantly.

Something else worth of note was that her profile pic on the day we met had been set to a close-up of a blue eye. I must have asked on that very same day whose eye was that because damn if it hasn’t been the prettiest blue I’ve ever seen. I mean, I hadn’t told her that, but I was curious enough to ask. And as everyone and their grandmother might have guessed by now, it was hers.

Somehow (and I truly don’t know HOW), we got into the habit of talking every day, or at least very close to it. I got to know about her daily life, just one state south from where I live and sooooo much colder than what I had ever experienced. She went to a swiss school, fully bilingual, was the first in her year in the IB program which for the love of crap I didn’t even know it existed back then. Might not ever have known if I never met her. Eventually we exchanged phone numbers, and back then SMS messages were like 1,50 bucks for inter-state ones. Our mothers were not happy.

Around a year and a half went by this way. She became my best friend, my rock. We both had a shitton of problems in your high school lives and in our family lives, and we were so relieved to know there was someone out there we could share those with. In the meantime she ended up breaking up with her boyfriend, ironically just a few months before I had my very first kiss. When she broke up with her boyfriend she was absolutely devastated (they had been together almost a year or so), and relied on me a lot back then. Which I was more than happy to support because for the first time in my life I felt like I belonged somewhere. I felt like I was actually part of someone’s life. I didn’t feel like I ever bothered her, like I was ever intruding in her life. I felt like I was truly part of her world, like she actually remembered my existence when I was not around, and at now-16 years of age that had literally been the first time I had felt that. I never had a true friend before her. Not sure I ever did after her either.

On easter 2008 we finally convinced our moms to let us meet. Her family had a whole goddamn country house with a huge plot of land, so it was decided I was gonna visit her first. So I got semi-sedated and got into my first plane ride EVER, and for those of you that are reading this and know me (although I doubt anyone is reading at all), you know how terrified of planes I am. You know how BIG of a gesture it is for me to get into a fucking plane for the first time in my life for a person.

I already knew she was pretty. I mean, we had talked on the webcam a couple of times before (just a few times because the internet back then was really terrible). The blue eyes I mentioned, and the most fucking beautiful silky blonde hair you’ve ever seen. But when I saw her the first time on that airport it still took my breath away. Even more, what truly surprised me, was the huge smile she gave as soon as she saw me out of the gate and she rushed to hug me. I was paralyzed. I mean yes I was happy and hugged her back, which was a huge deal because back then I was not touchy feely at all (and she was VERY). But I was paralyzed. Because I had never in my entire 16 years of age seen anyone smile that big or that brightly at seeing me. Hell, I suppose I had never seen anyone smile that brightly at all. As the day progressed she was so legit happy that I was there, and I could never fully wrap my head around it. We drove to her house and her mom took the long way just so they could show me all the interesting spots in her city, and she shared tidbits of her daily life that I still didn’t know, despite us being so close, because those are the things you only learn by actually being next to the person irl. Later on she introduced me to her two best friends in school, and we all decided to watch a horror movie.

Yes, it’s THAT cliche.

Now, you see, I’m absolutely fucking impervious to horror movies. Yes I get jumpscared just as much as anyone else, but I don’t get scared. So I was sitting there a bit lowkey bored, narrating the entire plot of the movie and what would happen a few scenes before it did because the movie was just that easy to guess. And she had taken complete ownership of my left arm the entire time, being half super scared and half impressed I could guess every single thing on the plot. Later on she apologized for not letting go of my arm because she knew I wasn’t as touchy feely as she was, and I was once again taken aback because I come from a ridiculously touchy-feely country and NO ONE ever apologizes for it or respects my boundaries on it.

The next day we wake up bright and early to go to her ranch-thingy. She slept on top of me on the car almost all the way there. I must have woken up like a whole hour before her but didn’t move at all.

I’m a city slick. I’m a huge city slick, through and through. Which means I am both fascinated and absolutely terrified on any plot of grass bigger than a garden. And her country house was fucking amazing. I had only experienced the true freedom of being in nature a few times in my life, and she made sure to show me every nook and crane of the forest surrounding it. Because yes it was a forest and not a jungle like where I lived, and that made it all the more magical.

But the truly one magical thing in the entire 4-days weekend was the stars. You see, I am absolutely in love with the stars. It’s stupid to say something like this when I was retelling the greatest love story of my life, but the stars are my one true love. I got my first telescope when I was five years old. My mother cannot for the life of her explain where I got this obsession from. She always said I was already born that way. So I find myself for the first time in my life with the least amount of light pollution I’ve ever been subject to in my entire life (even nowadays). For the first time in my life I has actually been able to see the Milky Way with my own two eyes. And what made everything even more impressive was that it was a full moon, and the night sky still looked as incredible as it’s supposed to look. Honestly it might have been a great contender to the beauty of her blue eyes.

The moment I remember the most is us laying down on some beach towels (no idea why they had those in the countryside), stargazing for hours at end. By then we were two full states to the south of mine, so I believe the technical definition of what I was feeling is fucking freezing my inexistent balls off. I had gotten dressed in just some jeans and a tshirt way before the sun set, and I was dammed if I was gonna interrupt our stargazing to go put on some decent clothes. I remember her asking a few times if I was cold, and I also remember myself lying through my teeth saying I had gotten used to it by then. Blatant lies, my nipples could cut through fucking glass at the moment. But I wasn’t gonna interrupt it because it was just the two of us on a grassy clearing, her family was at least 200m away and we couldn't even hear them anymore and it was just us and the stars and her hands were so close to mine that I could feel the heat (the only source of it for my beach-town ass I suppose). It was the perfect fucking moment. The moment most people dream of having their entire lives. I have no idea how long we stayed there, but it was a few hours for sure. Her mom had to call us back inside, and nothing broke my heart more. We talked about anything and everything. I told her what I knew of astronomy and I could see for the first time I was fascinating her with knowledge. Because I had always felt and will always feel like a peasant in the presence of a princess when it comes to her. With how cultured and educated and just fucking smart she always had been. But as I told her of the constellations (sometimes grabbing her hand to point to the stars and make her spot them better), and proclaimed my love for the night sky, she listened. She listened and I had never felt heard before in my life. She listened and I felt I had managed to make her fall in love with the stars a little bit by just talking about them.

She listened and I felt I had managed to make myself fall in love in her a little bit by just seeing the way she looked at me as I talked.

All good things come to an end and time had come for me to go back home. I will never forget how she hugged me goodbye on that same airport. Where I had seen the brightest smile on my life and now I could see she was holding back tears for me. Because I was leaving. I was important enough in someone’s life that they were about to cry because I wasn’t going to be around anymore. She way she whispered “I’m gonna miss you so much” on my ear, on such a low note I am sure it was just so her mother wouldn’t hear her, and her voice will haunt me for the rest of my life. She told me a few days later that she did cry on her way to school that morning.

After this it was near impossible to not be with her at all times. We texted constantly, and used to talk like 2 whole hours on the phone before bed. Once again I must remind you this was 2008 so it was no cheap business. Her mother started to try to separate us a bit, insisting she didn’t contact me as much, even tho I was sure the one who could not afford those phone bills, not her. It all culminated on what was ironically (or perhaps planned by her mother?) brazilian Valentine’s day (we are the only country in the world that celebrates in on St. Anthony’s day, which is June 12th). It was the first day in almost two years we didn’t talk at all, because of how much her mother had nagged her about it. The next day we talked as if we had been separated by a war for a decade.

I’m gonna take a break here to let everyone know that no, I did not think I was in love with her back then. I don’t think she knew either, but it’s hard to tell.

Her mother planned her entire july winter break to the minute just so she could spend the least amount of time in my house as possible. We got 5 days instead of the previous 4. But her mother came up with a ridiculous amount of trips for the family. She visit 3 different countries (and a whole different state inside her own country) within 30 fucking days. That’s how bad it had gotten then. Our SMSs had to be cut down to just two or three a day because of it.

But it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter because when she arrived at my house (her family had insisted in meeting mine before letting her stay) I was able to see from three floors up how brightly she had smiled at seeing me again.

I’ll make this part short: we stayed cooped inside blankets the entire time, playing on my PS2. It was so ridiculous that my mom, maaaany years later, told me she usually left the house for hours at time just to give us an opportunity of finally doing something about our very obvious feelings. Unlike the trip we took to her ranch, this one was filled with 3am deep existencial talks. And unlike the other trip, we spent the whole time sleeping on the same bed. Not a whole lot happened other than us dancing around the obvious feelings and how to deal with being so close to each other.

Nothing beside the very last morning together. I remember always waking up after her, because that’s just how we were. I remember she was already up, reading this book in fucking german of all things. It had been the first day of the entire week we had a meager ray of sunshine. And the way my window and ourselves were positioned, the sun was shinning directly on her. I woke up to the vision of an angel. I had never seen hair in such a warm bright color. I had never seen eyes that were the living embodiment of a spring afternoon sky. I woke up and her propped up on a couple of pillows, reading under the weak morning sun was the first thing I saw. It was the first thing I saw and I could swear I was still dreaming.

Because for the first time in all this, I could not contain and muffle the voice inside my head that was screaming: I want to wake up next to this every single day for the rest of my life.

It was the last time I woke up next to her for the rest of my life.

To my credit I did shake off my daze from the sight quite fast. I had gotten so good to drowning out these feelings that I was great at putting my poker face back up. We talked, we had breakfast, we let ourselves feel a bit sad about her leaving.

Then, just about half an hour before we actually had to go shower to take her to the station, it happened. The one moment that made me feel confident this all wasn’t just in my head. It all wasn’t just wishful thinking of a lonely pathetic girl who got way too bullied in high school.

We were having an impromptu pillow fight cause why not. That’s how girls who are secretly in love handle their feelings after all. It’s universal I think. And, well, on the overall 9 days we spent together irl I never actually beat her once because I’m just that much of a noddle. But this one fight we were both in bed, with weak footing and etc. You can see where this is going.

So on a scene to rival any anime, or that one gif of girls playing handball that fall on top of each other, she fell on top of me. Well, did she fall? I don’t know. For all I know, she planned.

And we had the moment. The gaze. Those few indescribable seconds of your life that you’re always gonna remember like yesterday, no matter how old you get. She had each of my hands pinned to the side of my head, and at first I thought we were still fighting so I just struggled and laughed and was saying stuff like “get off me ya psycho!”. But then I looked up. I looked up and.

And then I felt it. I felt everything her eyes were telling me. She wasn’t playing with me anymore. She was staring at me as if she already knew it was going to be the last time. She was staring at me as if it was a love story because it was. She was staring at me as if her entire existence, as if the whole oxygen on the earth itself depending on my presence.

She was staring at me like I has never been looked at before, or since. Even with a 3-years long relationship I had muuuch later on. No one had never, or will ever, look at me the way she looked at me.

And I froze. I froze because I had no idea what else to do. I froze because inside my head back then this was still wrong. Girls should not kiss. Girls should never kiss.

It was wrong.

It was so wrong, but nothing, not a single piece of bigot ramble ever uttered in history would make me feel more scared than losing my best friend. Nothing in the world scared me more than losing her.

Could I cross this boundary? Did she want to? Or was it just a spur on the moment thing?

But then she stared at my lips and I could not help but lick my own. Out of instinct, out of craving, out of love.

To the risk of getting an angry mob to my house right now, no, we did not kiss.

In fact, I dont quite remember the next few seconds at all. It had been single the most intense moment in my life at this point. It is still one of the most intense moments I’ve ever experienced. I completely blanked out of how I actually got pulled out of it and back into the land of living. Next thing I know we are sitting on opposite sides of the bed, trying to move away from the awkwardness. We did manage, in a couple of minutes. and things went back to normal between us.

But things would never be back to normal within me.

I’m gonna take a pause here to point out I’m bisexual. So like every bisexual, I am a very confused person. Cause you see, the moment you figure out you're bisexual it’s so much more confusing than figuring out you're fully homosexual. Because in the moment, things don’t just click. Things dont just start to magically make sense. I was 16 and I had absolutely liked guys before. Was it with this intensity? No because I was fucking 16. She was the first person I was been truly in love with. But I know it in my soul that if she was a dude I would love her with the exact same intensity. This particular discourse took me another three years to solve, but I digress.

And then she left.

She left and, like I said, her mother had programed her entire july milimetrically so we could be as far apart as possible. She left my house straight back to her ranch, not even her own house, And they have no internet there, so no MSN. Just a single 30-minutes phone call a day, for the 4 days after we had spent the entire week cooped up in bed inside blankets and playing lame-ass RPGs. And then right after that she left for germany for two full weeks. But before that particular trip, she did manage to get home. She got home to a letter of her grandma that read...

Well to be honest I cannot tell you what it read exactly. Because she was extremely vague about it when telling me. But it was enough to destroy her. It was enough to make her think that her grandma would not want anything to do with her anymore and it was based off somewhat new events. It doesn’t take a fucking genius to figure out the full contents of the letter. Her family is from the brazilian Bible Belt. But back then, at 16, confused as fuck, and already preemptively heartbroken, I legit had no idea what it said. She was vague and I didn’t want to pry. I just wanted to make her stop crying. I just wanted to put that beautiful smile back in her face but on that day I could feel her slipping away for the first time.

The rest of the story takes place in just a bit under two months. Maybe 6 weeks at most.

She goes to germany and finds a boyfriend, as one does. She leeches on this boy like a lifeline, but never stops texting me our 3 international texts we were allowed daily. In fact, the first thing she did after kissing him was pulling off her phone as texting me.

You can imagine how well this guy takes it.

Now, she goes back to brasil and this guy actually lives somewhat close to her. It’s a doable relationship. Once they both have access to internet and MSN again, and she is fast to introduce us, so happy that both of the most important people in her life are meeting. Even tho they had been together for like 3 weeks at this point.

I’m ok with it because, well, I still hadn’t figured myself out. I know no one will believe this, but I honestly did not feel jealousy. In fact, it was almost relief. Relief that I would not need to look into my feelings any further than I had back in july. I was happy for her. She seemed genuinely happy with this guy, and so was I.

And then Independence Day weekend comes and hell starts to... well, not break loose, but certainly get weaker on the seams. In here Independence Day is on September 7th, but both on my city and hers there's a city holiday on the 8th. On that year it ended up getting us a 4-day weekend again, and obviously I thought I was the one who was gonna be invited to visit her. I has been counting on it, planning for it.

Two weeks or so before that she informs me that she wants to invite her boyfriend over instead of it, which is like. Ok. Fair. But for the first time in this entire story I felt jealousy. Because that ranch, those stars, that sky... it was our place. I did not wanna share those experiences I had with her with anyone else. But I kept quiet of course, because how could I not? I tell her “yeah it’s a bit upsetting because I was hopping we could see each other, but I am genuinely happy you get to spend time with him!”

She ghosts me in that week.

To this day, 12 years and 2 months later, I do not know why. I do not know how. I know her grandma called again when she learned the boyfriend was gonna come over and not me, but that’s all.

She ghosted me before ghosting was even a thing. So I had no other social parameter to deal with the situation. I will never forget the absolutely heart wrenching pain I felt when I figured out she had blocked me on MSN. It’s indescribable.

It’s indescribable because she was the first person I felt like actually gave a flying fuck if I lived of died, if I was happy or if I cried. And she had up and decided to fucking cut me out her life without a single fucking word of explanation. One night everything was fine, we even had a group chat with her boyfriend. The next day she is gone forever. I don’t know, nor I think I will ever learn what triggered it. What was the last fucking draw, the last fucking prejudiced word directed at her that made her do it.

My world had been full of color, full of life, and even if literally everyone around me in real life would be so much happier if I didn’t exist (back then I DID NOT get along with my mother), she had seemed this entire time to be so much happier with me around. She was the one person who liked my existence. And literally overnight, I wake up and my world is empty. My world is empty and my air is missing and I don’t fucking know why.

It’s been 12 years and I still don’t know why.

Her boyfriend harassed me a bit back on orkut. Like, I have no idea why. It was unprompted. But it does give you a big fucking clue does it now?

I haven’t gotten a single word from her ever again. I know she’s alive, that’s not the fucking point of the story. I know because I tried to contact her again through every fucking means possible. I even sent her a letter of all things for fuck’s sake. When facebook came along I found her there too and sent her a message. Once 3 years after the fact, and then again 6 years after the fact. That was the last time I tried contacting her.

I cannot say I was “faithful”, so to speak. I cannot say she has been the only thing in my mind. I cannot say that I have not loved again, because I have. I had a serious 3-year relationship, as I mentioned. I had actual gay disasters stories in between. She has not remained the foremost thing in my mind. She has not remained my one true love. There were times where I spent months without thinking about her. Even silly crushes are enough to stray my thoughts away, to stray my heart away

But what worth are those times if I always go back to thinking of her as soon as I see myself without someone? What worth are those times where she is not in my mind, if she had never left my heart to begin with?

What worth is forgetting about her at times when she is my default setting?

I know what you're thinking. “you’re not in love with her, you’re in love with the idea of what could have been”. And you’re absolutely right. I know you are. I’m fully aware of it, of the implications of it, not only on my love life but my mental health.

But she has been the single most influential person in my life. She was the one that got me to writing. She was the one who made face my mother and have The Talk we needed for fucking 16 years about who my father was. Fuck, she is the sole responsible for setting my life on that path, and all the domino effect of events that happened because of the decision of talking to my mother about it. She was the one that made me figure out I was bisexual. Not a lesbian, definitively not straight, but not gay either. Bisexual, out and proud.

She was my first love.

She was my first love and she is the one that makes me give some credit to the saying “at the end of your life you will see you’ve fallen in love with the same person over and over again”.

She was my first love and she makes me go fucking crazy enough to give the whole “soulmates” concept a decent thought, because this cannot have been natural. Loneliness cannot explain the entire thing. It cannot explain how ridiculously drawn I was to her right away. Attraction doesn’t explain it either. It cannot explain how insanely synced up I’ve always felt to her. How insanely connected.

I’m not gonna lie, I loved my ex. Truly and deeply. They were the only person to ever treat me respect, and I felt almost as connected to them as I did to her. Almost.

If we are getting technical, I felt, like, 95% synced up with them. Which is more than the vast majority of humankind can only dream of feeling.

But it was not 100%.

There has only been one person in my life that I have felt 100% connected with. One person in my life I have not been able to shake away, have not been able to get over. Oh I have moved on. I have moved on and moved back in and then moved on again. Many times, over and over.

But I have not gotten over you. I will never get over you. What happened. How it ended. You were my biggest heartbreak. You were my biggest love story, and I didn’t even get to live it.

You make me so illogical that I sincerely hope there is a next life out there. One we can meet, sit down, and talk.

I’m sure you are a completely different person right now. I am a completely different person too. And it is insane, it is illogical, and it is immature to think that these two completely different people would still have any vestige of a thing in common like we did as kids. Because we were kids. We were kids and now we are both adults, and have a single damn thing changed?

A whole fuckton of them changed. Seasons changed. Years changed. The entire fucking world changed. I have changed more than you can possible imagine a person would in 12 years.

But you being the default setting of my heart has not changed. No matter how “unfaithful” I’ve been to you. No matter how much I will keep on living not being attached to you. No matter how much I know at some point I will forget you, forget this feeling, and bask into the pleasure of a new love. No matter how much at some point I will surely think “wow, what a crazy bitch I was back then, with all these feelings for a random girl who certainly doesn’t even remember I exist”.

And that’s one of my biggest fears you see. Cause for me you are half the fucking book. For me you’re the constant element that comes back when sea is calm and things are ok.

And I fear that to you I was nothing more than a line, maybe a throwaway paragraph in your life.

#my stuff #my writting #gay disaster

[jlf23tumble]

My 1D-related fic faves of 2019

I've read a TON of great fic this year in all kinds of fandoms, Jeeeeeeeeeesus, there are so many talented writers out there, but I won't list it all here (or even list everything I bookmarked this year). Instead, I'm gonna stick with 1D-related works released in 2019 that pulled me in hard and made me stare at the wall and/or read again and/or scream about with other people, and I'll try to do it in cutesie number order because WHY NOT make it that extra level of arbitrary, lmao. I love fanfic because no matter what fandom I'm dipping in, something new is gonna jump up and kill me (this year in particular, I've subscribed to a lot of "new to me" writers that I LOVE, and I hope you know who you are [do you know who you are, etc.]). Thank you for the free gifts, for your time, for your blood, sweat, and tears! I owe you hugs, coffee, and my undying love, gratitude, and support! I'll put my list under the cut to avoid some v. v. real screen scroll rage--happy new year, y'all!

2 lactation kink fics

(aka the Jaerie category, nobody else is out there writing this even as Harry's tits get bigger and milkier and why am I the only one fully appreciating all of it?????)

I Think You're Already Home, by jaerie, Seeing Louis Tomlinson today, it would be hard to guess that he was ever once a member of the world's most famous boyband. These days he doesn't even the leave his own house. The truth is he can't leave his own house. (a December gift to remember for all of us! a/b/o dynamics, famous Louis, omega Harry--which is practically canon at this point--crippling agoraphobia, lactation-related sexiness, I would read at least ten (10) more chapters of this)

freaks from the internet, by jaerie. Harry sells his breast milk to freaks on the internet. Louis turns out to be one of those freaks. He also happens to be Harry's ex. (I legit can't believe this came out this year, I rec it all the time! it was anon for forever, and I was low-key obsessed because I just wanted mawrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr of it, and I got it, thank CHRIST)

3 fics for meeeeeeee

(These works were gifts to me, and I am so truly hashtag blessed to receive!!!)

I Just Wanna Taste It, by @homosociallyyours​. In his mind it's watermelon and sticky strawberry sweet, and he craves the feeling of his own round, firm belly warm under his hands on a summer evening. (Megan loves to kill me with Harry mpreg imaginings, and this one feels like canon to me!)

Powerless (and I Don't Care It's Obvious), by objectlesson/ @alienfuckeronmain​. He should not be getting turned on by Harry’s full-bladder discomfort, his little twitches, his hips-stuttering. And yet. (AND YET!!! I don't even know where to start with how much I love Phoenix, what a treasure her work is in ANY fandom, how shitty this particular fandom has been to her, how much I'm gonna miss harry/louis fic gifts from her in the future, how HOT this pee kink fic is in general, dot dot dot)

Tuxedo Classic Dance Party, by Blake/ @newleafover​. Instead of flying out to meet his touring boyfriend in Madrid, Louis sticks around to be responsible and do things like dance at Lady Gaga night at the gay cowboy club in West Hollywood. (Blake has written at least five fics in various fandoms that I would say are my favorite fics of all time, but they really topped themselves with this one!)

4 fic series

(I feel like there are probably loads more that qualify, but these ones grabbed me in their own particular way)

Not That Gone, by abrighteryellow/ @a-brighter-yellow​. Louis’s 20-year high school reunion takes a turn when a celebrity classmate – who also happens to be Louis’s long unrequited crush – unexpectedly shows up. (this was inspired by Chris Evans, and both parts stand on their own, tbh)

Maybe I Miss You, by 13ways. Louis is on his way back to London after the Hits Live Birmingham concert. Harry is flying to New York for the Met Gala. They connect. (from the very first story in this series, I was HOOKED, canon angst that builds up to something truly wonderful)

There's something I want to try..., by TheMagicWord. Harry wants to try something. Louis's not convinced. Until he is. (the installments are super short, super hot)

One More Time Again, by orphan_account. On the morning of his second sold-out performance at Madison Square Garden, Harry wakes up to find that he's sixteen years old, on The X Factor, and that he has a chance to make things right. (I'm sad that this author orphaned, but I seem to recall her getting a TON of shit, which is unfortunate because this is a great read, and part two is an imagining where Louis goes back instead)

5 fics featuring holidays

(These ones are basically from Christmas and Halloween of this year, so quite recent!!)

once bitten and twice shy, by @pinkcords​. In a rush of bravery only senior year can bring, Harry confesses his feelings in a letter to his neighbor and best friend, Louis, only for the entire school to hear it and laugh him out of their small town in Wisconsin. (the notes on this one blew me away: first-time author, pinch-hitting for a fest, and damn, a knock out)

you've set my soul to dreaming, by we_are_the_same. Thirty-year-old Harry Styles goes to bed single on Christmas Eve, only to wake up on Christmas morning with a husband in his bed and a son down the hall. (I'm not always into this trope, but when it's done well? NICE, and this one did it well)

when half spent was the night, by @juliusschmidt​. I’ve skimmed your website and am interested in hiring you to be my doula. I’m 7 ½ months pregnant and not keen to do this whole labor and birth thing alone. After looking around, I thought you might be a good fit. (girl direction advent fic with pregnant Louis that’s incredibly well done, especially given how short it is, I was so sad to see it end, but the author says something about act II coming??? YES!!!)

Fictober 2019 Collection, by flowercrownfemme/ @lesbianiconharrystyles​. Features lots of monsters and creatures and Harry Styles being a general nightmare as well as a few Girl Direction drabbles and a timestamp for Fool For You and one for Treat Mothman With Kindness. (Chloe's Halloween drabbles, each of which could outrival other stories 4x the length...she's a GIFT)

Cat & Mouse, by jaerie. It's the one day out of the year that Harry doesn't have to hide and can be himself — at least he thought so. Louis is just a little more observant than he anticipated. (I'm not a big hybrid fic fan, BUT GOD THIS STORY IS SO GOOD, it's so short I wanna cry, but so good!!!)

6 a/b/o fics

(I can handle "traditional" a/b/o if it gives me my dose of omega Harry, but I absolutely adore "untraditional" a/b/o, you know, where it actually is NOT about straight dynamics being put on a m/m or f/f couple (excuse me, a/a or o/o)...these ones NAIL IT, as did the entire gaybo ficfest)

violence of my own touch, by 14hrflight/ @silverfoxlouis​. Louis hasn’t said anything, but Harry knows something is wrong. Harry’s rut had ended a few days ago, and Louis had kept him under as best as he could. (whenever I read Chi's alpha/alpha fics, I find myself internally screaming "CHI!!!" god, do they Get It, and I really hope they continue this one!)

Amor Victorious, by HappyPrincess/ @pattern-pals​. Louis finds himself following Harry on a journey through Italy, complete with long train rides, greasy food, naked Christs, and too many lingering touches. They're definitely not like other tourists and he definitely doesn't have a crush on his best friend who happens to be an alpha, too. (this one came out during Thanksgiving week, so I held it to savor, and BOY, DID I SAVOR, it's so incredible, the gorgeous writing, the visceral, indescribable feeling of reading it, sighhhhhhh)

do you know me by heart, by HappyPrincess/ @pattern-pals​. Harry comes back wearing alphas' scents, a pleased smile and a lace dress. Somehow, Louis still ends up making him come until he cries. (for me personally, 2019 was the year of Nina: getting to know them, catching up on all their writing, falling in love with the way they can kill us all with beautiful angst and the hint and hope of redemption...here's a tissue, you'll need it!!)

the way that you're thrilling me, by @hereforlou​. Alphas were smelly and cocky and mostly arseholes, in Harry’s experience. Or at least they were at school. He didn’t understand how his friends—lovely, soft-skinned, sweet-smelling omegas—could actually want to touch them, or be touched by them. (this is just one of the many, MANY faves I had from the gaybo ficfest, A+ all around)

Constant Debauchery, by Blake/ @newleafover​. Harry is an alpha who loves getting his mouth knotted by other alphas. Louis is happy to serve. Fun smut! But also angst and sexual awakenings. (Blake knows how to sum up their writing, lol, but YEAH, me as at least one of the comments both public and private saying they'd want to read 100k more of this)

how many nights did I crash against the waves, by Blake/ @newleafover​ Louis is going into heat and Harry thinks it's hot. (the SKILL of writing something that's 1.7k, yet builds a complete--and v. v. hot--world)

7 fics with Harry and someone else

(I still have a few I need to read in this category--I'm getting there! But these are some from my fave authors that really had me pondering some walls [heh])

I Want Your Belly, by @glasscushion​. Harry wants Adam to knock him up. Inspired by on-stage thirst, the Instagram Stories Shirt, Watermelon Sugar, and Harry’s persistent baby fever. (Adam/Harry, mpreg kink of the finest order!!)

Rachel, Nevada, by @vondrostes​. Harry has a close sexual encounter of the fourth kind. (Jeff/Harry, Rachel/Harry, and I honestly can't even BEGIN to describe this, holy WOW)

Sea Salt, by @glasscushion​. Nick's drunk, and he can't avoid his feelings forever. Set in 2013 and 2019. (Nick/Harry, rip gryles...the grylers I know had an absolute field day in terms of angst, damn!)

all my lies are safe beside you now, by HappyPrincess/ @pattern-pals​. They both know what it was like to love Louis Tomlinson fiercely, irrevocably, ghosts of it on their skin, even if the traces were etched in vastly different ways. (Zayn/Harry, and FOR REAL, this is a huge ouch)

call me anything you like, but my name is, by @wishforwishes​. Some conversations are better left forgotten, some conversations are worth remembering, and some conversations you never get the chance to have. Featuring three mentors, two tea parties, one and a half recording studios, and a reference to Archie comics. (Harry/CHASM, essentially; LISTEN, I am obsessed with this fic, you don't need to read part one to really Get It, but the bits with Zayn, and James/Ben, and all the parts with Harry working through gender? SO GODDAMNED REAL)

Come Out and Play, by @dinosaursmate​. Harry and Louis discover a new kink in their relationship, and it brings all the boys closer than they could have ever imagined. (ot5 orgy, so not really Harry with anyone so much as everyone with everyone, and let's call this one canon)

Like a Rolling Stone, by @vondrostes​. By the end of it, Nick realised his tea had gone cold in his hand. He’d barely taken a single sip in the hour-plus he’d been sat there, unmoving, transfixed by Harry’s songs—haunted by the knowledge of what had inspired them. (Nick/Harry, rip gryles)

8 canon fics

(This was a VERY hard category to narrow down, but yeah, a big push this year from "newer" writers = lots of nuanced fic)

Per Aspera, by @sedfierisentio​. Louis’s throat feels tight, his heart like a hammer in his chest. You know my rot, he thinks, and I know yours. I love you still. (these achingly beautiful time stamps are centered around taste, and if this fic has taught me anything, it's that buying an author a coffee has a ripple effect)

A Nullo Amato, by @sedfierisentio​. Inspired by Harry carrying books around outside LAX, a canon-compliant, Canon AU fic set between 2014 and 2015; mostly, timestamps roped together by a common theme—literature. (this was removed four years ago and reposted, so maybe it's a cheat??? i don't care, it was brand-new to me and a lot of other people, I'm so glad the author shared it again!)

no love like your love, by @dykes4louis​. A collection of tumblr drabbles. (Hima is REALLY burying the lede on this one because each of these is short and SCORCHING, her skill, check out her other works, too!)

Dancing in My Dreams, by @kingsofeverything​. Louis doesn't mean to imply that Harry's too old to dance for him, but Harry takes it that way, and sets out to prove him wrong. (this is one that *could* go in the series pile, but I love it as a standalone...feels like canon to me, regardless!)

Sonic Sounds, by @glasscushion​. "Harry takes a deep breath, suitably embarrassed, “I’m just really...” and he can’t say the obvious. He can’t just say "really wet." Or Harry loves feeling embarrassed. Louis is happy to help. (I'll never look at those One Direction electric toothbrushes quite the same way again)

Bruised Fruit, by @glasscushion. Louis is obsessed with the way Harry smells in the heat of LA. (hey, you know what, me, too, bitch, you ain't special...the way this fic SMELLS, my god, I"m obsessed)

be my once in a lifetime, by HappyPrincess/ @pattern-pals. Just like there are only four other people who will ever understand what it’s like growing up in One Direction, there’s only one other person who knows what it’s like to find your soulmate just before you’re thrown into the spotlight and forced to acknowledge that the both of you have too many flaws and vices to make it through fame together. Or: It's all about having sex and being sad. And drunk. (can u believe Nina wrote this before Fine Line???)

in this dress, by cabinbythesea. Louis is so lost in his eyes and his words he feels if a step above heaven exists, it has to be Harry. Loosely inspired by Harry’s dress from the director’s cut of Lights Up. (I sure hope we see even more fic inspired by every bit of this album/every video it produces)

9 fics by Phoenix/ @alienfuckeronmain

(This fandom doesn't deserve her, and I hope everyone's reading her other works because they're all so amazing, she's such an incredibly gifted writer, my fave of faves, my life is so much brighter with her in it...I could rec her all goddamned day, and I do slash will!!! Here are nine she cranked out this year, each one a gem in its own way)

Silver White Winters. In which Louis catches a cloud and pins it down, aka, a Sound of Music AU (the shittiness in the comments underlines why we can't have nice things, but jesus CHRIST, this is so pure and good, and she cranked it out in, like, two hours)

I don't do that dance. Harry is easily the worst ballet dancer in her whole Intro to Ballet class. Except maybe Taylor Swift. (I adore how Phoenix writes girl Harry, but the way she writes Taylor? Unparalleled...nails her perfectly!)

magic, madness, heaven, sin, by @kerasines. It’s the flashing lights painting colors on her eyelids, it’s the drumming bass competing with her heartbeat. It’s the manic energy rippling through the crowd in waves, the deafening, frenzied passion filling the stadium that remind Eleanor that she actually used to like going to concerts. (technically, this one is FOR Phoenix, from Kim, but it takes a pairing that Phoenix is making her very own, so I'm counting it, lol)

Snakes and Stones. If you call a girl a snake enough, sometimes she becomes one. Her legs lengthen and fuse, her pupils shrink to slits. She gets colder and colder, until she has to spread herself on the warm cement beside the pool, soaking in heat, sipping gin and tonics to warm her blood so she does not turn to ice and shatter to bits. (god, I'm blanking on this ship name, but El/Taylor is such an inspired pairing, and I hope that P's drabbles make it over to ao3 in full)

Something good (will come from here). Taylor does not answer, because she is too busy licking her lips and pitching forward, as if Eleanor is the sky, or the sea. (you can practically SMELL this fic, El/Taylor drabble)

I Must Confess (I Still Believe). Harry is the new girl at an all girl Catholic Girl's School, and Louis is the unattainable, dashing senior who changes her forever. (this fic breaks my heart, the entire experience of its production and aftermath will forever be bittersweet, a gorgeous swansong)

Only One at the Finish Line. “I want to be another alpha’s omega,” is what he says, and it comes out like something reckless, something wild. Like he doesn't care anymore if Louis hates him or not, if Louis understands, he just needs to speak his truth aloud to darkness, to the slender pines that surround them like a jury panel. (Phoenix was the gaybo mod, and this was her contribution, and it is PERFECTION PERSONIFIED, fest goals)

The Pink Ghost of Princess Park. The thought of the vibrator does not go away. It’s sitting there collecting dust all through January, and every time Harry and Louis have to leave town for a press event or a show or to record or what have you, they come back home, and it’s still there, the Pink Ghost of Princess Park, the fucking glittery haunting that Harry cannot stop thinking of Louis stuffing up his arse. (a very good year in general for Princess Park clapbacks)

Life Saver. Louis is a sweetheart punk with a theater background and a heart of gold, Harry is an inexperienced nerd who plays by the rules. Classmates, lab partners, and eventually friends, what happens when Louis knows he’s in love, but doesn’t know how tell Harry? (this one came out a year ago tomorrow, and it had a tough birthing process, but it's so good, so hot, my love for virgin Harry gettin’ it on knows no bounds)

10 AU fics

(yes, yes, this could be LOADS longer, but I’m sticking to my theme!)

breathless for an eternity, by cabinbythesea. Harry conquers double duty on SNL and Louis wishes he was Nick Jonas. (dangggg, this came out too late for me to rec it along with my other snl-related fic, but it joins that lofty canon!)

Pretty Baby, by @littlelouishiccups. Louis helps Harry unwind after a busy week. (I was NOT expecting a new chapter in the iconic sugar baby Harry series, but HERE WE ARE)

into another (another) serotonin overflow, by @mercutionotromeo. Sweet first time sex wherein Harry's adorably awkward, Louis is achingly cool, and Harry rides Louis wearing his jersey. (this is one of my all-time fave fics, and I'm not sure what changed in it to get it reposted, but yeah, HERE FOR IT, THANK YOU!!!)

'Sup, by @mediawhorefics. All Louis wants is to finish the play he’s been commissioned to write, but one of the regulars at his local coffee shop keeps distracting him. ft. older larry, pushy gemma, harry being a disaster gay and silver fox louis. (this is so short but so tantalizing, GOD, DO I WANT MORE OF THIS UNIVERSE)

Tan Lines and Some Memories, by twoshipstiedup. Harry Styles is the indie movie darling he’d been avoiding ever since Louis saw his movie at Cannes and harbored an unreasonable grudge against him. A unicorn t-shirt finally brings them together in person. (I honestly thought we'd get more unicorn shirt fic, but this is a wonderful standard-bearer, banter city)

Bitter Tangerine, by purpledaisy/ @daisyharry. Nine months after they break up, a twist of fate brings Harry and Louis back together at Christmas. (so much ouch in this, but wow, do you feel like you're reading fully realized, realistic, growing characters)

We're Driving in Your Fast Car, by @sadaveniren. Harry felt himself light up - both with excitement and the thrill of getting what he wanted. “Really?” “Of course, anything for you." aka Louis and Harry are car thieves about to pull off a million dollar job. (another one I'd love to read more of...how did they get here, where are they going, etc.)

remember you well, by @fondleeds. Harry’s a criminal, Louis’ a cop, and they’re stranded overnight at the Motel 6. (what's with me and my love of heist/caper fics this year?)

Tied Down, by HamPalpert/ @ham-palpert. The most interesting case in Liam and Niall's careers falls directly into their laps, courtesy of an epic fuck-up of one Harry Styles, partner to the almost-infamous drug dealer Louis Tomlinson. The investigation yields an unexpected yet satisfactory outcome for Liam and Niall. For Harry and Louis, however, things are far more complicated. (SEE ABOVE, JESUS, I THINK ABOUT THIS FIC...ALL...THE.......TIME)

Harry Styles Cooks..., by sunsetmog. Louis owns all of Harry Styles’ cookbooks, and he never intends to cook a single thing out of any of them. (yeah, it's a wip, yeah, I flatline every time it updates, what of it, I'm living my best life vicariously through it!!)

#fic rec #faves of 2019 #i have so many more i love that i read #but this is a theme lmaooooo #hope that one anon loves it!

[child-of-sunshine]

Just gotta rant for a minute so this is going under a cut

I can’t stand the way tumblr in general talks about “rich people” (which they can’t define to save their fucking lives) and particularly when they mention “millionaires” as though it actually means something significant in terms of wealth. 

First, no one seems to understand that by today’s inflated standards, a million dollars really isn’t that much. A quick google search will tell me that the average “middle-income” parent in America will spend over 250k to raise a child from birth to 18 years old. If a couple has 4 kids, they’re already spending over a million dollars on those kids. Yes, that’s over 18 years, but it’s still meaningful.

If a person makes 100k, which is supposedly the 85th percentile of income, it only takes them 10 years to make a million dollars. And yes, obviously they’re spending money too, and it’s not like their savings or their net worth are going to be a million in that time, but people don’t even seem to comprehend that their earnings over that time would literally be a million. Someone earning the average American income, let’s say 50k because I get conflicting information from various sources, would only take 20 years to earn a million dollars.

And calling “millionaires” (putting that in quotes because people (a) do NOT understand the difference between net worth and actual liquid assets or even income) rich, particularly in the context of the “eat the rich” rhetoric, is ridiculous. I know this site has a serious problem with black-and-white thinking, but for fuck’s sake.

Let’s take a look at my parents.

My dad grew up in a relatively low-income household. His mother’s grandparents came straight from Italy with a few dollars in their pockets and nothing else. Her family struggled to get food on the table at times. She worked very hard as a seamstress and married a man who had a good job at Ford back when that meant actual benefits including into retirement, and so they managed to raise two boys without having to worry too much about being able to afford food or housing. They saved like crazy and spent the minimum that they possibly could on themselves, so that when they reached retirement, they had a pretty decent amount of savings for the rest of their lives and could finally enjoy some luxury vacations and get a small but nice house in Florida.

My mom grew up in a truly low-income household. She was the youngest of five siblings living in a tiny, shitty town in Nowhere, Michigan, with two parents who smoked constantly, in a house that sat next to some kind of horrifying mystery waste pond (she and both of her sisters had cancer, my mom at just 36, and one of her brothers died from some kind of unknown neurological deterioration). Her father got TB and spent time in a sanitarium, after which he became a withdrawn alcoholic and then died relatively young. Her mother became depressed, stopped working, and died of cancer. My mom lost both of her parents in her early 20s, before she even met my father.

Both of my parents were gifted with the great privileges of great brains and being white. Even in their crappy hick town in the middle of nowhere, my mom managed to be in the top of her class (of 56 whole people) in high school and earned a scholarship to a state university, literally the only way she could have afforded to attend. My dad worked to pay for his college as far as I know (because back then you could actually do that). They both got bachelor’s degrees. My dad became an engineer, a good career, and quickly found a job with a relatively new, small local company. He worked extremely hard, long hours for years and moved up to being a manager, and the company has grown a lot over the 25+ years he’s now worked there, with the result that he now makes a low six-figure salary. My mom took a computer programming course after realizing her journalism degree wouldn’t get her much paid work, and has worked as a programmer for 25+ years now, switching jobs sometimes, usually making somewhere in the 60-70k range in the last decade or so.

My mother got pregnant with my sister around the time she and my dad got engaged. She was working a crappy programming job and he’d barely started as an engineer, making nowhere near six figures. They lived in a trailer park, in a trailer with a hole in the floor and steps that were a safety hazard. She’d spent some time living with her sister, who’s 13 years older than her and never had children (thus had a house and some savings). My dad’s mother, the seamstress, made my mom’s wedding dress for free as long as my mom bought the material for it, which was just about all they could afford. They had a nice, small wedding when my sister was about 2 (she was afraid of my mom’s dress lmao) and one of my cousins took the pictures.

Four years after my sister was born, my parents had saved up enough to put a down payment on our house, a moderate-sized family home in a suburban neighborhood that was just being built. The house was a little over 200k. She got pregnant with me and the house was finished just after I was born.

My mom got cancer when I was 2 years old. They haven’t talked to me much about it. Her sister spent a lot of money to buy her a really nice wig made of animal hair (which, unfortunately, she could rarely wear because it made her very itchy). She went through surgery, chemo, and radiation. She spent months sick as hell and miserable, while trying to raise two young daughters. Thankfully, they’d saved enough to be able to handle the medical bills, particularly with my dad’s good job that had good benefits and, by then, was paying him a pretty decent salary. My mom recovered, thankfully (over 20 years in remission now!).

In 2008, when the recession hit, my mom lost her job quickly. She tried finding new ones but couldn’t. No one was hiring programmers, they were getting rid of them. Her depression got a lot worse. I was in high school and depressed myself (in large part because of the situation at home, though my parents don’t know it, that became suicidal depression a while afterward), and they had to start paying for therapy for me. My sister was in college and had to try to pay for it herself because my parents’ college fund for her hadn’t gone as far as they’d hoped. My dad’s company supplies machines to auto manufacturers. They were worried. They laid off some people, thankfully not my dad, and others had to take pay cuts. My parents started sitting down and seriously going over finances. My mom and I had to completely quit figure skating, my only physical stress outlet (like I said, that contributed a LOT to the severe depression). We had to cut down the grocery bills and think about not buying gifts for family members’ birthdays and such. My grandparents, happily retired by then with good savings, paid off the rest of our mortgage and told my dad to pay them back without interest whenever he could, so that no matter what happened with the jobs, we at least wouldn’t have to worry about losing our house. I listened to my parents scream at each other over money and I cried myself to sleep a lot of nights.

Guess what? My dad is a millionaire. Definitely not in liquid assets, but in net worth he probably just barely hits 1 million. He now makes a low six-figure salary and when the economy is doing okay, he invests some of it in the stock market, mostly in low-risk stocks that are guaranteed to have payouts (I don’t know a lot about this, so that’s all I’ll say). He inherited/learned his dad’s extreme money-saving ways and saves as much as possible. He’s an engineer and very handy, so whenever possible he does home and car repairs himself to save a lot of money. I managed to get a scholarship that covered almost all of my undergrad tuition, I lived at home for half of undergrad and all of med school to save money, I worked in retail in undergrad and as an EMT in med school to pay for some of my own stuff, and they didn’t pay for any of my med school tuition, so that’s it for their educational expenses for me. My mom’s had a good, stable job for the last few years that pays in the low 80k range, I think. We live in a house worth ~250k that we now fully own thanks to my grandparents. 

A few years ago, my dad’s brother bought a crappy, tiny, nearly-condemned cabin in the woods up north for about 20k (seriously, it was shit). He and my dad put in a few hundred dollars and a TON of time and manual labor to fix it up, and now we pay half the bills on it and both of our families use it for vacations. We have a small (19ft) boat that my dad bought as a gift for my mom when she had cancer--he got it extremely cheap from a guy who’d bought it, barely used it, and just wanted rid of it. It’s a 1994 and full of problems now, but we’ve managed to keep it going (barely, at times) and my dad has taken really good care of it over the years. A friend of my dad’s got him into snowmobiling about a decade ago and once his brother bought the cabin and they fixed it up, my dad got a cheap, crappy used snowmobile, which he used for a few years before reselling it and upgrading to an actually nice, new one, because yeah, he could afford it. He’s upgraded a couple times, good for him. When I actually have the time off, I go up with him in the winter and ride one of his old ones that he kept and fixed after it had an engine problem. It doesn’t cost much to renew the trail permits each year and I borrow my uncle’s gear for riding, so other than the initial cost of the sleds, it really costs us nothing to go riding (gas is extremely negligible in snowmobiles, they can go 120+ miles on a single 8 gallon tank, and we store them ourselves at the cabin so we don’t pay for that). We store the boat in our garage at home (like I said, it’s small) so other than the permit and gas for that when we take it out, again, really no continuous expense.

My parents pay all of their taxes without trying to do any bullshit work-arounds. They don’t have a lawyer or a tax accountant or a financial advisor, my dad does it all himself. He keeps track of all of our finances himself. We don’t pay a landscaping service or a cleaning service or any of that crap, we do it all ourselves like any other middle-class family. My mom donates regularly to charities for cancer, animal rescues, and injured veterans. 

But to tumblr, incapable of seeing nuance, we’re “one-percenters (absolutely nowhere near true) who own a house and have a ‘vacation home’ and a boat and recreational vehicles” so we’re pretty much just as bad as Bezos, because anyone who isn’t actively struggling to put food on the table or in horrible medical debt because of our disaster of a system is apparently “rich” and there’s no such thing as shades of gray.

#sorry that was insanely long #no one will read it though so it doesn't matter #that's why I made the read more #just needed to write down thoughts and bitch #I hate the politics on this site #so many good ideas SO badly implemented #the splitting on here is completely fucking ridiculous #and I'm really sick of seeing things that imply me or my family are evil and inherently bad for existing comfortably #and going on occasional vacations #and being able to afford the medical bills when I got a tumor and needed surgery

[prorevenge]

Shady business owners don't like it when you call regulators.

Used to work in private security (rent-a-cop/bacon bits jokes go here). When I was first hired on, thought the company was fairly upstanding yadda yadda because the owner and I would bullshit a little about our respective military careers. "A guy who used to be in pararescue can't be that bad, right?"

First year was relatively normal security work, mostly fixed post (think Walmart door greeter but with a badge and handcuffs) and general "I'll tackle you if you steal things, but otherwise I'm just a breathing security camera" stuff. About a year in, I finish all of my qualifications for armed work and get assigned to patrol. Patrol is basically private police: companies would hire us to make rounds and respond to things at their locations (mostly apartment complexes, and mostly noise complaints or occasionally towing off cars and such, but occasionally managing residents during a fire or breaking up disturbances).

The company handled pay in a kinda wonky manner. Twice a month (on the 1st and 15th) we got paid for two weeks worth of work, and every now and again (it seemed like whenever they felt like it was getting too far behind) we'd get an extra paycheck slipped in with our normal one. I got my first paycheck five weeks after starting, and there was a point where we were receiving December checks in February. Pay rates were determined by the type of work: entry level stuff made $7/hour, more advanced made $8, and armed paid $10. Raises were available on top of that (for the record, I worked there for 3 years and never got a raise, and the two people I know who got raises each got 25¢ an hour after 4 years, also all of this was during a $5.15 minimum wage). Patrol required armed officers but paid as advanced, but was also a guaranteed 42 hours a week on a set schedule (three 12 hour days, a 6 hour day, and three days off) so most of us didn't really complain.

Moving up into patrol taught me a lot about the company that I didn't know. I figured the owner was a little sexist (ex-military types tend to be) but the depths of his sexism caught me a little off-guard. And then there's the racism. I'm Latino but I look white (because I avoid sun like the plague and got my bone structure from my [white] mother's side), though my surname is a dead giveaway: there's a state in Mexico to which I'm apparently related (must be a distant relative on Abuelita's side). I was apparently good enough to be on patrol, but not promotable (even though I worked my fucking ass off, even though supervisors routinely recommended me for promotion) for some reason. Or the fact that we had one black guy on staff, and he was fired for something that other people got away with. The female officer who was assigned the easiest shift because "it's all she can handle" and "this way, it's obvious I'm trying to work with the women." Those are as close to verbatim quotes as I can recall. Or the time he held a contest between patrols for excellence and canceled it after 2 months...two months in which it happened that the female officer won once and took second once, and the Mexican dude won once and took second once. Between those two months, I made an extra $30 in gas cards. WOOO! /s

For frame of reference, here are a couple of things white dudes did that they didn't get fired for: hitting 120mph in a company car in a 40mph zone (after over a year of doing 20+ over), carrying a gun without the proper permit, blatant sexual harassment, admitting to skipping stops on a route and just sending the business a false statement, writing racist slogans on the front of company-provided TASER cartridges (Homie Down is the one I remember), tasing people without proper justification, sleeping on the job, working drunk, etc.

I also learned about how they screwed over clients: this company pays for 12 hours of continuous patrol between their three properties, but the owners want more money so that route also covers 5 apartment complexes and handles cash drops for a couple of stores. Another business pays us $1M a year for 5.5 hours per weeknight and 7.5 hours per weekend night (approximately $450 per hour) and that route jumps off property like clockwork every night to take care of 3-5 other properties at specified times, leaving that client without their only security at key times. This group of apartment complexes pays for 1 hour on property per night, might get half of that if the night is slow because of the workload.

And then he decided to fuck over his staff (more). Patrol was offered a salary (that was 10% less than the minimum legal salary), with the strong implication that if we wanted any hours at all we'd take it. Once we were all salaried (or gone), things shifted over to 48 hour weeks. I did the math at one point and realized that if I watched a movie at the theater and ate twice at fast food on every day off, it was still cheaper for me to not work than to work (because of gas and food while working, considering I walked about 12-15 miles every night as part of the patrols, which requires a fairly brisk pace, which requires calories galore). But if you were scheduled off and they called you in, you either accepted the extra hours or you got chewed out, and if you made a habit of saying no you'd get written up for anything they could think of.

Then one of my colleagues got into an accident at work. He was hospitalized for like 9 days, ended up making a full recovery. But he was in the company car, so according to the company he was responsible for paying the $2500 insurance deductible. I'd had it at that point. I borrowed some money from my mother to talk to a labor attorney. Best $200 I ever spent.

Attorney gave me three pieces of advice:

If there's a problem with the way we're being paid, talk to the labor board.

My colleague was not on the hook for the car. That's why the company had insurance. It wasn't our fault that he was too cheap to spring for a lower deductible.

Document everything, but keep my name out of anything.

I passed word to the injured colleague about the insurance thing, and he lawyered up pretty much immediately (his family had enough money that he didn't have to work). I also made a not-so-anonymous phone call to the state labor board (asking that they not reveal it was me). 3 weeks later, I'm in the office handling post-shift paperwork when the rep comes in. I GTFOed as fast as I possibly could. I didn't want to be there for that whole thing.

Fast forward about 6 months, and the labor board has finished their investigation. Turns out that the salary was in fact too low to be legally allowable, but also that our positions were not legally eligible for salary anyway. So all of those 48/60/72+ hour weeks were full of overtime. Unpaid overtime. Unpaid overtime on which we were owed interest. Also, requiring patrol to be armed but not paying them armed rates wasn't legal (based on the employment contract, any work for which we required that license required we be paid the rate associated with that license). Also, the "twice a month you're paid for 2 weeks of work" thing isn't legal either. So we got several oversized paychecks covering back pay, plus others covering interest (which had to be noted in the check stub as interest on back pay).

The labor board rep couldn't do anything about the ways they were screwing over their customers, but she did have someone she could call. Someone she should call. Someone she did call. A couple weeks later, that investigation started. I don't know all the details (I left during that time to start some higher education) but a few months later they sold the company to someone else, and I heard through the grapevine that part of the reason was that they lost several contracts and all that back pay pretty much wiped out their savings (I got something like $8K in back pay, and there were another dozen patrol officers in that time frame, so I figure around $100K total went out just to patrol, and apparently there were some discrepancies in how they managed fixed post staff as well) and they had to move to a smaller house. The rumors also said that after the sale, the new owners renegotiated all the contracts (including getting a few that the previous owners had lost to being shady) and somehow they're still profitable (even after giving raises and whatnot). It's almost like the previous owners had just been trying to milk everyone for as much as they could get.

Oh, and an aside: I got to know the manager of that business that paid us $1M/year pretty well afterwards. She neither confirmed nor denied that $1M figure. So take it with a grain of salt, but if it's true (she manages the most affluent shopping center in town, which includes a restaurant where prices aren't on the menu because "if you have to ask, you can't afford it") that one contract would cover all the expenses of all of patrol. The owners always seemed really intent on keeping her happy (and made sure that we knew not to tell her we left the area for any reason except end of shift). And they always had money to spend on things like a large house in one of the more affluent areas, and the private school for their daughter, and buying a new gun or two (higher priced stuff, where the name stamp adds $1500 to the price) every couple of weeks...

(source) (story by m4dn3zz)

#prorevenge #by m4dn3zz #pro revenge stories #pro #revenge #revenge story #revenge stories #last10

[sophocused]

uni recap 2019

I think it's really important for young studyblrs still in high school or junior high to be exposed to more detailed and honest uni experience anecdotes, so buckle up because it’s about to get real honest and a little personal in here.

I'm in the middle of the fall term of my second uni year, technically now in the 2nd year of my general B.Sc. and I need to start from the beginning a little bit, especially when it comes to my academic journey so far.

Let's start with junior high, when adults always want to ask what you want to be when you grow up. After going to a career symposium with friends, a field trip run by the school, that's when I heard about the College of Pharmacy at the "top" university of the province.

First thing that attracted me was that they make an annual $100k a year, and to my 14 year old impressionable mind that was convinced that my future had to revolve around making bank, I decided from there that I would work towards the end goal of becoming a pharmacist.

I was convinced that pharmacy was the ultimate goal to get my life going, as a real functioning adult of society.

Fortunately, I was wrong. It was a hard pill to swallow, but a necessary one nonetheless.

Since this is an academic recap, I won't bring up the mental health and physical health bits of the last eight years of my life, I'll fastforward to high school senior year, when I decided I would (as a minimal effort-get straight A's student) actually TRY in my studies again. It was because my work ethic had grown to a point that when I didn't try and still got a B or A, I was scared of the moment I would actually try and then not get an A or A+. I wanted to fight that fear of realizing that I'm not "effortlessly good at thngs" because I didnt want to have a fear of failure.

(Disclaimer: it's been three years since then and I'm still a work in progress when it comes to my relationship with failures but it is getting consistently healthier, despite bumps)

Thus, I started this studyblr three years ago, June 30th 2016 I believe?? My url was chemystery for the first few days but sophocused came up because of sophocles (not that hes my fave philosopher or anything) it just stuck ANYWAY IM GETTING DISTRACTED

So I actually tried in my last year of high school, worked hard and got A's in physics, pre-calculus, and AP chemistry. The AP chemistry came with a provincial exam, that in getting a score of 4, granted me a $150 reward, and the grade of a B in two university courses (2 chem prerequisites)

I was a fool and no one exactly explained to me that those 2 courses were even harder when taught through uni, because I really wasted nearly $1000 in taking those two courses again in my first year of uni, in hopes of turning them into A's.

I should probably mention that going into uni, the pharmacy program had 2 chem, 2 bio, 1 calc, 1 written course, and 2 electives, as prerequisites. My innocent mind, thinking it wouldn't be a big deal, registered for a full five and five course load, so that I could finish all my prerequisites within my first year of uni, and apply for the college of pharmacy by March. (Back then, it was still a Bachelor's program where selection process depended on your AGPA, and your mark on a written critical skills essay)

I learned the hard way that for university, it is a mentally and emotionally laborious task to try and juggle five classes, having to hold yourself accountable when it comes to attendance and figuring out what notes you want to take. There's no way to write physical hand-written notes for five courses (not for me anyway).

It was incredibly fast-paced as well, and I had many days where I just didn't want to get out of bed. I was so conflicted with my perfectionist mindset, and the pressure to get a 4.0 GPA that I spread myself so thin and honestly it was one of the most difficult years of my life. I still got out with 8 B's and 2 A's by the end of my first year. I was ashamed of those B's.

When it came to applying for pharmacy however, despite the grades I got, my GPA didn't make it to the minimum 3.50 needed to be applicable for pharmacy, but I got my transcript a month after I had already applied for pharmacy and I had even done the written exam.

I had to face my first big failure which was getting the email that they couldnt even look over or consider my application because my GPA did not reach the minimum required.

On top of that, I learned that I could not just simply try again the next year. This was because suddenly, the university decided they were going to change the Bachelors pharmacy program into a PharmD. A doctorate. To me, that meant they added eight more prerequisites (even more difficult uni courses with chem and human phys), and a required PCAT score. We also were not allowed to apply until Fall 2020. That meant, I now suddenly had no plan for my academic career for the next two years because I had really only ever thought about getting into pharmacy on the first try.

After a breakdown or two last year upon processing this, I had made the decision and talked to my parents about trying for it again, and doing the new prerequisites. This brought in the new mental turmoil of money on my mind during my summer after first year of uni, thousands of dollars this would cost, suddenly having no routine for four months after working at max brain capacity for 6 months.

My 2nd year of uni, fall 2018, a lot of growing had happened, a lot of processing of failure happened, just. a lot. happened.

October 2018, I got a job at a school, so I really juggled my school stuff with work. Five days a week, I would be up at 6-7am and then get home around 6:30pm, while doing human physiology, organic chemistry 1, an eastern religions elective, and an intro to statistics course.

long story short, yes I must spare you the details of the process of it all because it got pretty sad. That was my worst uni term, ending with 1 B, 1 C+, 1 C, and an F in organic chem.

My first F in university. My first F ever in my entire school life. It was a begrudging blow at my mental state, and I spent two to three weeks devastated. I dont know how I got out of it, I think one day I just said to myself, "Okay you got an F, but did you die?"

Honestly, the humour in that really cheered me up, among other things, and the emotional support I got from my older sister, and by the time I got into the 2nd half of my uni year (right now), I have discovered I potentially have a calling to become a teacher or to work in the lab as a technician.

Most importantly, most if not all of the credits I've earned, are also applicable to get into the Faculty of Education. Basically, I came to peace with having options, and digging deep into myself to really find the thing that I could really see myself doing based on my personality and interests, not just on the money and the rush of finishing school.

I just finished the longest midterm season of winter 2019, with my first midterm being early February and my last midterm + essay deadline on March 15th... I did well. I did well in trying to really take care of myself while trying to go to every class and trying to work hard as much as I could everyday. I think out of my many midterms, I got 1 A, 4 B's, and a C. These are all salvageable. I do still really want to keep working towards a 4.5 GPA but now I'm okay if that doesnt always turn out to be what I get.

Anyway I finally get to write something like this because I've been busy for the past month, a lot of things happened again in the midst of it all, but I'm still okay. I get a week to rest before my lab exam and then it's finals season.

This time, I'll try hard not to just let my life pass me by, with only ever school and academics in mind, I had gotten really sad these past few weeks, and I'm usually good at being my own antidote for that, but I really got to a point where I felt I had no strength to pick myself back up.

Last night I said "fuck it" and decided to go to my cousin's house who I hadn't seen in over a month to spend time with them instead of working on my 30% essay due midnight. Before I was so desperate to finish it, terrified of the 2% deduction per day it would be late, but after crying on the bus, I had had enough of letting my academics bring this much weight on my mental health. After spending four hours with my cousins and aunt, I came home to my mom, and I watched a two hour movie with her.

I didn't regret it one bit. I felt better than I had in a long, long while.

Now, this Friday, my grandma and other cousin are flying in, and I cant wait to just keep healing.

Thank you for reading, or scanning over, I hope you got something good out of this, as I am telling this story both for my sake, and for other students’ who might commonly find themselves in the same boat. I believe in you.

#nina rambles #march 17 2019 #happy st. patrick's day #studyblr #studyblr tips #uni studyblr #university stories #university ramble #uni student #uni diaries #college struggles #uni struggles

[letsimportanttreecollection-blog]

Insurance estimate on Integra, Mustang?

"Insurance estimate on Integra, Mustang?

Hey. So I am getting my first car in a couple months, and my dad said I could choose which car, but keep it in a low price range. I've always liked Integras, since I was little, and I always wanted it to be my first car, so thats in consideration. And my dad said get a mustang. I would like to know how much insurance is on each?   The cars would be-   Acura Integra 1996-2001 (LS, RS, SE, GS)  Under my dads name (age 50) I would be secondary driver  Silver or black or white  Roughly 150k miles  Maybe 25 miles a day   Would buy used around 2000$ - 4000$  Im aware its a luxury car, thus insurance being a tad more expensive  How much would you think insurance would be? We have Progressive but I just want a estimate - Maybe like the average of how much people with integras pay for insurance.   Mustang 2004  Under my dads name (age 50) I would be secondary driver  Black or silver  Maybe 100k miles  25 miles/ day  Used around 4000$ - 5000$  Not luxury, but its a sports car, Im guessing insurance is more expensive for it   Anything will help :)

BEST ANSWER:  Try this site where you can compare quotes: : http://freeautoinsurance.xyz/index.html?src=tumblr 

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quote but they Hadn't run my driving record yet. And they said they can use ur credit report but, Otha than seeing if u hav paid ur car insurance/bills on tym I Don't see Why they need That info, otha car insurance companies I called Didn't want to check my credit history & Every check on ur credit report can make ur credit score lower & my credit's not that gud rite now tho I pay my utilities, rent, my current credit card & my cell bill on tym & my auto insurance in the past was always paid on tym. (I haven't had car insurance for 3 1/2 yrs cuz I haven't had a car.) Also, they were telling me if I call back the quote mite not stay the same cuz I was tryin 2 get the quote number & No Other insurance companies said that, the otha 1's gave me a quote # so I can deal wit the quote later if I decided 2 go wit them. E-suarance (was tryin 2 get me 2 put a down payment down today & then the insurance would kick in automatically but I told them I want to pay for 6 months at once & I don't hav the money now cuz I hav 2 deposit it in the bank tomorrow, it's a postal money order & will clear Tues. & I Don't Need the insurance 'til Tues. &, then I'll need proof of insurance Tues. to take 2 the DMV wit the papers from the dealer 2 register the car & get the license plates. E-saurance said they could send an e-mail upon payment that I could use 2 show proof of insurance at the DMV or if I Can't print that out I could download their app & show them my proof of insurance thru their app. But that sounded fishy 2 me. Also the guy on the phone from e-suarance wanted a credit card # 2 run my driving record but I was like None of the Otha car insurance companies needed that 2 run my driving record. I Don't want 2 get charged for them 2 run my driving record or 4 any Otha charges. Which is making me suspicious now of the low rate or of paying by credit card ova the fone wit them. Since they're backed by Allstate can I go 2 an Allstate office 2 pay cash & get proof of insurance?""

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I'm looking to buy the dodge charger 2011, I want a car that's good on gas and insurance. I have a Grand Prix right now and i'm fine with my insurance on that but I can't find out how much insurance is on a charger because I don't have one could someone tell me the about the amount of insurance I don't need and exact number.""

Unfair car insurance?

My car was very old but in excellent working order. It has been written off in an accident that was not my fault. The insurance company will only pay me what it's worth, about 150. To get a reasonable second hand replacement will cost much more than this, and I cannot afford it. So I now have no car and cannot afford a replacement. Over the last few years I've paid thousands for insurance. Can the company do this, i.e not pay for an equivalent replacement, but pay what they think it's worth.""

Should I change my Car Insurance company?

I am planning to renew my current automobile insurance policy. I am told by my current provider that in spite of my clean driving record, automobile insurance rates are rising. In light of developments and changes in insurance carriers, policies and regions, is this TRUE or am I being told a partial-truth ?""

How much does medical marijuana cost? Does insurance cover it?

How much does medical marijuana cost? Does insurance cover it?

Should I cancel my car insurance?

I got into an accident 1 month ago and the insurance company of the person who hit me is handling my claim. I don't have coverage for my car so my insurance company is not really doing anything. So should I just cancel my insurance because I am not using my car anyways, and most likely my car will be a write-off because the damage seems irreparable or if it is, the repairs would cost more than the car itself. What do you guys thinks? Thanks for your time.""

Should i gain my CBT license to lower insurance on a 125cc scooter?

I currently have a full driving license and interested in buying a scooter. To lower insurance even further should I gain my CBT license or any other awareness courses?

""One more question on insurance,,,, do I HAVE to cancel existing insurance on my mums car.....?""

i have a quote from an insurance company who is willing to give me temporary car insurance for 3 months on my mums car, it works out cheaper then going on as second driver, they said i have to cancel my mums insurance but maybe that is because they wanna make money at the end of the day, my mum is saying i don't have to cancel the existing insurance but i aint sure, i just think she is worried she may not get the refund for paying for a full years insurance if she cancels... help me out guys !!?""

What is the positive & negetive aspect of Term insurance?

Why insurance agent do not show interest towards term insurance. Why they insist on ULIP only.

Health insurance for child?

i'm looking for a low cost insurance plan for 1 child. not medicaid or anything like that, but the one's i've found are about 200-250/month. location is north carolina.""

Why is it that car insurance is Mandatory ?

why is it that if you crash you just can't pay for the damage and not have car insurance ?

How much does it cost to put car insurance on a bugatti?

How much does it cost to put car insurance on a bugatti?

""I only have a learners permit, can I get auto insurance with just a learner's permit?""

I only have a learners permit, can I get auto insurance with just a learner's permit?""

Self Employed Health Insurance?

My father just quit his old job, he couldn't work there anymore (Too long commute and we lost a parent, so he had to stay closer home for the family) So now he is self employed. We are trying to find insurance that will cover him, 4 children, vision (we all wear glasses) + dental. Does anyone have any suggestions? (We live in PA)""

What is the cheapest motorhome insurance to purchase online?

I just bought an older 26 ft. class c motorhome and need to get insurance just to put a plate on it so the city ordinance officer cant screw with me because it is parked in my driveway.I live in Michigan.I wont be using this until fall and dont want to insure this yet through my regular insurance carrier.Does anyone know of a online insurance company thats fairly cheap?

2006 cadillac cts insurance rate for teens?

i want my dad to give me his car but i wanted to know how much the insurance would be its the base 2006 2.8L cts and its salvaged , so yeah state farm rates would be a +, State of California""

How much does insurance go up in a wreck?

Im a 16 year old male, get good grades, and i drive a 91 firebird. i recently got in a crash, my car was fine but the other guy had a scrape along the side of his car etc. how much can i expect my insurance to go up?""

Insurance estimate on Integra, Mustang?

Hey. So I am getting my first car in a couple months, and my dad said I could choose which car, but keep it in a low price range. I've always liked Integras, since I was little, and I always wanted it to be my first car, so thats in consideration. And my dad said get a mustang. I would like to know how much insurance is on each?   The cars would be-   Acura Integra 1996-2001 (LS, RS, SE, GS)  Under my dads name (age 50) I would be secondary driver  Silver or black or white  Roughly 150k miles  Maybe 25 miles a day   Would buy used around 2000$ - 4000$  Im aware its a luxury car, thus insurance being a tad more expensive  How much would you think insurance would be? We have Progressive but I just want a estimate - Maybe like the average of how much people with integras pay for insurance.   Mustang 2004  Under my dads name (age 50) I would be secondary driver  Black or silver  Maybe 100k miles  25 miles/ day  Used around 4000$ - 5000$  Not luxury, but its a sports car, Im guessing insurance is more expensive for it   Anything will help :)

""Why can't we have Geiko,State Farm, or Progressive auto insurance in the state of Ma?.?""

I always see t.v. commercials for them but at the bottom of the screen it says not available in Ma. and a few other states that I can't remember. If I could save money buy switching to one of those companies I would but I can't , so I have to pick from Commerce or Metropolitan. My car insurance is really expensive (I pay over $300 a month) I have only had my license for a couple years so I under stand the whole new driver thing and my car was new when I bought it so I have full coverage but the car is only a Kia Rio, far from a sports car or luxury car. I pay more for my insurance than for the car payments.""

Whats the best cheapest insurance in fresno?

i just had my first speeding ticket, im 20 going to school n working n i am going to finance a 2011 cruze LT, i want a good but affordable insurance, any suggestions?""

Auto insurance debt reported on credit reports?

I changed my auto insurance from progressive to some other company.yesterday i got a call from collections that i owe progressive money.Is this reported on credit. Also do i have to pay them? I had insurance quote from them for 6 months but i found cheaper one so i moved. I live in california. Thank you

How much would insurance be a month for a 1988 ford mustang gt for a 16 year old driver in ny?

hi i want a 1988 ford mustang gt 5.0 and i am 16 years old. i was wondering how much the insurance would cost a month. im in new york and plz no answers like alot or anything like that just an estimate. pl answer and thankyou

Does the owner of a car have the be the primary driver on the insurance?

I'm not far off from passing my driving test (in the u.k.) and my mum is giving me her old car (she's got an new one now). I've looked at insuring me as the primary driver and it would cost around about 1000 but if i'm set as the secondary driver and my fiance is the primary driver it's around 300 or something my dad says. My questions are: If i'm registered as the vehicle's owner do I have to have insurance with me as the primary driver? Also, Is it a problem if my fiance is the primary driver on my car as well as his? I've read online somewhere that he can't be the primary driver for both cars (wasn't sure if the site was referring to in the u.k or elsewhere in the world though)""

Do you need insurance if your car has insurance?

I'm about to get my license but my family doesn't want to pay for my insurance. My brother says that the car he's giving me has insurance on it under his name and that if i get into an accident all the blame goes to him. He said its okay, is this true?""

Where can I get started with Motorcycle Insurance Thanks.?

I just got my brand new 150cc Moped where can get started with Motorcycle Insurance and what information do I need. Another questionI want be riding my moped almost everyday and I know you have to pay to keep up your insurance will this effect your licenses if your not paying for insurance Thanks.

Car insurance quotes?

I have just spent an endless amount of time on various car insurance sites, which start of with reasonable quotes then you add the bits and pieces on and you end up with ridiculous final costs. I am not insuring a 0-60 in 5 seconds type car but a small 1.4 Honda I am fully aware that any car can cause damage,my wife drives the car,has had no claims or convictions. I have a larger car and the insurance is 50 cheaper than all quotes received so far,which includes breakdown recovery,protected no claims and legal cover. anyone with car insurance advice would be appreciated, these car insurance sites are a pain""

What's the absolute cheapest car insurance company in Illinois?

What's the absolute cheapest car insurance company in Illinois?

Can a ticket in another state affect my insurance rates?

Can a ticket in another state affect my insurance rates?

Where can i find low cost health insurance that can include dental? I am in GA.?

I havebeen looking everywhere for health insurance that includes dental(because I want braces)but they are so much (like 290 for a adult and 2 children) I am 16 years old looking for health insurance for my dad,me,and my sister.""

Why should my family's insurance go up if i get a car?

I'm 17 and am currently on my parents insurance plan, so there are 3 of us with only 2 cars. I'm listed on the truck, b/c it has more horsepower. I'm about to buy a '92 Prelude, and they said the insurance would go up about $122 for 6 months. This doesn't seem too bad, but if i'm now driving my own cheap car, why is that a greater risk than driving the truck with full coverage, not just liability? It seems like it should almost go down, because there's a lower chance that i will crash up one of the more expensive/higher hp cars. Is that just the way it works or is there a better option for me? My agent also said my own policy would make it even more expensive, which i could see, because we wouldn't get the multiple driver or car discount.""

Does the Motorcycle Safety Course lower your insurance?

If so by how much? If you've been riding for years would your insurance still be lowered?

What is the toll free phone number for Travelers Insurance?

I am looking for a toll free phone number with Travelers Insurance that is dedicated to new customer quotes not existing customer service.

Why do we NEED car insurance?!?

Why is it the LAW that we have car insurance?? I honestly think it's stupid. Shouldn't we, as free Americans, be able to make the choice of whether or not we want insurance, and still legally drive a vehicle, as long as we have a license, at our own risk? Kind of like if you go skiing or snowboarding, you go at your own risk, you're not forced to get skiing insurance , or boarding insurance , or anything like that. I mean, think of this situation: I have no insurance, and I wreck into somebody. They have insurance, so they are covered. I don't, so I will either have to get rid of my car, or pay for repairs myself; that's the risk I took and this is how I'm paying for it, by being car less or spending tons of money on repairs. But why must we be forced by law to have it, or NO DRIVING FOR YOU says big ole' government?? This is angering me because I'm currently in college, without a car, and while I can walk to my work and school, it's still about 30-45 minutes each way to walk, and if I could get an old car for cheap, it would make my life MUCH easier and less of a hassle.""

Homeowner's and Auto Insurance?

We've been with Allstate for home and auto insurance for over 30 years, and they have recently starting screwing with us about renewing out Homeowner's insurance. We're pretty sure they are nitpicking about things because they are not writing new policies for Californians, but are keeping existing customers for now. Anyway, I went to the Auto Club this morning and got quotes from them for Home and Auto Insurance and their prices are much better than Allstate's. What I want to know is anyone's experience with AAA insurance. Are they a good company to insure with, any problems, etc? Thank you for any information you can provide.""

How much does Auto insurance cost in Mass?

I am moving to Mass, and am curious if someone can give me an idea about how much it would cost to insure a 97 Acura CL 4 cylinder car. I am having a hard time finding quotes online. Round about numbers would help.""

What is the best car insurance company out there today?

I'm gonna get a car soon and I'm having difficulty picking an exact car insurance company to insure my car so I just wanted to read others opinion on what car insurance they think is the best.....if availabe tell me the pros & cons....

Why is auto insurance through Geico so cheap?

Why is auto insurance through Geico so cheap?

How much is car insurance for a 16 year old?

I am turning 16 next month. I'm getting my liscense then too. I'm a girl... Ahah. I've heard insurance is cheaper for females. I live in henderson, nevada (pretty much las vegas). And my first car is going to be a 1999 porsche 911 carrera. It's in mint condition also. My dad barely used it. I know it will be high-ish since it's a sports car :/ About how much would my insurance be on it a month? THAN YOU! <3""

About how much is the average teen insurance of the lowest requirements for TX of a 17 year old with a license

About how much is the average teen insurance of the lowest requirements for TX of a 17 year old with a license

I need help!!!! where can i find health coverage?

Every day I suffer from pain. I have a wife and kids to support and an autistic son, so my wife cannot work, that way she can give him the care he needs. Medi-cal sent me a rejection. I can't get insurance because they all say they won't cover me for a pre-existing condition. I tried applying for the states pre existing healthcare program, they said I couldn't get coverage because my birth certificate has a different name than I have now. Hey......I have no control over the decisions mom made. I need help.!!! I struggle every single day and minute with this pain. I have a doctor that I pay cash to see, every time I go he gives me heck about writing a pain med. Script. Talks down to me really. He only gives a little bit, and its hard to find a cash doctor at all who would even offer these at all because of the people who abuse it. I'm at wits end, I'm ou of options if anybody knows of a program in California or anything federal that can help a white male, in the 30's, self employed, with a debilitating condition, make too much to be a bum, not enough to afford paying my own way through medical procedures, PLEASE HELP ME!!!!""

Liability Insurance for an Electrician?

I am an electrician and would like to get liability insurance because I do a lot of jobs on my own. Where can I find this? And is there an inexpensive plan? I live in New Hampshire.

Will I have to switch my car insurance if I buy a new or used car from a dealer?

My current car is just costing far too much money in repairs for it to be worth it to keep piling money into. I'm a college student, so money isn't exactly plentiful, but its looking right now like I just need a new car, period. I have a decent job, and I could probably afford a car payment of around $200 a month just fine, however I am very concerned about any hidden cost with insurance. My dad told me that if I buy a car from a dealer, then I will have to switch my insurance to full coverage (I'm currently just on my dads insurance, and I only have to pay about $50 a month) but he says that if I get a new or used car from a dealer, I will have to change my insurance coverage and it will cost me more around 150-200 a month in insurance. And if you pair that with a car payment, I simply couldn't afford it and still be able to make rent and whatnot. So I came here to see if he is correct in this. I know there will be taxes, dealer fees, registration costs etc. but Its the insurance part of it that might make it impossible. Also, do I have to have my credit established for a certain amount of time before I can buy a car? I tried to avoid credit cards for as long as I could, so now Im still kind of new in the whole credit game.... Anyways, thank you for taking the time to read my question and hopefully answer it!! It is much appreciated!!""

Car insurance...........?

Right.. my mom already has a car and is the named driver of it. I have got a ford ka and have been looking on insurance company's and it is cheaper for my mom to be the named driver of my car but for me to go on the insurance.. Can my mom own to cars or is this not possible UK only please.

Insurance estimate on Integra, Mustang?

Hey. So I am getting my first car in a couple months, and my dad said I could choose which car, but keep it in a low price range. I've always liked Integras, since I was little, and I always wanted it to be my first car, so thats in consideration. And my dad said get a mustang. I would like to know how much insurance is on each?   The cars would be-   Acura Integra 1996-2001 (LS, RS, SE, GS)  Under my dads name (age 50) I would be secondary driver  Silver or black or white  Roughly 150k miles  Maybe 25 miles a day   Would buy used around 2000$ - 4000$  Im aware its a luxury car, thus insurance being a tad more expensive  How much would you think insurance would be? We have Progressive but I just want a estimate - Maybe like the average of how much people with integras pay for insurance.   Mustang 2004  Under my dads name (age 50) I would be secondary driver  Black or silver  Maybe 100k miles  25 miles/ day  Used around 4000$ - 5000$  Not luxury, but its a sports car, Im guessing insurance is more expensive for it   Anything will help :)

Is it up to age 26 or through age 26 for insurance coverage on parent's plan?

With health care reform, young adults can now stay on their parent's insurance longer. Is it UP TO the day they turn age 26 or through the age 26 that they are able to have the coverage?""

What is the cheapest company for a 17 year Old's car insurance in the UK?

I am 17 and looking around on sites the car insurance is around 2500 but this is too expensive for me, if I was to get car insurance I would probably drive a ford fiesta or something like that.""

Audi Q5 2014 car insurance cost houston?

i just moved to Us , Houston and i am 32 year old male so i would like to buy a new Audi Q5 2.0T any idea how much the full insurance ? and is it good car Q5 2.0 T ? Thanks a lot""

""What is the cheapest car to insure, and what makes insurance go up and down?""

Well, i'm 17 and i want a car. I've been going on all the price comparison websites and lately prices have been going up, alot. Not too long ago you could get a 1.6 Focus, 02 reg - for around 2.5k. Now it seems that a 1L corsa is in excess of 4,000? I've just been looking now, and i can get a 1.4L Nova Saloon '92 reg, for less that the price of a 1L Corsa, '99 reg. What's going on here, both cars are completely standard. Also, what makes insurance go up and down? And please, don't just post about group 1 insurance vehicles, because i cant afford a new/nearly new car.""

Is their any where that can calculate the average price of car insurance without details?

I just want to calculate the average cost for car insurance without the hassle of putting in my personal details being that it will be at least 2months till i get my licence.

""Car insurance, they didn't take payment, was I insured?""

I have a classic car insurance policy with two cars on it, the policy started on one car but I later added a second. I have just taken the second car off the policy but it turns out ...show more""

What do you think about auto insurance?

What do you think about auto insurance?

How does car insurance work?

I'm a 17 year old girl and I recently got my license. Yesterday my dad bought car insurance for me, but I don't have a car. So i'm assuming that this insurance is for his car, but can that same insurance be transferred if I get my own car? Or did my dad just put my name on his insurance? I don't really understand.""

How do you go about getting insurance for a car you don't own yet?

Say you don't have any insurance but you have to go pick up a car and drive it home...?

Has anyone heard of Unitrin Direct Car Insurance. Yay or Nay?

I need to purchase car insurance right away. Their rates are pretty low. Any feedback would be appreciated.

Health insurance.?

I need affordable health insurance.Where to find one? Thanks!!!

Does late payment on car insurance affect credit?

just wondering if a late payment of a bill....say my telephone bill, or car insurance affect my credit?""

Do you have to have proof of car insurance to get your car inspected in texas?

Just wanted to know if you have to have proof of car insurance in order to get your car inspected in the state of Texas?

Do you know any Insurance companies that would do 6m Car Insurance?

For various reasons, I would like insurance quotes for my car for 6 months. Has anyone had any dealings with companies that have or would? It's not a money saving exercise, thanks :)""

How do you get insurance?

Before I get my license, I have to get insurance. But I wanna know what do I need to get insurance? What do I have to bring?""

What is the cheapest car for insurance?

I am 17 years old and i want to know which car is the least expenssive for insurance. What insurance group is the car in.

Tips for a 17 year old MALE driver to get his CAR INSURANCE premiums below 2000?

In all seriousness, it takes the absolute Michael how much it costs a 17 year old male to get insured.... on my mums insurance on an Insurance band 1 car i'm looking at 2400. I'm a student, my mum has over 20 years no claims, and still i'm getting ripped off. Any tips other than doing driving courses? Am I just doing something wrong with the insurance websites?""

Cheap insurance for '99 mustang?

I'm buying a used mustang next month and need to get cheap insurance since I will be making payments. What is the best (and cheapest) insurance for an 18 year old young woman?

Cheap No fault insurance for 18 yr old?

Cheap No fault insurance for 18 yr old?

How could the health insurance mandate not be constitutional?

Excerpt from: http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/102620/individual-mandate-history-affordable-care-act?wpisrc=nl_wonk The founding fathers, it turns out, passed several mandates ...show more""

What is the CHEAPEST car insurance for a 21 year old male who never had his own policy?

What is the CHEAPEST car insurance for a 21 year old male who never had his own policy?

What is voluntary access on car insurance?

i saw it on the go compare web site but i dont know what it is as im a 1st time driver

What are some good low cost learner legal bike with cheap insurance?

i'm 17 and i'm looking to purchase my first motorbike so i was wondering if you could give me some bike for less than about 2000 with cheap insurance?, but no rubbish Chinese bike because they fall apart""

""I am looking for affordable auto insurance, quote that i get online with AA is confusing, any suggestions?""

I am looking for affordable auto insurance, quote that i get online with AA is confusing, any suggestions?""

How can I pay for my car's insurance?

I'm buying my first car tomorrow. I will be the Legal Owner and Registered Keeper but NOT the main driver (i'll be the 2nd driver of the car) Can I pay for the insurance using my card details (because i own the car and im getting insured on it, im just not the main driver because i will name someone else as main driver) ?? or does the MAIN DRIVER has to pay the insurance using their debit card?""

Insurance estimate on Integra, Mustang?

Hey. So I am getting my first car in a couple months, and my dad said I could choose which car, but keep it in a low price range. I've always liked Integras, since I was little, and I always wanted it to be my first car, so thats in consideration. And my dad said get a mustang. I would like to know how much insurance is on each?   The cars would be-   Acura Integra 1996-2001 (LS, RS, SE, GS)  Under my dads name (age 50) I would be secondary driver  Silver or black or white  Roughly 150k miles  Maybe 25 miles a day   Would buy used around 2000$ - 4000$  Im aware its a luxury car, thus insurance being a tad more expensive  How much would you think insurance would be? We have Progressive but I just want a estimate - Maybe like the average of how much people with integras pay for insurance.   Mustang 2004  Under my dads name (age 50) I would be secondary driver  Black or silver  Maybe 100k miles  25 miles/ day  Used around 4000$ - 5000$  Not luxury, but its a sports car, Im guessing insurance is more expensive for it   Anything will help :)

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/get-instant-nj-auto-insurance-quote-jose-boyd/"

[toughgirlchallenges]

Sophie Ruffles - Mum, runner, & wild swimmer. Host of @whatnextmumpodcast 1x100km ultra, 7x marathons. Fast-packed The Jurassic Coast!

Sophie in her own words:

  “I am a solicitor and mum of one, currently pregnant with my second. I’m a runner, outdoor swimmer, paddle boarder and host of the What Next Mum Podcast. 

I have been running for 12 years and have run plenty of half and full marathons. 

When I had my son I had a real fear that I would lose my identity as a runner but that hasn’t been the case. 

  Since having him I cycled the 100 mile ride London 4 months post birth and ran a one day 100km/62 mile race.

  Since then I have continued to do my own self made running adventures, including running the Jurassic Coast over 3 days, the West Mendip Way and running along the Wye Valley. 

I started the What Next Mum Podcasts, so I could talk to like minded women and share their stories to inspire other mums to ditch the mum guilt and get out there. 

I am also a keen outdoor swimmer, this is my fifth winter. I’m a rubbish swimmer but love being in the water and will be swimming to the Isle of Wight in September."

    New episodes of the Tough Girl Podcast go live every Tuesday and Thursday at 7am UK time - Make sure you hit the subscribe button so you don’t miss out. 

  The Tough Girl Podcast is being sponsored throughout March by Inov-8.

  Use TOUGHGIRL20 to get your 20% discount on all trainers and running gear. —>> www.inov-8.com

  Get involved with the #MarchDailyMile Challenge. Run 1 mile everyday in March. 

  Show Notes

Who is Sophie 

Being pregnant with her 2nd child

Being an outdoor enthusiast 

Getting pregnant at 40

Feeling a little bit anxious

Growing up in a large family

Liking running at school

Turning 16 and dropping all sports

Moving to Japan for 3 years

Starting work as a solicitor and taking up running again

Her running journey

Being encouraged to get into running 

Identifying as a runner only recently 

Getting into trail running

Stopping and starting with running

Life in her 20s

Needing time for herself after her first child was born

Training for a 100k/62 mile race in a day

Being told she didn’t need to finish the race

The challenges of running 100k in a day 

Trying to enjoy the day as much as possible

Giving birth… 

Getting back into running 

Using the bike for cross training

Starting the What Next Mum Podcast

Wanting to connect with other mum runners

Finding time during lockdown

Why it’s ok for mums to put themselves first

Mum guilt 

Having a good support network

The power of support from other women

Running with her brother Bob

Nutrition and eating while ultra running

Trying to stay away from sugar

Carrying gear in a 25L bag

Structuring the day 

Magical moments on trips and type 2 fun!

Getting in to FKTs (Fastest Knowns Times)

Being less interested in racing

Wanting to run the Isle of White Coast Path

Working with a coach and using a 16 week training plan

Getting some new ideas for training

Cold water swimming while pregnant

Running while pregnant and supporting the bump

How to connect with Sophie

Final words of advice

  Social Media

  Website: www.whatnextmum.com 

  Instagram: @Ruffles_onthemove 

  Facebook: What Next Mum Podcast 

    The Tough Girl Podcast is being sponsored by Inov-8 

  Use TOUGHGIRL20 to get your 20% discount on all trainers and running gear. 

  Get involved with the #MarchDailyMile Challenge. 

  Website: www.inov-8.com 

  Instagram: @inov_8 

  Check out this episode!

#podcast #women #sports #health #motivation #challenges #change #adventure #active #wellness #explore #grow #support #encourage #running #swimming #triathlon #exercise #weights

[yaldev]

As of today, we’re celebrating: 365 Yaldev posts, 4 years of this nonsense, and being exactly 7 years behind Beeple!

CELEBRATION:

365 posts! That’s one year of Yaldev! Well, if I had been writing one every day, which I absolutely haven’t.

It continues to be the case that looking back on posts even from less than a year ago, I think “man this sucks,” and I either know how to improve it at least a little bit while I’m there, or I can’t stand to even look at it and I just have to escape from it. I don’t feel too much pressure to fix the bad posts at this point; as of today, Yaldev’s been going for exactly four years now (if you skip leap days :thonk:), and in a sense it’s chronicled my progress as a writer during that time. Some entries have been modified since them, some changed entirely except for the name and art chosen. I think it only makes sense that reading through it in storyline order will be like traveling through different points of my creative skill, in much the same way as it means traveling through different points of Beeple’s art quality.

CIRCUMSTANTIAL UPDATES:

People I know in real life are bugging me to start a Patreon. It’d certainly be reasonable to start one now that I’m four years in, but I can’t justify setting one up without:

A more consistent creative output than I’m currently hammering out, so I’m not taking your money for less utility than I’m giving you

Something to offer patrons without compromising the project for non-patrons

Existing interest from some of my audience in throwing cash at me (dance, monkey!)

A possible solution to the first one is setting myself a bar: if I don’t write at least X words by the end of the month, I don’t receive anyone’s money for that month. Hopefully that makes people feel more comfortable backing someone inconsistent, since they’ll still receive their benefits during the down periods but not have to spend anything. For the second, I have ideas for what to offer, but they’d have to be on top of my current output rather than replacing it, so at present I can’t really work ahead on them without detracting from the main project. It’s hard juggling part-time school, full-time job, getting enough sleep, Yaldev, another creative project I have a stronger obligation to, a paper I’m writing for a conference, relaxation, and generic life stuff. That said, I could be happily coerced into making a Yaldev a higher priority if I have a financial obligation to a couple supporters. The real question is whether there’s any interest in that. I worry that when the project has gone on as long as it has, interest actually decreases over time if it’s seen as old news. On the other hand, maybe older followers have a sense of being with me since the early days, like they’re invested in this ride as well. I have little clue.

In any event, if a Patreon goes up, I absolutely won’t be shoving it in people’s faces at every opportunity, since I’m not in a position of financial need and money was never the point of this. The main project would continue to be 100% free, and benefits would only be for additional goodies; nothing you can currently see would be moved behind a paywall.

STATISTICS:

This is the fun part, lads! Get ready for some stats and some commentary!

Total Stories: 365

As should be obvious, all numbers are only for the point at which I'm writing this post. These only include the posts that are canon and which I wrote.

Project Age: 1460 Days

Exactly four years! I think it’s a fun coincidence that it lined up with the 365th entry.

How Long You Have to Wait, on Average, For the Next Post: Approximately 4 Days

My output has slowed down since the last update. Feelsbad, but I don’t hear much complaining and I hope that higher quality makes up for lower quantity. Even still, I’m trying to blitz through my to-do list and speedrun my coursework to make more time for this. I hope to eventually bring that down to 3.5, for an average of two posts per week across the project's history.

Readers Across All Platforms: 536 (107 on Tumblr, 135 on Facebook, 140 on Instagram, 154 on Reddit)

Howdy y'all! Thanks for being here and reading my steadily-improving crap. I really struggle with talking about my creative projects in real life, including Yaldev, primarily out of a self-trained instinct to shut myself up about it on the understanding that nobody cares—especially not other creative types, since we're all too invested in our own creation to pay much attention to others. I've been trying to overcome that, and you're helping me just by being here to read. That tells me there's potential in this and that it's something that at least some people genuinely want to see. Artists shouldn't attach their sense of self to their creations, but I can't help but feel validated through that.

At the same time, I do often fear that mine is the sort of content that just gets a like tossed at it for the pretty visuals on the way down the endless content scroll, without having made a real impression on anyone or created a lasting memory. I'll probably always have that worry, which comes as much from a disdain for general Internet culture as anything else. Late in 2020 I took a step away from social media, and I’ve only partially returned, with the result that scrolling through newsfeeds takes up much less of my time than it used to. Feels good. I’d encourage you to do the same, but then you wouldn’t be seeing my own crap as often. :^)

Stories Per Reader: Approximately 0.68

Makes it sound like a decent growth rate, if on average I'm getting one new follower per story half the time, and two new followers the other half of the time. I guess "good growth rate" is somewhat subjective and depends on your goal, but for me, having a tangible unit of increase for each feels good.

It’s actually a lot more variable than that, of course. Usually a given entry will either attract no new followers because I only put it up in my own spaces, or it’ll draw in a few if I post it to a space for content like mine.

Total Word Count: 89,721

I typically operate under the assumption that most novels are about 75k, while sci-fi and fantasy novels tend to be longer since their authors are physically incapable of shutting up, putting them at around 100k. We’ll definitely reach that, and it probably won’t even take that long.

Average Story Length: Approximately 246 words

The 245-255 range is what feels good to me. Part of Yaldev’s appeal compared to books, in theory, is that if you’re consuming it the normal way, you’re getting it in bite-sized chunks as part of your scrolling experience. So I theoretically prefer to keep them on the short side, even if in practice I actually go ham and write stuff that’s quite long. The average here is really being dragged by 100-word posts previously being a lot more common than they are now.

STORY PLANS GOING FORWARD:

So the most recent entry, Gemstones as Mana Sources, was Beeple’s art from February 15, 2014. Today’s exactly 7 years from then, so I actually have an easy bar now for whether I’m catching up to the dude or not. 

When I started this project, I began with his art from July of 2014 and then started moving forward. I got to about September 2015 before I decided that I wanted to go hardcore and go through all his art from the very beginning, at which point I warped back to his art from the very beginning in 2008, and started going through it in chronological order. I think I made that shift back in 2019, and now we’re getting back to the era of his art that I actually started this project with. All of this is to say that soon you’re probably going to notice an uptick in the art quality, either to something new if you’re new, or to what it was like in the Good Ol’ Days™ if you’ve been following this for a long time. As mentioned earlier, I no longer feel super bound to what I’ve written before: I prefer maintaining consistency, but some threads not being tied up and some contradictions are fine. I think the biggest one is that the state of magic’s legality in the Ascended Empire has never been made super clear, but I’m actually okay with that. I know that in the Imperiomancy entry I mentioned how its use by officials varied depending on who held power in government, and magic as a whole could be an even more complex issue that varies by time as well as region. I unironically think that Yaldev is the kind of world that has room for headcanon, so while I’ll try to fix egregious errors, you’re also quite justified in having your own handwaves for my screwups.

I don’t have any updates for any of the storylines really, except for the stuff with Inzohm and the Lone Traveller, for anyone keeping up with that: consider all of it to be in rough-draft at the moment. It’s the kind of long-con story that I really can’t coherently tell the way I do with the rest of Yaldev, so everything I write for it is more like notes that I can later on collect, shuffle, remix and rewrite until it’s semi-coherent. Turns out that Yaldev has helped me develop a number of skills as a writer, but telling better character-driven narratives isn’t one of them—partially because my chosen process, medium and inspiration-artist doesn’t lend itself too well to such stories.

Thanks for being here. What I always wanted as a kid was for other people to be as excited about my worldbuilding as I was, and while I doubt I've hit that extent with Yaldev, I hope my work's had some impact on you, or that it has parts you remember and enjoy. If you have any questions or comments you’ve been too shy to put elsewhere, feel free to drop them here! If not, just stick around and I’ll see you again at post number 400!

[jenhikes]

The Pistol Ultra Run - 100 Miles

The ultramarathon.  Not many people know what one is.  In fact, very few people tend to even know the distance of a marathon.  When people ask me what an ultramarathon is, I let them know it's any distance longer than a marathon, anywhere from about 30-100 miles (sometimes even up in the 200's these days!)  Now that I'm no longer running for hours at a time most of the week and my body is starting to feel more like it should, I am able to reflect on what it's like to complete 100 miles in less than a day and a half.  

Prerace -

The mini expo for this race is always the day before the race and I rode out there with some friends of mine to pick up our bibs and our swag.  The swag this year was great - a running duffel bag with a separate shoe compartment (which holds 2 pairs of my smaller shoes!), one of those towel/seat cover things that you can use to keep your car clean during a smelly run, a free pair of Injinji socks for the 100K and 100 milers, and then a "choose your own swag" table where you could get stickers, koozies, chocolate, chapstick, etc.  There was an option to buy a hoodie, tech shirt, and then, of course, they had the Pistol Store where you could buy other various merch - pint glasses, stickers, shirts leftover from previous years, etc.  Another fun option was the gear swap table, where you could leave and take things as you pleased.  I got a really awesome Pearl Izumi cycling shirt.  

Morning of - 

I was planning to wake up at 5 a.m. to have time to get ready and get picked up by my friends so I went to bed early the night before.  Unfortunately, I woke up at 4 a.m. and couldn't go back to sleep.  Since I was about to be awake until easily 2-3 p.m. the NEXT DAY I wasn't super happy about this.  I got picked up at 5:45 and we got to the race before 7 a.m.  Since this race allows you to crew out of your vehicle, we wanted to get there early enough for a good parking spot minimal distance from the actual course.  Panera Bread supplied free bagels to the runners so I was able to eat before the race.  Obviously, we took some photos before the start!  The 50K runners start 5 minutes before the 100K and 100 mile runners just to thin out the crowds a bit.  The 50K runners take off and we line up at the start.  Before I know it, months of training are now about to start working for me!

Miles 10-30 - 

The first 50K of this race was great.  I ran the 50K distance last year and it didn't feel too difficult.  I ran with two other friends for most of these miles and we chatted and kept attempting to slow our pace as to keep our legs fresh.  When you're used to running a certain speed and you're slowing yourself down by nearly 2 minutes per mile it can be really hard to keep yourself in check.  Other than our first 10 mile lap, we began walking all the includes as well.  Saving energy is so important when you know you have 24 more hours on your feet!  The morning started off gray and misty, but the sun shone brightly throughout the afternoon and during the third lap of my race the heat started to beat me up.  Thankfully, the aid stations had popsicles and ice, so that was extremely helpful!

Miles 30-60 - 

The friend I came to the race with was battling nausea all morning due to the heat.  Several times I went on ahead to let him try to rest up.  By the end of lap 4 though, he was feeling rough.  I changed my shoes at the end of this lap and headed back out, trying to keep his mind off his stomach.  On lap 5 is when the weather started to turn.  It was around dinner time for most folks when the winds started to shift and the air had that thunderstorm smell.  By the end of lap 5, we were dealing with heavy rain, thunder, and lightning.  In fact, lightning struck the sidewalk at the school near the start line when we were only about a quarter mile away!  It was at this time my friend's stomach really was beating him up and he decided to take a break, so I went on alone. Lap 6 was slower for me, but I was walking at a really great pace in the 16-minute mile range.  Of course, the darkness was starting to set in and the 50 milers, who started at 8 p.m. (at the 12-hour mark) were now out on the course.   Now, the 50 milers start this late to give the 100-mile runners someone else to see out there in the dark.  For me, this was so incredibly defeating.  These runners with their fresh legs were powering past me while I was feeling sore and tired from the hot day followed by the nasty storm.  I came in to mile 60 and I was definitely not in the best head space. 

Miles 60-70 - 

These 10 miles get a paragraph all their own.  This is where I fell apart.  Since the rain had definitely stopped and the course dried out, I decided to put on my thicker-soled shoes for the padding.  When I went to change shoes, I didn't have the socks I thought I packed for these laps and I had a mini meltdown.  Then, when I went to put the shoes on, my feet had swollen so much that they physically hurt to walk in.  As I passed through the start line to head out for lap 7 I had a text from my two friends asking where I was.  I answered I was crying and changing my shoes.  They told me to cry it out and get moving.  Progress was slow to the aid station 2.5ish miles away.  When I saw my friends there they had decided to stop at 100K (they were half a lap behind me), but they were going to help me finish.  I broke down ugly crying and they told me exactly what I  needed to do to finish before the cutoff.  I cried a little more and they pushed me out of the aid station.  The next 4 miles were the most painful thing I've ever done and I was barely walking 2 mph at this point.  I was crying.  I've never felt that much pain.  At Woody's aid station, about 4.5 miles from the start point, I had been on this lap for 2 full hours (when it usually only takes me 3 to walk the full 10) and I cried some more.  The volunteers asked me what hurt and when I told them they let me know that it was COMPLETELY NORMAL at this point in the race to feel this way.  They talked me down and told me, again, how to get through the laps.  I walked another mile before sitting down on a curb because I couldn't take another step.  At this point, I knew NoKey was coming in about an hour, but I was going to quit.  The best 'trail angel' I ever met comes into my race at this point.  Rebecca, the volunteer course monitor, asked me if she should call the RD so I could quit.  I cried and asked her to help me off the ground, which she did.  She walked with me back to the aid station 2.5 miles from the start line.  We talked the whole way, and when she left me at the aid station she triple-checked with me that NoKey was coming.  I gave her his description and told her he was headed my way when he got here.  The folks at the aid station fed me ibuprofen, two go-gurts, and offered to let me warm up.  After sitting for 10 minutes or so, I stumbled away.  I later learned the volunteers were super worried and thought they shouldn't have let me walk.  NoKey met me about 1.25 miles from the start line and walked me up the hill.  By then, my ibuprofen had kicked in and I was ready to head out for another lap.  

Miles 70-90 - 

With the worst behind me, my friend who wasn't feeling well came out and walked with me for about 10 minutes.  He reiterated I should keep going, gave me a strategy, and told me I could do it.  I hugged him and NoKey and told NoKey to come find me in 3 hours.  I did miles 70-80 in 2 hours and 50 minutes, and I even managed to shuffle-run a little.  When I got back to the aid station, the volunteer who basically thought I died was shocked.  "HOLY HELL!" He said when he saw me booking through.  Everyone was super excited and it gave me renewed energy.  When I was getting ready to head back out for miles 80-90 I had slowed down a bit and I was at a mere crawl when it came to walking up the now monumental hills on the back half of the course.  The sun came up during this time as well and now I was worried I'd run out of time.  When I met up with NoKey again to walk up the hill to the start line, I told him to go in and get me a pacer for my final lap.  He told me he'd do the whole lap with me, all 10 miles, despite being in his sandals.  As I shuffled through the start line for the final time, the RD told me to keep moving and I'd be fine.  The volunteers at the start all cheered for me and told me I could do it.  

Miles 90-100 - 

The final lap was super, SUPER emotional for me.  I felt like I was hardly moving, but NoKey told me I was moving really well.  In retrospect, I honestly was moving better than most everyone still out on the course at this point.  It didn't feel like it at the time, that's for sure!  When I was headed back in for my last 5 miles my swollen feet were throbbing and my quads were killing me, but NoKey never lets me stop moving.  As we neared the aid station for the final time, the volunteers all congratulated me and the crying started again.  The hill going up to the high school felt like it would never end.  The final half mile, I was able to pick up my pace to a gentle run, and I rounded the corner to the finish line with arms raised, tears streaming, and legs that refused to quit.  My final time was somewhere around 28:40:00 (I'm not sure right now, as the race results need to be verified still).  My body and my mind were in total shock that the months of hard work finally could end.  

Post Race - 

I was ushered inside by a volunteer, and as I was making it inside I see Rebecca, my trail angel, who had come back to the race because she had forgotten her bag.  I thanked her and hugged her, crying of course, letting her know how much she helped me in the middle of the night.  I went inside to collect my belt buckle and finisher hat only to be told I was 2nd in my age group.  I also got a coffee mug and a giant bag of chocolate!  I took my finisher photo and the photographer had NoKey come take a photo with me since he was my "crew" for the final difficult miles.  I grabbed some food and cried with some of the other participants as well. I threw on a pair of slippers for the ride home.  I got home and showered and fell into bed for a well-deserved 5-hour nap.  

The Days After - 

My feet are so swollen they burn after I wake up on Monday.  I've got busted blood vessels in my right foot and three of the biggest blisters I've ever seen (which I equate to the swelling more than anything else).  I was fortunate enough to use a hot tub, get a chiropractor adjustment, and get a sports massage on Monday afternoon.  Monday night I'm even able to walk my dog, albeit in a pair of flip flops since my feet can't fit into regular shoes.  By Tuesday, I've got normal shoes on, the blisters are drying out, the swelling is nearly gone, and I'm able to spend about an hour at a time on my feet before getting worn out.  Three days out, I'm doing even better.  I'd say I'm only about as sore as I would be from running a really hard marathon or technical trail for around 15 miles.  

The Race Itself - 

For those wondering about The Pistol Ultra, I absolutely recommend this race despite all the pain I endured during it this year!  This was my first ever ultra distance when I ran the 50K last year and I knew I wanted to use it again for my attempt to go 100 miles.  The aid stations, volunteers, and general experience CANNOT be beaten. The fact that you really only need to carry a minimal amount of fluids and really no food because of the nature of the course and placement of the aid stations really takes a lot of stress out of the planning. This is an urban ultra, so it's on pavement the entire time.  It's really tough on the body.  There's grass right next to the pavement though, so you can get some relief when you need it.  Because you're doing out-and-back "loops" on the greenway, you really get to know your other participants and there were so many people cheering for you every time you saw them.  There was so much encouragement from the participants themselves, as well as the volunteers.  If it hadn't been for the middle of the night Woody's crew and Rebecca on her bike I very well may not have finished this race.  It's the support like this that makes the race what it is.  

So, I'm only a few days out from Pistol and I can safely say I'm still not ready to say I'd ever do another 100-miler again.  I am willing to take on the Double Barrel challenge next year (the 50K and 50-mile race for a total of 82 miles, with a few hours of break time in between).  The 100-mile race really brought me to a whole other level of endurance I've never experienced before, even with doing multiple thru hikes!  I'm already planning my return trip next year.  

Would you ever consider doing 100 miles at a time?  Have you ever run an ultramarathon?  What is the furthest distance you've traveled on foot in a day?

#ultra #ultra running #ultramarathon #Pistol #The Pistol Ultra #running life

[ericvanwesenbeeck]

2019 on Two Wheels to Nowhere ~

As we approach the day when the calendar turns the final page on 2019, I have plenty of spare holiday time to mull over both the mundane commutes and epic adventures of the past twelve months of riding my two-wheelers. Fortunately, even the mundane commuting to and from work and around town stirs a little excitement in me each time before I depart. I’m not sure exactly what it is but for me there is a distinct element of exhilaration each time I hop on a bike. Funny how such a simple thing (think “it’s as easy as riding a bike!”) can repeatedly provide such a positive visceral feeling. I’m sure you all get what I am talking about here; we all have the same condition, to varying degrees. Somehow, it makes me feel like a kid again even though the DOB on my driver’s license and my aching joints tell me otherwise. For the first three months of the year, in between bushwhacking on my cross-country skis, I managed to get on a bike a few dozen times. These rides were a combination of occasional commuting https://www.strava.com/activities/2027332120, a few spirited RadRoom time trials on Thursday nights, a few stationary bike workouts at home and a few opportunistic spins https://www.strava.com/activities/2058240437 out on the open road when the stars aligned to provide clear tarmac in spite of the snow banks and sub-zero temps. Just enough cycling, combined with some classic XC skiing, to maintain basic fitness during the dead of Winter. Early April brought Chris and me to Grand Cayman for a week visiting family, soaking in the Caribbean Sea, reading on the beach and of course, riding! Thanks to Keith R who lent me a bike bag, allowing me to transport the Batmobile safely to the island. It was so awesome to have my own wheels in Cayman compared to renting in previous years. Grand Cayman is a small, flat island with generally good roads that lends itself beautifully to fast and furious solo riding https://www.strava.com/activities/2272462632. You can imagine how good it felt to put on a simple summer kit and ride through the balmy air followed by a dip in the warm sea after riding the previous 4-5 months wearing full winter gear! April also brought the unofficial start of the BCC Thursday Morning Sunrise rides https://www.strava.com/activities/2299047313. Led by Craig S, these rides became a weekly staple for me in 2019 as I learned to drag my sorry ass out of bed at 4:55a to join a solid group of riders for a pre-work spin. As Summer progressed, ridership grew and we even got in some Friday morning rides, as well! These early mornings also provided me with numerous opportunities to capture some stunning Sunrises and Moonsets! Icing on the cake. https://ericvanwesenbeeck.tumblr.com/post/185114832427/recently-getting-into-the-routine-of-early April closed out with an awesome BCC volunteer group cleaning up the roadsides around Shanty Bay on a snow Sunday; part of our club’s yearly civic duty! The fifth month of the year usually brings a trip to Asheville, North Carolina with a cadre of the usual suspects from around town but this year it was not happening for me, having just returned from a week in the Carribean. Although May started kind of cold and dreary, some awesome riding began as BCC started regular Tuesday night rides and weekends offered opportunities for some long rides onto the Niagara Escarpment https://www.strava.com/activities/2381124819 with good friends and strong riders. Regular evening cruises along the Barrie Waterfront always brings me to randomly meet people or to see interesting scenes of life on the lake. https://www.strava.com/activities/2394518921 The next month started with a bang with our annual Tour de Lake Simcoe https://www.strava.com/activities/2415506469 on June first. Not for lack of effort, I only managed to get one other person out on the road with me. Well, when that person is Joe F, you end up with a rocket ride around the lake that left me sucking Joe’s wheel for an hour before he pulled away seemingly effortlessly for the last 20 kilometres! It turned out to be the smallest Tour group ever but the fastest Lake Simcoe circumnavigation I have ever ridden, with a blistering pace finishing the 200 kilometer rip in well under six hours. As the daylight got longer and the weather finally started to warm up in June, my rides got longer and faster. We had some great BCC rides as younger riders returned from school and the Tuesday night A-rides began to feel like a Runaway Train https://www.strava.com/activities/2443067914. All these fast, longer rides led us perfectly to the Summer Solstice on which the Toronto-Niagara Falls-Toronto Hairshirt Ride https://www.strava.com/activities/2475551164 is always scheduled. This was my third T-N-T Hairshirt Ride and it was hands-down the fastest! For the first half of the ride, I got caught up in the lead group which was more like a pro peleton, or so I imagine, because we completed the first 160 km in four hours!! While I stopped to fill my empty bottles, this group rode on to clock the fastest Hairshirt elapsed time in its 41 year history, smashing the record by riding 320 kilometers in 8h32m! Rolling with these guys for half the ride helped me to finish with a solid PB: elapsed time of 10h34m in spite of a broken rear derailleur with 120 km to go! June ended with my first of many “Rip ‘n’ Dips” https://www.strava.com/activities/2492727403 in 2019, enjoying the refreshing Kempenfelt Bay waters after an excellent escape on my bike. https://ericvanwesenbeeck.tumblr.com/post/186829227637/beautiful-sunset-today-as-i-cooled-off-in-the-bay July was full of fabulous riding, often with the Barrie Cycling Club during the week and then out for adventures on the weekends with some really inspiring, like minded people. One of these weekends was the first annual Hairshirt North double century ride around Simcoe County https://www.strava.com/activities/2532969425, showcasing the beautiful waterfronts we enjoy all around us! Eleven people started out and six people finished the full 320 km route on a pretty much perfect Summer’s day. I was rather stoked to ride with such a strong group on this inaugural ride, which I hope to make an annual event. Mark your calendars for July 12, 2020! Looking back on August immediately brings to mind one very special ride: the Terrific Tarmac Team Time Trial! https://www.strava.com/activities/2610234053 This ride is arguably, the highlight of the season for me. Exhausting but exhilarating. Four very determined and capable riders - Jason M, Steve E, Joe F and I - met up early on Sunday morning with one goal in mind: completing a 100 kilometre route in two and a half hours. This goal would require some serious suffering and some tactical teamwork. Sunny skies and very little wind definitely helped! We didn’t quite reach our goal but we came damn close at 2h33m, leaving us all the more determined to go for it again in 2020. This last month of Summer also provided some wonderful rides with family. Brothers Benjamin and Peter were in town and we got in some nice tours; I also managed some terrific tandem rides with my Mom. At eighty-four, she has trouble riding solo now as her strength and balance diminish however, her desire to be active outdoors is so strong and riding on the back with me she is able to pedal for quite a while! We enjoyed some memorable tours together around Barrie and the Bay on my now classic Motobecane bicycle built for two. https://www.strava.com/activities/2651817254 September and October made for some solid solo riding as several of my fellow riders headed to the south of France to ride in the mountains. I like solo riding a lot, so this was a chance to do my thing and keep fit for the Tour de T1D https://www.strava.com/activities/2750522352 organized by BCC’s very own Richard G and his wife, Darlene. This was a beautiful and challenging 100k route through the hills of Oro-Medonte raising over $47k for the Youth Diabetic Clinic at RVH, a worthy local cause! https://www.facebook.com/tourdet1d/ It was a really fun event with many friends from BCC participating. I plan to be there again on September 27, 2020! November and early December saw some spectacular Saturday morning group runs with a small gang of BCC friends looking to stay active as the cycling season wound down. We enjoyed early morning meet ups at the Spirit Catcher followed by easy runs around Barrie’s Waterfront paths https://www.strava.com/activities/2885344747. Unfortunately, as I headed into December my knees started chirpin’ at me as old injuries were aggravated by the pounding of the longer runs I was doing. So, I backed off and enjoyed the daily walking as I commuted back and forth to my work and let my knees settle down a little. In early December, I prepped and waxed my classic cross country skis but with a very hectic pace at work and at home, I haven’t yet used them! In the meantime, a mild Christmas holiday week has allowed me one last run of Winter riding before the year is out. https://www.strava.com/activities/2963626488 As usual, cycling was a big part of my daily work and leisure again in 2019. These activities inevitably bring me to meet new people on the road - Max R, Tyler D, Craig L, Todd R, Les - and several new BCC members. The cycling community I find myself in also has some very inspiring individuals! Max R and Larry O, whom I have ridden with in the TNT Hairshirt rides, were both inspiring in their completion of the world renowned Paris-Brest-Paris 1200 kilometer epic tour! Avery G inspires me as a young man building a career in cycling that I only dreamed of at his age - as a bicycle mechanic for touring teams and as an incredible rider in his own right, on the trails as well as on the road. Joe F and Todd R who completed their first Hairshirt rides in stellar form. Jenn J who seems to effortlessly pick up a new sport and within a season is competing at a top national level in it! Trevor O who races with the best in North America, especially inspiring in his crit performances. Eric J and Tyler M who inspired me to reconsider my days-of-old penchant for bike-packing with their three day epic road tour https://lostconglomerate.com/pages/joe-ride through Ontario cottage country. Mark L who “vEverested” https://www.strava.com/activities/2074501841 on a 12h43m epic virtual adventure that had him climb over 8900 metres in a single ride! I am also inspired by the new riders this season who stepped out of their comfort zone and into the world of cycling, which can be intimidating at first but opens up so many new experiences and relationships. With retirement now on my radar, I am inspired by recently retired Carol and Tony who are seizing life by the ball bearings and living their cycling dreams. And so, as we breakaway from 2019, I want to thank you all for your shared passion for cycling. Whether it’s commuting, recreation, racing, endurance, adventure, gravel, trails, roads or cruising, we all have this one simple thing in common. I am grateful for covering so many miles uninjured and in good health in 2019. I am grateful for the fun and fitness, competition and companionship that cycling with you all has brought me over these past twelve months. I hope to see each of you at some point in 2020 on two wheels to nowhere. https://ericvanwesenbeeck.tumblr.com/

[meiratz]

To my his mom and sisters,

It has taken me the better part of a decade to write this letter to you. It’s what I hope you remember when you think of us.  It’s what I hope you know when you worry about him finding another partner.

This is the story of why I asked him for change, this is the letter and the story. This is a thank you ten thousand times for sharing him and for taking his hand when I had to let it drop from my own.

And to you, my love, this is a letter to you to remind you that we were real, to tell you; you don’t pay any rent in my heart and soul, and always a thank you for the impact and life you gave me, built with me, and showed me. I fell hard in love with you, I loved you for real, I love you, always. Xo.

It’s for all of you, but maybe it is also for me. It’s for me for all the same reasons it is for you. Because we walked alongside one another for a while and will be forever changed because of it.

--- Chapter 1 - His smile

I knew from the second date we went on that I was going to marry him.

I knew because of how he laughs, how quick his wit is, how quickly he listened to my story and shared his own, how tightly he hugs his mom and how he instantly gets on the floor to spend time with his nieces. And his smile. And his smile. And his smile. And his smile.

Over the course of our relationship, I learned his smile and his laugh were outward expressions of the immense kindness and courage he leads with. He drives his tall ship with kindness as his figurehead. We had banter that still makes me laugh when I remember it. He showed me music I still shake my hips to. He rolled his sleeves up after a long day of work to help me put on art shows.

He asked me to marry him underneath a sky filled with bald eagles and Pacific northwestern stars.

We got a little fluffy on Portland food together. We made each other laugh. We went to the edges of our comfort zones for and with each other. He shared his friends with me. He made room for my friends. He went to vacations with my family. He had jokes with my brother that still continue. He survived a juice cleanse with me. He met me in Copenhagen and picked me up in Rome.

We got married in a field of sagebrush and lupine under the grand Tetons gaze. We went to bed that night and as he drifted to sleep he said one of the most hauntingly intimate things I ever heard from him “this was the best day of my life.”

I asked him to marry me many times. There was a sticky note on our fridge that said: “Marry Mei today?”

I thought marriage was leveling up new language on how much you loved, admired and believed in someone. If that was what marriage was built to be, I was ready for many many years.

But then he asked me to marry him and I felt terror.

Chapter 2 - Terror

I felt absolute terror.

And i wasn’t quiet about it. I was loud.

I asked everyone if this was what it was supposed to feel like.

Everyone told me it was cold feet and asked me what my dress looked like.

I asked him “How do you know we are going to be okay through this?”

And he said to me “if you think about it that way, we won’t be.”

And maybe I am the one who manifested our end into being with my worries.

Maybe I am.

But I don’t think so.

We were built on solid rock. And then we weren’t.

Chapter 3 - Jump cuts

How did it happen? I don’t know.

But these are the events I see so clearly in my mind:

That fight when I exasperatedly told him I was never going to be a woman like his mom. He looked at me like I had just thrown a baby under a moving bus. Like he could not believe I had just said that.

The night I picked him up from that corner in NE Portland from the cops. I pitched my wedding dress, fresh from getting altered, into the back to make room for his crashed bike. I thanked the officers for not taking him to jail to dry out and as we drove home all I could think was “What is this? What is he trying to process but can’t tell me out loud?”

That day I married him and fell head over heels in love with him again. All I could see was him. I just felt so dang proud of him.

Crying in the Detroit airport as it washed over me that I wanted to change and move and grow and that that growth might hurt him if he didn’t want to do it with me.

The evening when I sat on couch and said “please, know that my thesis is partly for school but it is mostly to show you how I’ve changed and the life/career changes I am excited to make” and he said to me  “I can’t wait for this to be over and to have my wife back” The fall and winter when he decided to not come home.

The celebration we had when he got that dream job.  

The look in his eye when he came home from the job that was exactly in line with his life, his mission, his wants, and his loves. And I knew it was where he came alive. And I made a vow to myself that I would do everything in my power to make sure he had a clear path to that aliveness.

The day he said “stop changing in ways that affect me, you’re being too much”

and his fear quieted me.

The afternoon in her living room when we told her he would be in Italy for 3 months and I would stay in the states and she said “what kind of marriage is that anyway?” and I saw her fear quiet him. I saw it tell him “what kind of husband are you? Leaving your wife for months to pursue a job that makes you happy? That’s not a good enough reason.” I saw it shame him.

And I thought about that vow to clear a path to that aliveness and committed 10 fold.

Chapter 4 - “Love you”

The day I drove away knowing I wouldn’t see him for 6 months because I was going to find a “regular” job that would pay me enough money to support us both and so that he would not have to sacrifice his dream. I knew the clock was ticking before he would give it all up to be a “good husband” with his “too much” wife.

I couldn’t find that job.

I applied to 453 jobs.

I had 2 interviews.

I begged to get them.

I didn’t get either of them.

I thought about selling my eggs - “I’m half Asian, they will pay more for those. He never has to know. The money will get us through till I find the job”

I borrowed a lot of money from my family to feel and seem stable. (I am constantly thankful for that grace and support.)

I went to therapy every week for 6 months.

I found a postcard 4 years later from that time where he wrote: “From Instagram, your life looks like you’re doing so well, love you.”

Under the Grand Teton in the sage that day I promised to carry the headlight in the darkest moments, to ask the hardest questions and to always make choices in the best interest of us both living the best lives we possibly could.

Chapter 5 - Alone together

I sat in the back of the room as my friend married his wife. I was only half paying attention until the last lines of his vows to her were “I love you now and when you grow and change, I can’t wait to love you then.” and I slipped out the back door to cry into my knees in the stairwell.

That’s what I wanted. To be loved through my changes. To be encouraged to change. And to give the space for him to change and grow. I was fighting for both of us to feel like we could change.

And I felt the most alone in that mission I have ever felt in my life.

Chapter 6 - The audit

He felt like a failure because he was going against everything he was taught was being a good husband.

I felt alone because I wanted to be a good partner and that required a full-time job that paid $100k/yr

The stress of looking for that job gave me anxiety attacks, an eating disorder and erratic sleeping patterns.

I felt unseen and unheard in my cries for help

I was too much for the person I loved more than anything and I didn’t know how to dim my light soft enough to fit the mold needed to support us.

Chapter 7 - Perfect

We were perfect.

I was an artist who was driving so hard for a job in corporate America.

He was an adventurer who spent most of his life-changing people's lives.

I lived in Seattle.

He lived on the coastlines of Italy and Croatia.

We had a perfect wedding

We have many friends

Our families talk about us at parties

We will make such cute adventure, artist, multiracial babies someday.

Perfect.

And I knew we were both suffering silently alone. And I had enough. I was going to fix it. Because that’s what marriage is, a commitment to someone to always try hard hard hard hard hard hard. And that facebook meme that everyone posts says “In my day marriage meant to fix what’s broken! Not throw it away!” haunted me. I wasn’t a throw-away-er.

6 months of him being gone and with minimal communication, I looked at my sweet four-year-old friend Lucy and I thought “what if she comes to me in 20 years and asks me why I stayed in my marriage? Am I going to tell  her because I was too scared to hurt him?”

Chapter 8 - I knew

I spent a chunk of savings on plane tickets and I flew to Italy.

I was here to rumble until we got “us” back.

We rumbled across Italy, through Croatia, to Scandinavia, and to turkey.

In Turkey

I said, “I feel alone and scared.”

He said, “If I had known this is what being married to you would be like, I would never have done it.”

We went to bed and I knew it was over. We were choosing “being married” and we were not choosing “us”. We were not being brave. We were being scared.

He slept that hot night in turkey

And I lay awake knowing that he would never leave me.

He was committed to the plan. If we were going to survive; Someone had to be uncommitted.

Chapter 9 - Thanksgiving

If we were going to be better, happier, free, braver, stronger, more joyful, and the people we had each fallen in love with; someone was going to have to drop the bomb. And it was going to have to be me.

And then we were in his parent's house for Thanksgiving and I carried my truth like a hot ball of fire in my chest. I knew there was one more chance - I was going to ask for help.

I went to his dad and I said “marriage is so hard! I’m really having a hard time.”

And his dad smiled sweetly at me and said “yes, those first years are so hard” and walked away as if to say “we don’t name that fear here”

Chapter 10 - ________

And I watched the falling floor out from under me.

Chapter 11 - Breaking up my perfect marriage

I was going to break up my perfect marriage to this incredibly kind and brilliant human.

I was going to break the heart of my sweet and wonderful partner.

I was going to ask for change from a person who was so committed to me that he would give up his dream job just to be present.

I was going to break this good man's heart knowing he might never forgive me for it.

I was going to break this good man's heart knowing his family would cut me out like a cancerous tumor.

I was going to break this good man's heart knowing that instead of writing our “success” story I was ushering in the darkest life water he had ever tasted up to that point.

I was going to break a good man's heart and know that it put our friends in a place where they needed to choose.

I was going to break a good man's heart knowing that he and my brother and mom would have to navigate those new friendship waters without me.

I was going to break a good man's heart because I knew it was the brave thing to do.

I was going to break a good man's heart because I knew we could never choose us if we always stood stagnant and silent.

My heart was broken, my body was broken, I was in deep debt, and I was about to break my best friends heart because it was the only way I could see for us to each be strong, healthy, clear and steady.

Chapter 12 - and on the 7th day they were divorced

When I finally did it, it blew me wide open. The words tumbled out of my mouth and I knew I could not take them back.

He didn’t speak to me for days.

During his silence, he printed off the divorce papers, filled them out and left them for me to sign.

We were divorced within a week.

Chapter 13 - Kindness and Divorce 

The lady who took our paperwork commented “you two seem like you’re really kind to each other…” implying “why the heck are you getting divorced?”

And people, here is where the real dark grit gets laid down: we are good to each other, we are kind, we do love each other, we sometimes liked being married, we chose each other more in those hard times probably than in the easy - and we still got a divorce. Because sacrificing ourselves for each other wasn't going to make us better, it was going to suffocate us.

Divorce is not for wimps.

One more time.

Divorce is not for wimps.

Chapter 14 - Breath

The following weeks/months are blurry.

I remember calling my best friend and saying “I hurt him, I’m his dark water. I hurt him” and to this day his voice saying “Mei, you aren’t broken. You aren’t broken. You aren’t broken.” ring in my ears.

He didn’t fight me.

He didn’t fight to get me back from the edges of the abyss.

And at the time I was thankful.

I needed space.

I needed to breathe.

I felt like I had been holding my breath for many many months.

I needed a deep breath.

I missed him. I missed my best friend in him. I reminded myself over and over and over and over and over again that it was not my job to decide when he would want to talk to me. I reminded myself that I had been processing this for many months and he had not.

He processed.

I breathed.

Chapter 15 - Grief

Emotional shrapnel is real. It comes from memories.

It comes from people.

It comes from comments in passing.

It comes from late nights of anxiety.

It comes from success.

It comes from failures.

It comes from society.

It comes in waves and waves and waves and waves.

Grieving our marriage came in the form of emotional shrapnel and it was not a grieving process that started when we signed divorce papers.

Grief, when the person is dead, is intense and constant and the notion of forever without that person is crazy making.

Someone once said to me Divorce is very similar to Death. I nodded my head and knew that that person had obviously not done death grief yet. (She later apologized). Death grief and divorce grief are not the same. They aren’t the same sport, they do not live in the same house, they don’t send family Christmas letters to each other.

Divorce grief is like riding a roller coaster where the person in charge of the ride leaves for lunch all the time. It’s like “I’m good! I’m good! I’m totally okay! I’m brave and bold and I’m going to be okay! Love is everywhere!!” and then you’re like “HOLY SHIT I’M NOT OKAY! I’M THE WORST AT LOVE AND ALL  MY RELATIONSHIPS ARE DOOMED AND I AM GARBAGE FOR HURTING THAT PERSON!!” and then you take a right-hand turn to “I’m never dating again” and then you swerve in and out of “Maybe I’ll just date everyone?” and then it starts all over again.

Oh yeah, and the soundtrack to this roller coaster? The voices of every single family member, instagram post, facebook post, social pressuring person you have ever met or read.

Divorce grief is intense and sticky because it changes every single time you remember a happy or sad memory or thing about that relationship.

Chapter 16 - Divorce is not the worst thing that happened to my marriage 

We hugged for the last time after throwing a surprise dinner party for my mom. We laughed, we bantered, we hugged each other so so tightly.

We haven’t spoken much since in the last few years.

I love that person.

I am so proud of him.

I would marry him all over again in that field and under that blue sky even if I knew it would be hard and heartbreaking later.

I never ever ever ever regret having that chapter with him.

Divorce is not for wimps.

We came out bloodied and bruised and heartbroken.

But it was not the worst case scenario for me.

Divorce was not and is not the worst thing that could have happened to my marriage.

We did not suffocate, we did not choose to resent the other person for our lack of breath, we did not hold the other person under water, we did not struggle and suffer alone together. We did not pretend.

That would have been the worst case.

This is my story. This might not be yours. It might not even be his.

But it’s mine.

---

To my first husband, I love you constantly and always. Thank you for building us alongside me.

To his family, thank you for the space we shared.  He didn’t fail. He isn’t broken. He made a person so happy and so brave. Be proud of him and love him more.

To his next partner, he might seem bruised and bloodied but we all know the walking wounded are the bravest and the most tender. Be gentle, and isn’t his smile the best?

To my next husband, I’m not scared. I’m braver. I’m stronger. I’m more tender and I love you.

---

The Manual

A quick list of things about supporting a person going through divorce and some answers to those terrible questions that get asked so you don’t need to ask them:

Don’t ask “what happened?” Just don’t. We can see the fear on your face. We can see the “I’m asking because I want to mine through your words for anything I do in my marriage so I can quickly eradicate that cancer so I don’t end up...like you.”

Instead say: “Shit. I’m here and I’ll be here.” But only if you mean it.

---

Don’t offer couples therapy as a “have you tried?!” Yes. We have the same internet as you. If we were in a relationship where that option was on the table, we did it. If it wasn’t on the table for us, we didn’t do it for a reason.

Instead say: “Shit. I’m here and I’ll be here.”  But only if you mean it.

---

Don’t say “I had no idea!” because there was probably a reason you didn’t know.

Don’t say “are you sure?” dude, you don’t think I’ve thought about this every single moment of every single damn day for a long time? No, I’m not sure and also yes, I am so sure all at once.

Don’t say “I wish I would have known and could have done something!” if you are shocked by the news, you weren’t close enough to have been able to do anything.

Instead ask: “How can I help in the transition?” “What things can I pack that you don’t want to look at?” “Who do you want to know that you don’t want to tell? Can I do that for you?” “Do you need space or do you need a distraction?”

---

Don’t say “But why did you marry them!?”

Know this: We made the best decision we could with the most information that we had at the time. We did the same thing you did at your wedding, we loved someone, we took a risk, we had a big party, and that was the exact right thing at that moment. Full stop.

---

Don’t assume you know the story.

Don’t assume it’s the worst case scenario.

Don’t paint the other person as the enemy. This isn’t a high school breakup (not that those aren’t traumatizing), this is complicated and emotional shrapnel is flying all over.

Instead know this: we have a lot of waves to surf and we will need major space and grace. We might pull away from you, it’s not about you, it’s messy in our brains/lives/hearts and we are sorting through it.

---

and know this: We aren’t meaning to hurt you.

We are just hurt and trying to figure it all out.

We are up against a society that tells us we failed at the one thing we weren’t supposed to fail at.

We are battling our own minds questioning us.

We are tired and we are brave but we are tired and it’s not even close to quitting time.

If we are hurting you, you gotta tell us. We might just not be able to see it. Our eyes are blurry from a broken heart and playing a lot of defense. Come at us softly, we will meet you there. I promise.

Space and grace.

Space and grace.

Space and grace.

Xo.

Mei

#divorce #love #letter

[makemoneyonline70]

14 CREATIVE WAYS TO MAKE $100 A DAY

1. Take part in research (up to $150/hour)

If you want to make $100 or more in a day, this is the perfect place to start without much experience or skills!

You can share your opinion in focus groups. Companies are looking for qualified people to join their research studies, and you don’t necessarily need to be a professional to participate.

Last week I received an invite to participate in a beauty study: $150 for an hour of my time! Not bad for answering some questions about my hair care routine!

User Interviews is a legit company that provides qualified research respondents to whoever needs it. And they now recruit people internationally!

The pay goes from $75 for 30 minutes of your time to $450 for very specific one-hour studies.

User Interviews has diverse studies, covering many topics: technology, food, consumer goods, family, software, hobbies, pets, sports, transportation, beauty, social media, music, you name it!

They have some incredible clients, including Pinterest, Spotify, Vistaprint, Wayfair, Thumbtack, and more.

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This is how it works:

1. You apply to participate in studies that you think are a good fit for you.

2. The researcher/sponsor of the study reviews responses and sends invitations to the best-fit respondents.

3. If you receive an invitation to participate, you choose a time that suits you from those made available by the researcher.

4.After you have completed the study, you are paid via PayPal, cash, or Amazon gift cards.

If you are interested in earning money with focus groups, another top-rated legit company is Respondent.io.

Respondent.io is always looking for industry professionals, parents, and students. They have projects that are available to US residents as well as international. This means you don’t have to be in the US to join and earn from $50 to 250$ per research.

All you need to join is a PayPal account and either Facebook or LinkedIn to connect your profile.

2. Become a shopper

Image from Grace Gordon

If you love shopping around, how about doing it for others? With Instacart, you will work as an independent contractor delivering groceries for other people.

There’s great potential to make good money, especially right now.

You could make up to $25 per hour during busy times, although the average is between $10 to $20 per hour.

It couldn’t be easier: you get offered the order, you shop the order, you get paid!

You make your own schedule and pick your orders, and the flexibility is what makes it so great, especially if you have limited time or are a stay at home mum or a student.

Instacart is the best website for shopper

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3. Get paid to watch videos online

InboxDollars is a cool website to make some cash with surveys. Plus, you can also make money by watching movie previews, TV shows, celebrity videos, the latest news, and many other videos. And you’ll get a $5 bonus just for signing up.

But how does it work?

That’s easy! Simply head to InboxDollars.com and login to see the list of videos available for you to watch. You’ll watch videos on your phone or laptop.

InboxDollars then rewards you for watching them with your choice of free cash or gift cards for popular brands.

You need to watch all of the shows in a specific playlist, so be prepared and get the popcorn ready! You can check out how long the playlist runs before you start watching, and playlists range from a few minutes to about a half-hour.

4. Wrap your car

Do you own a car? How about placing advertising on it and get paid? With Wrapify you can get paid up to $452 for having your car wrapped with an ad.

You need to download the Wrapify app, and then they will track your journeys until you reach 50 miles. Once you reach 50 miles, you are eligible to take part in a campaign. Each campaign will place ads on your car for 1 to 12 months.

During that time you will be earning free money every month!

To be eligible to take part in a campaign, you need to:

• Be 21 or older

• Have a clean driving (and criminal) record

• Have a car that is from 2008 or newer

I think this is a cool way to make money, but it’s also a great idea to generate passive income. If you are already driving around town, why not get paid for it?

5. Sell your crafts

Image from Fall For DIY

If you are a creative person, did you ever think about selling your crafts on websites like Etsy?

When Dan and I were 17, we came up with the idea of selling salt dolls for Christmas. Well, believe it or not, in a couple of months, we managed to make over $1,000!

By making and selling your crafts, you can set your own hours, spend your days producing items that you enjoy making, and earn some money in the process.

The trick here is to make sure you actually make items that will sell.

6. Download these 2 apps and make $125 by going online

Get the Nielsen App and make $50 a year

In the old days, Nielsen used to collect data by tracking TV ratings. But now, they have moved on, and they would like to get people like you to help them study the future of the online world.

By simply installing their app on your smartphone, they will pay you $50 a year if you are in the US.

The app will collect statistics on what websites you go to and how long you stay there. All the data collected is ANONYMOUS, and it’s not linked to you at all!

Install UpVoice Edge extension and earn $75 or more

UpVoice is a new passive user panel that pays users $75 in Amazon gift cards for regularly browsing specific sites (like YouTube, Twitter, Linked In, and Amazon!). While you browse, UpVoice passively collects data about the ads you see and match it with their demographics data to create marketing insights for brands.

It’s currently available in two new forms – a Windows 10 app or an extension for the Edge browser.

And you don’t have to worry about the security of your data! Any data UpVoice shares with their clients is always anonymized and aggregated, and they never share any personal information nor target or monitor individual users.

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7. Make an extra $100 pet sitting

Look after these cute dogs with Rover

If you love animals, pet sitting is a great way to make extra money.

Pet sitting is extremely flexible because you decide when to do it, and you can fit it around your own schedule. It’s easy to do even if you work full time, as you can spend time during the weekend looking after our little friends.

Rover is the perfect place to start!

It offers different services to pet owners and, once you have registered with them, you will be able to decide which one you want to offer to your potential clients:

• Dog walking

• Doggy daycare

• House-sitting

• Dog boarding

8. Teach anything online to kids

And I really mean anything! From cooking to coding!

Did you know that you could make over $10,000 a month teaching online, as Jade does?

Online teaching is forever changing the way kids learn at school and from home.

And if you are passionate about sharing your knowledge, you can benefit from this revolution. All you need is an internet connection and a laptop, and you can start to make money today.

And you don’t need to be a traditionally qualified teacher. You just have to love teaching kids under 18.

Places like Outschool let you teach any sort of subject from the comfort of your own home.

You can teach classical subjects like English and math, or fun classes like acting, singing or sketching.

Listing classed is free, and Outschool will provide you with the perfect platform to host classes online.

Teachers on Outschool earn an average of $35 per teaching hour.

But you have full control over the listed price for a class and the number of participants. Outschool will take 30% of your earnings for their support services. Once your class starts, you will receive payment via PayPal.

Teaching online is an incredible way to make extra money, especially during this time

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9. Get paid to walk

We all know we need to stay active to keep fit! And you are probably trying to get to your 10,000 steps a day every day!

How about getting paid for that? You can!

Apps like Sweatcoin will reward you for every step you take.

This app helps me be even more motivated to stay fit, take the stairs an extra time a day, and walk more! Will you make $100 a day just by using Sweatcoin? No way, not even close. But it’s a free cool app that can get you some nice rewards for something you already do.

10. Become a virtual assistant (and earn up to $4,000/month)

You can earn some great money working from home for a few hours a day by becoming a virtual assistant (up to $35-$50 per hour!).

Virtual assistants need to have strong administrative skills, be highly organized, and be familiar with blogging/social media.

There are different types of tasks a virtual assistant can help a business with. Some businesses use a VA to keep up with emails, customer service online, blogging updates, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Pinterest.

If you want to find out more about becoming a virtual assistant and all the tasks you can offer to potential clients, I strongly advise you to read Abbey’s story.

11. Answer questions for money

If you are in the US, you could earn up to $100k a year (yep, that’s not a typo) by answering questions online.

JustAnswer connects doctors, software engineers, plumbers, lawyers, and other experts to people that need answers to questions.

You just need a computer or smartphone and an internet connection. You can set your own hours, pick which questions to answers, and earn cash by helping people online.

Just make sure you have the right skills, and you can simply sign up for free, and you’ll be paid monthly via PayPal

12. Freelancing

If you have some skills, you could put them to good use and do extra freelance work from home!

But how can you find a freelance opportunity?

There are plenty of websites that will help you to find a side job to work part-time from home. You can work for a few hours a day as a proofreader, virtual assistant, bookkeeper, writer, social media manager, tutor, transcriptionist…

The options are infinite, and you could be making up to $100 an hour!

The best way to find freelancing gigs is to register to these great websites:

• Flexjobs

• Weworkremotly.com

• Remote.

13. Drive people around

Woman driving in a vintage car! Need money now? Make extra money fast with these creative ways to make money, the easy way. The best ideas to make money. Learn how to make 100 dollars a day!

Want to make $100 a day? You could drive for Uber!

If you need to get $100 fast and own a car, driving people around in your spare time can be a great way of earning the extra cash you need in no time.

The best companies to sign up with are:

•Uber

•Lyft

You need to consider car depreciation and the money you are spending on gas, but if you are clever about the trips you accept to do and don’t drive too far for a pickup, you’ll be able to make an extra 100 dollars in a day.

14. Get paid by searching online

We all spend hours every day searching online.

And guess what?

Swagbucks will pay you to use its search engine.

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#make money online 2021 #make money online without investment #make money online app #make money online as a teenager #make money online at home #make money online amazon #make money online by watching videos #make money online by typing #make money online by re-uploading youtube videos

[nellathoughts1]

December 23rd, 2019

I sit here earlier today with my spirit feeling disturbed. No one troubled be or annoyed me, it was just one of those moments when I'm feeling miserable and unsettled within. I knew that the only cure for this was prayer.

Truth is I was feeling a little disappointed within myself, wondering why being discipline was so hard to be made into a habit. I was wondering why was it so easy to please everyone around me but myself. Why I can easily drop 5k on gift for someone but I have to think twice about buying it for me. I was also wondering why I'm still at a cross road as it relates to making a decision where I want to live and work in the future.

I'm praying that my desires for 2020 will be a burning sensation in my chest and fire to my skin. I want to push myself like I've never done it before. Even if I have to cry through it. I dont want to bargain with myself anymore. I want to fight through the annoying temptation of procrastination. If its God will and I'm in good health and strength, I will make 2020 the best year yet. I'm tired of talking and say I'm gonna do it and stuck in the same place I was when the year started. This cycle ends now. Here's a list, not limited to the things I want to achieve I 2020:

○ Change my diet and then turn it into a lifestyle.

○ Will be doing the CBT UK exam or NCLEX

○ Will formulate an appropriate exercise plan that is flexible enough to work with my working schedule. The very least 4 times a week

○ Increase my savings ( challenge yourself to save all overtime money made or 100k per month)

○ Buy or do something you WANT every month. Babygirl you deserve to treat yourself. *Doesnt have to be expensive

○ Make a budget plan monthly and try to stick to it. Even if not achieved to it's full potential every month, continue to write it anyway.

○ Do a full blood examination

○ Fasting and Prayer at least once a month. BIBLE study. Prayer everyday. Meditate.

○ Limit time spent on social media and use that time to read the book or newspaper.

○ Driving school (before the first half of the year)

○ Buy ground provision, fruits etc by the end of every week.

○ Save for Cruise ship trip

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[mlmcompanies]

Calling all insta-queens and kings. Likes and follows are cheap. You came here because you want to learn how to turn all those hearts and “yassss queen”s into cash money.

It’s actually easier than you think to profit off a good, active following on Instagram. Big influencers make well into six figures off the app alone, but it’s not just the IG celebs that make money now. Businesses are starting to realize the benefit of using leveraging of “micro-influencers” (at least 3-5k followers) to spread the word of their product, and they’re paying decent money.

In fact, studies are starting to show that brands that use smaller influencers build more trust with their customers since everyone knows the big dogs are getting paid. Engagement with accounts that have under 1 million followers is at 8%, while engagement with 1m+ accounts is only 4%. (1)

You can get started at a few thousand followers making side money, but once you get up to 100k+, you can actually make a full-time living. Here are some of the best ways to squeeze a profit out of your VSCO filters and witty emoji captions.

39. Social net worth

The first step to making money on Instagram is knowing how much your social media accounts are worth to brands. You might think $20 for a quick post sounds like good money when you could actually be charging $200.

The great thing about making money with social media marketing is that it’s not about how many hours you spend, it’s about how much influence you have.

Social Bluebook is a tool that helps you calculate how much to charge based on your reach and engagement. (2)

38. Instagram business account

If you’re trying to turn your Instagram into an online business, it’s only natural you should turn your Instagram account into a business account.

Instagram business accounts let you run ads, add contact buttons to your profile, add Instagram story links (the “swipe up” feature) when you reach 10,000 followers, and view analytics for your Instagram account (among other features), each important to growing your following and raking in Insta-profits. (3)

37. Post consistently

Post the same amount of times every day, and post on the same days each week. When your followers know when to expect your next post, they’ll constantly be looking forward to it popping up on your feed.

36. Engage with your followers

This one should be obvious, but so many influencers are missing out on building their fan base because they don’t engage their audience well.

Create content that gets your followers engaging with you, whether it’s through your own hashtag, Instagram live videos, or you responding to their comments on your posts. Fans go wild when their favorite influencer responds to them.

35. Travel blogging

The market’s a little saturated, but the rewards are endless. Think luxury vacations, resort stays in Bali, free tours.

If you can snap stunning landscapes while you travel (bonus points if you pose a girl in a sundress and a sunhat in front of them), you can rake in all kinds of press trips from tourism boards that will treat you like royalty.

34. Health and fitness

Personal trainers and aspiring fitness influencers ought to be using Instagram to show off that bod because, after all, that’s kinda their product.

Take videos/montages of you doing workouts with long captions describing the movements you’re performing. Post pictures of your meal prepping routine. Sprinkle in a dash of motivational content. Nab some sponsorships from fitness equipment brands, gyms, supplement companies, etc.

When you build a following, you can create workout programs and nutrition plans for your audience to buy. Maybe even launch your own supplement line. If you’re a personal trainer, you can also land clients this way.

33. Mobile app

Instagram is primarily used on smartphones, and since it’s very visual-focused, it’s the perfect social media app on which to advertise your own mobile app.

In fact, when you use mobile app ads on Instagram, you get a call to action button in the ad that takes users right to their respective app stores. Make a visually appealing photo or video ad to entice your audience to click that call to action and download your app.

32. Fashionista

If you’re that person who’s always posting #ootd pics and strutting into casual events in a leopard print fur coat, take it to the ‘gram. User @nycxclothes makes $1,600 in side money per month posting her outfits on Instagram, and she’s barely over 5k followers. (4) (5)

Stylinity gives you discount codes for clothes and shoes – you feature the clothes, give your followers the discount code, and every time one of them uses it, you get a commission. (6)

31. Music

Selena Gomez reportedly makes over half a mil per post to advertise various brands and their products. You might not have her musical fame, but there’s money to be made on Instagram if you’re a musician. (7)

Your content could include live sneak peeks of new tracks, sharing some gig/tour photos, free giveaways of your band merch, you get the picture. Link your new tracks/links to your music streaming platform of choice in your bio.

Get big enough, and you’ll be able to land influencer deals for both music and non-music products and companies. You might even land a record deal.

30. Freelance business

If you’re a #freelancer, you can add Instagram to your repertoire of lead generation sources. Clean out any old party pics to make your account look professional, then start uploading relevant content, such as sneak peeks of projects you’re working on or “behind-the-scenes” pictures. Use hashtags like #freelancer and #solopreneur in your posts to boost your visibility, and network with other freelancers and small businesses with niche-specific hashtags. (8)

You could also use Instagram Live. For example, if you’re a freelance writer, you could teach some SEO tips or content marketing tactics to your Live viewers. (9)

29. Network marketing

It’s far from my first choice, but it is true that you can make good money through MLM if you manage to push your way to the top 10 (and lose your shame along the way). Instagram is used heavily in most network marketing circles, but usually just as a means of annoying friends until they block you.

My advice? Start a niche Instagram accounts, such as a fitness account, and grow it. Once you have 50k+ followers (and good engagement), THEN join a fitness MLM and start hawking the product. Not the other way around.

28. Used clothes

If you’ve got style, the #ShopMyCloset trend is becoming a side money stream for fashionistas everywhere. Basically start your own virtual high-end thrift store out of your closet.

Get a good camera, some models, and some photoshop skills. Snap photos of clothes you don’t want anymore and post them with a price and the right hashtags. BloomDesignerFinds, Instagram thrift store gone high-end consignment shop, makes 30-40 sales per day on Instagram. (10)

27. Foodie photos

If the only thing you can make for dinner is reservations but you still love to eat, consider starting a foodie account. Instead of going through the work of making all your own food and writing up recipe books, you basically just get to be one of the basics in the corner of that SoHo cafe snapping photos of her mochaccino until it gets cold.

Except, if your photos are good and your following is big, restaurants and cafes will pay $$$ for you to make an appearance. The 20-something girls from @New_Fork_City make a full-time living instagramming their avocado toast. Nothing basic about that. (11)

26. YouTube

Double down with an Instagram account that funnels people to your YouTube channel. You don’t have to be a famous vlogger with all kinds of video equipment. If you’re into fashion, post “haul” or videos where you show people your recent purchases. Post “satisfying” videos where you do crap like frost cakes and play with homemade slime.

Once you get enough viewers, you can join YouTube’s Partner Program and start raking in profits off their ads and other Partner money-making methods. (12)

25. Beauty blogger

The beauty industry is now worth $445 billion, and it #cantstopwontstop. Forbes called it a “gold mine for self-made women.” (13)

If you’re good at makeup, start an Instagram showcasing your skills (pair it with a YouTube channel for added influence). At first, you’ll just get free product from brands, but once you grow a following, they’ll start paying you big money to use their stuff in your videos.

24. Photography

Sell your photos! It’s the most obvious route, but if you’re good, start selling prints of your Instagram photos and taking bookings for photo shoots.

Believe it or not, print photography is not dead… if you have a following. Controversial Brooklyn photographer @arnold_daniel decided to put his Instagram photos up for sale and made $15k in one night. (14) (15)

In addition, you could slap your photos on products like mugs, shirts, and other items and sell them for profit. See the next tip.

23. e-Commerce

Worldwide e-commerce sales hit $1.9 trillion last year. (16) Get in on that. Start an e-Commerce store, post captivating photos of your product, and profit. If you have the budget, run some Instagram ads while you’re at it.

A teenager got rich on Instagram selling homemade slime, just because her photos were so good. She’s got 1 million followers now and makes $3,000/month while in high school. Baller. (17)

22. Online courses

If your account is doing well (and I don’t even mean a six-figure following, anything over 10k is good), consider starting up some courses or webinars on how to grow your Instagram. This will automate some of your income so you can passively rake it in every time someone buys one of your courses.

Get started by offering a free webinar on Instagram live (promote it heavily beforehand so people show up). Save the video and post it up for people to see. At the end of the video, offer access to more tips and tricks through a paid e-course that people can purchase through the link in your bio.

21. License photos

If you’ve got some photography skills and you want to go 100% remote (recommended) instead of dragging your equipment to photoshoots of your friends’ babies, you can make some passive income licensing your photos. The best part, you can license out photos you’ve already posted on the gram, so you don’t even have to do any more work.

Websites and apps like twenty20 and Foap are a great place to start. (18) (19) Brands post “Missions” on Foap that you can snag if you’ve got relevant photos, and pay starts at $100. Also, check out Shutterstock and Getty Images. (20) (21)

20. Cooking

How many Food Network and Travel Channel hosts nowadays started out on social media? Just make sure you take food photos with good lighting and baller set-up. No one’s gonna follow a food account with gross looking photos.

Instagram hit @joythebaker started posting photos of donuts and pies she baked, and now she’s selling out book signings for her most recent cookbook and opening her own bake shop/cooking school in New Orleans. (22)

19. Post memes

This has got to be as easy as it gets. Literally just post funny memes and get famous. They don’t even have to be your original memes, either.

Thefatjewish is one of the most popular accounts on Instagram, and he rarely posts original work, just reposts other people’s funny crap. He’s got over 10 million followers and a movie deal. (23)

FuckJerry, another huge meme account, reportedly makes a whopping $30,000 per sponsored post, just for tagging a brand in a meme they make. (24)

18. Capture leads

Lots of Instagrammers make a commission off affiliate links (the “see link in bio”), but with Peerfly, you don’t even have to get people to buy stuff. They pay on your click-through rate, so as long as people click the link you give them, you get paid. (25)

Pick a niche (make it something you like), learn about analytics and hashtags, and build up a following.

17. Sell your account

If you’re good at getting likes and follows, you don’t even have to come up with a monetization strategy. Just build up a following and then sell your account on websites like Fameswap and ViralAccounts. (26) (27)

You can actually make good money doing this, especially if you know how to grow fast. Accounts with 500k to 1 million followers can sell for 6 figures. (28)

In a similar vein, you could also flip Instagram accounts and profit if you know how to spot promising accounts.

16. Start a blog

This is one of the most popular ways to monetize your Instagram account. It is a lot of work, but you can build anything from a blog with good traffic.

Start your account based on a specific, unsaturated niche and build a blog to go with it. Focus on capturing subscriptions to your blog, because having a mailing list is where the real money is at.

15. Content tasks

If you don’t have the time to build full-on sponsors or build out affiliate links, Crowdtap offers all kinds of “content missions” that you can pick up and complete for some side money. (29)

You don’t have to have a massive following, either. Often times, 10k, or even 5k, is enough.

14. Join a hashtag campaign

Another solid way to make quick side money is with Indahash. (30) This app gives you payouts for posting content with certain hashtags and brand tags in the caption.

Say you’re eating out at McDonald’s and McD’s is doing a hashtag campaign at that moment. Snap a pic of you with a McNugget stuffed smile, include the proper tags, and collect your reward.

13. Sell shoutouts

Leverage your Instagram popularity and help smaller influencers out by selling shoutouts. Shoutcart is a marketplace where you can buy and sell simple shoutouts. (31)

Make a profile and name your price for shouting out another account in one of your posts. The going rates usually aren’t huge ($10-$50), but they provide the photo and the caption, so it’s basically passive income.

12. Sponsored posts

If you’re looking for the big bucks, sponsored posts are it. A survey of over 5,000 major influencers said that 42% of them charge between $200-$400 per post. Yep, $400 just to post a photo on Instagram. Accounts with followers in the millions make several grand per post. (32)

Of course, you’ve got to build a big and loyal following before brands will come to you offering that kind of money. In the meantime, sites like TapInfluence and Influez are great for finding sponsors, even if you’re a “micro-influencer.” (33) (34)

11. Run Instagram ads for others

If you’ve got the ads skills and you know how to identify good influencers in a specific niche, you could start an Instagram ads business and make help make other businesses money with Instagram ads and sponsored posts.

Companies will pay you handsomely, provided you bring them results.

10. Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is another big money-making on Instagram. ShareASale and ClickBank are good places to start. They give you links to products, and if someone clicks and buys, you make a commission. (35) (36)

If you’re trying to make a living off this though, Instagram has notoriously poor clickthrough rates as the only spot you can permanently place a link is in your bio. While you the feature allowing users to swipe up on stories to get to a link has improved this, you’ll really want to start up a blog or affiliate e-commerce site and perhaps funnel Instagram followers there to make the most of this stream of income.

9. Sell fan merch

Instead of selling generic products, try coming up with your own unique products that revolve around your Instagram account. You can use a dropshipper so you still don’t have to worry about holding inventory.

Doug the Pug, this one guy’s pug, went viral on Instagram. So the owner started a Doug the Pug store that sells Doug the Pug coffee mugs, tee shirts, and all kinds of other things that are probably printed for pennies on the dollar off in China. (37) (38)

8. Share discounts

People love saving money more than they loved Jennifer Hudson in 2009.

Start an account that shares links to coupons and discount codes via Rakuten/eBates. Every time someone clicks your Rakuten/eBates link, you’ll get a profit. (39)

7. Lifestyle ‘grammer

They’re a dime a dozen nowadays, but if you can manage to make it in the lifestyle niche, it’s the best way to get that royal lifestyle. The niche is broad and can cover everything from designer clothing and furniture to luxury trips to Dubai. Lifestyle is exclusive – RewardStyle is a good influencer network for up and comings, but it’s invitation only. (40)

All you need to do is make your life look perfect. Being attractive helps a lot, too. This is definitely a shallow niche.

6. Amazon affiliate

If you don’t want to go through the work of combing through potential affiliate partners to find the ones who offer good rates, Amazon’s affiliate program is still one of the most solid out there. They offer up to 10% commission, which is not bad. And you get that commission on their entire Amazon purchase, not just the item you linked to. (41)

5. Dropshipping

Dropshipping is an e-commerce method where you sell a product on your site but never actually have to deal with inventory. Instead, you place the same order with a third party who manufactures and ships the product for you.

It’s popular because it’s so hands-off, but it’s also very saturated. However, if you can come up with some great products that are easily marketed on Instagram, maybe you could make it. Hint: posting nothing but cheesy stock product photos will get you nowhere.

In fact, a good way to make sales is to order a few samples of your dropshipping products and pay influencers in your niche to take pictures with them.

4. Etsy

Calling all grandmas at heart – if you’re good at crafting and don’t want to invest in your own e-commerce site, sell stuff on Etsy. Bump your Instagram following up and use it as a funnel to your Etsy store.

Usually, this is just side money, but Etsy shop owner Three Birds Nest nets a million in sales every year, and she doesn’t even make her own stuff. (42)

3. Self-publish a book

Self-publishing on Amazon has great profit margins, but you have to know how to market your book to make any sales.

Create an Instagram account that’s relevant to your genre, or a book account (accounts like @bookwrms net hundreds for sponsored posts), and market your self-published book to this built-in audience. If you price it at $2.99 you get to keep 70% of the profits.

2. Consulting

Good consultants make 6-figures a year, easily. (43)

If you can grow an Instagram account and a brand for yourself, based in any niche, to 100k+ followers, it’s proof to companies that you know your way around social media marketing. They’ll shell out thousands for you to share your secrets.

1. SEO for local businesses

Honestly, having an Instagram hustle sounds like the life, but building up actual followers who are loyal to you (not just bots) takes a lot of time (think years), a lot of work, knowledge of things like analytics and marketing, and a lot of luck. Going viral isn’t something you can plan. Being hot and independently wealthy also helps too.

In the end, there’s a much easier and more consistent way to make good money online, and it’s by focusing on capturing leads. You don’t have to make sales, you just have to get people to enter their info. And you don’t have to have to cross your fingers and hope for a viral post, because there’s a proven formula to SEO.

Leads are the life blood of small business. They’re worth good money…and businesses will pay good money if you can hand them over. Think 4-figure checks.

Plus, you’re honing in on a specific niche in a specific town. So instead of competing with 800 million Instagram users, you’re competing with a couple people in Columbus, Ohio who are selling garage door services. Easy.

#MLM companies #network marketing companies

[antionetterparker]

Ranking the 39 best ways to make money on Instagram in 2019

Calling all insta-queens and kings. Likes and follows are cheap. You came here because you want to learn how to turn all those hearts and “yassss queen”s into cash money.

It’s actually easier than you think to profit off a good, active following on Instagram. Big influencers make well into six figures off the app alone, but it’s not just the IG celebs that make money now. Businesses are starting to realize the benefit of using leveraging of “micro-influencers” (at least 3-5k followers) to spread the word of their product, and they’re paying decent money.

In fact, studies are starting to show that brands that use smaller influencers build more trust with their customers since everyone knows the big dogs are getting paid. Engagement with accounts that have under 1 million followers is at 8%, while engagement with 1m+ accounts is only 4%. (1)

You can get started at a few thousand followers making side money, but once you get up to 100k+, you can actually make a full-time living. Here are some of the best ways to squeeze a profit out of your VSCO filters and witty emoji captions.

39. Social net worth

The first step to making money on Instagram is knowing how much your social media accounts are worth to brands. You might think $20 for a quick post sounds like good money when you could actually be charging $200.

The great thing about making money with social media marketing is that it’s not about how many hours you spend, it’s about how much influence you have.

Social Bluebook is a tool that helps you calculate how much to charge based on your reach and engagement. (2)

38. Instagram business account

If you’re trying to turn your Instagram into an online business, it’s only natural you should turn your Instagram account into a business account.

Instagram business accounts let you run ads, add contact buttons to your profile, add Instagram story links (the “swipe up” feature) when you reach 10,000 followers, and view analytics for your Instagram account (among other features), each important to growing your following and raking in Insta-profits. (3)

37. Post consistently

Post the same amount of times every day, and post on the same days each week. When your followers know when to expect your next post, they’ll constantly be looking forward to it popping up on your feed.

36. Engage with your followers

This one should be obvious, but so many influencers are missing out on building their fan base because they don’t engage their audience well.

Create content that gets your followers engaging with you, whether it’s through your own hashtag, Instagram live videos, or you responding to their comments on your posts. Fans go wild when their favorite influencer responds to them.

35. Travel blogging

The market’s a little saturated, but the rewards are endless. Think luxury vacations, resort stays in Bali, free tours.

If you can snap stunning landscapes while you travel (bonus points if you pose a girl in a sundress and a sunhat in front of them), you can rake in all kinds of press trips from tourism boards that will treat you like royalty.

34. Health and fitness

Personal trainers and aspiring fitness influencers ought to be using Instagram to show off that bod because, after all, that’s kinda their product.

Take videos/montages of you doing workouts with long captions describing the movements you’re performing. Post pictures of your meal prepping routine. Sprinkle in a dash of motivational content. Nab some sponsorships from fitness equipment brands, gyms, supplement companies, etc.

When you build a following, you can create workout programs and nutrition plans for your audience to buy. Maybe even launch your own supplement line. If you’re a personal trainer, you can also land clients this way.

33. Mobile app

Instagram is primarily used on smartphones, and since it’s very visual-focused, it’s the perfect social media app on which to advertise your own mobile app.

In fact, when you use mobile app ads on Instagram, you get a call to action button in the ad that takes users right to their respective app stores. Make a visually appealing photo or video ad to entice your audience to click that call to action and download your app.

32. Fashionista

If you’re that person who’s always posting #ootd pics and strutting into casual events in a leopard print fur coat, take it to the ‘gram. User @nycxclothes makes $1,600 in side money per month posting her outfits on Instagram, and she’s barely over 5k followers. (4) (5)

Stylinity gives you discount codes for clothes and shoes – you feature the clothes, give your followers the discount code, and every time one of them uses it, you get a commission. (6)

31. Music

Selena Gomez reportedly makes over half a mil per post to advertise various brands and their products. You might not have her musical fame, but there’s money to be made on Instagram if you’re a musician. (7)

Your content could include live sneak peeks of new tracks, sharing some gig/tour photos, free giveaways of your band merch, you get the picture. Link your new tracks/links to your music streaming platform of choice in your bio.

Get big enough, and you’ll be able to land influencer deals for both music and non-music products and companies. You might even land a record deal.

30. Freelance business

If you’re a #freelancer, you can add Instagram to your repertoire of lead generation sources. Clean out any old party pics to make your account look professional, then start uploading relevant content, such as sneak peeks of projects you’re working on or “behind-the-scenes” pictures. Use hashtags like #freelancer and #solopreneur in your posts to boost your visibility, and network with other freelancers and small businesses with niche-specific hashtags. (8)

You could also use Instagram Live. For example, if you’re a freelance writer, you could teach some SEO tips or content marketing tactics to your Live viewers. (9)

29. Network marketing

It’s far from my first choice, but it is true that you can make good money through MLM if you manage to push your way to the top 10 (and lose your shame along the way). Instagram is used heavily in most network marketing circles, but usually just as a means of annoying friends until they block you.

My advice? Start a niche Instagram accounts, such as a fitness account, and grow it. Once you have 50k+ followers (and good engagement), THEN join a fitness MLM and start hawking the product. Not the other way around.

28. Used clothes

If you’ve got style, the #ShopMyCloset trend is becoming a side money stream for fashionistas everywhere. Basically start your own virtual high-end thrift store out of your closet.

Get a good camera, some models, and some photoshop skills. Snap photos of clothes you don’t want anymore and post them with a price and the right hashtags. BloomDesignerFinds, Instagram thrift store gone high-end consignment shop, makes 30-40 sales per day on Instagram. (10)

27. Foodie photos

If the only thing you can make for dinner is reservations but you still love to eat, consider starting a foodie account. Instead of going through the work of making all your own food and writing up recipe books, you basically just get to be one of the basics in the corner of that SoHo cafe snapping photos of her mochaccino until it gets cold.

Except, if your photos are good and your following is big, restaurants and cafes will pay $$$ for you to make an appearance. The 20-something girls from @New_Fork_City make a full-time living instagramming their avocado toast. Nothing basic about that. (11)

26. YouTube

Double down with an Instagram account that funnels people to your YouTube channel. You don’t have to be a famous vlogger with all kinds of video equipment. If you’re into fashion, post “haul” or videos where you show people your recent purchases. Post “satisfying” videos where you do crap like frost cakes and play with homemade slime.

Once you get enough viewers, you can join YouTube’s Partner Program and start raking in profits off their ads and other Partner money-making methods. (12)

25. Beauty blogger

The beauty industry is now worth $445 billion, and it #cantstopwontstop. Forbes called it a “gold mine for self-made women.” (13)

If you’re good at makeup, start an Instagram showcasing your skills (pair it with a YouTube channel for added influence). At first, you’ll just get free product from brands, but once you grow a following, they’ll start paying you big money to use their stuff in your videos.

24. Photography

Sell your photos! It’s the most obvious route, but if you’re good, start selling prints of your Instagram photos and taking bookings for photo shoots.

Believe it or not, print photography is not dead… if you have a following. Controversial Brooklyn photographer @arnold_daniel decided to put his Instagram photos up for sale and made $15k in one night. (14) (15)

In addition, you could slap your photos on products like mugs, shirts, and other items and sell them for profit. See the next tip.

23. e-Commerce

Worldwide e-commerce sales hit $1.9 trillion last year. (16) Get in on that. Start an e-Commerce store, post captivating photos of your product, and profit. If you have the budget, run some Instagram ads while you’re at it.

A teenager got rich on Instagram selling homemade slime, just because her photos were so good. She’s got 1 million followers now and makes $3,000/month while in high school. Baller. (17)

22. Online courses

If your account is doing well (and I don’t even mean a six-figure following, anything over 10k is good), consider starting up some courses or webinars on how to grow your Instagram. This will automate some of your income so you can passively rake it in every time someone buys one of your courses.

Get started by offering a free webinar on Instagram live (promote it heavily beforehand so people show up). Save the video and post it up for people to see. At the end of the video, offer access to more tips and tricks through a paid e-course that people can purchase through the link in your bio.

21. License photos

If you’ve got some photography skills and you want to go 100% remote (recommended) instead of dragging your equipment to photoshoots of your friends’ babies, you can make some passive income licensing your photos. The best part, you can license out photos you’ve already posted on the gram, so you don’t even have to do any more work.

Websites and apps like twenty20 and Foap are a great place to start. (18) (19) Brands post “Missions” on Foap that you can snag if you’ve got relevant photos, and pay starts at $100. Also, check out Shutterstock and Getty Images. (20) (21)

20. Cooking

How many Food Network and Travel Channel hosts nowadays started out on social media? Just make sure you take food photos with good lighting and baller set-up. No one’s gonna follow a food account with gross looking photos.

Instagram hit @joythebaker started posting photos of donuts and pies she baked, and now she’s selling out book signings for her most recent cookbook and opening her own bake shop/cooking school in New Orleans. (22)

19. Post memes

This has got to be as easy as it gets. Literally just post funny memes and get famous. They don’t even have to be your original memes, either.

Thefatjewish is one of the most popular accounts on Instagram, and he rarely posts original work, just reposts other people’s funny crap. He’s got over 10 million followers and a movie deal. (23)

FuckJerry, another huge meme account, reportedly makes a whopping $30,000 per sponsored post, just for tagging a brand in a meme they make. (24)

18. Capture leads

Lots of Instagrammers make a commission off affiliate links (the “see link in bio”), but with Peerfly, you don’t even have to get people to buy stuff. They pay on your click-through rate, so as long as people click the link you give them, you get paid. (25)

Pick a niche (make it something you like), learn about analytics and hashtags, and build up a following.

17. Sell your account

If you’re good at getting likes and follows, you don’t even have to come up with a monetization strategy. Just build up a following and then sell your account on websites like Fameswap and ViralAccounts. (26) (27)

You can actually make good money doing this, especially if you know how to grow fast. Accounts with 500k to 1 million followers can sell for 6 figures. (28)

In a similar vein, you could also flip Instagram accounts and profit if you know how to spot promising accounts.

16. Start a blog

This is one of the most popular ways to monetize your Instagram account. It is a lot of work, but you can build anything from a blog with good traffic.

Start your account based on a specific, unsaturated niche and build a blog to go with it. Focus on capturing subscriptions to your blog, because having a mailing list is where the real money is at.

15. Content tasks

If you don’t have the time to build full-on sponsors or build out affiliate links, Crowdtap offers all kinds of “content missions” that you can pick up and complete for some side money. (29)

You don’t have to have a massive following, either. Often times, 10k, or even 5k, is enough.

14. Join a hashtag campaign

Another solid way to make quick side money is with Indahash. (30) This app gives you payouts for posting content with certain hashtags and brand tags in the caption.

Say you’re eating out at McDonald’s and McD’s is doing a hashtag campaign at that moment. Snap a pic of you with a McNugget stuffed smile, include the proper tags, and collect your reward.

13. Sell shoutouts

Leverage your Instagram popularity and help smaller influencers out by selling shoutouts. Shoutcart is a marketplace where you can buy and sell simple shoutouts. (31)

Make a profile and name your price for shouting out another account in one of your posts. The going rates usually aren’t huge ($10-$50), but they provide the photo and the caption, so it’s basically passive income.

12. Sponsored posts

If you’re looking for the big bucks, sponsored posts are it. A survey of over 5,000 major influencers said that 42% of them charge between $200-$400 per post. Yep, $400 just to post a photo on Instagram. Accounts with followers in the millions make several grand per post. (32)

Of course, you’ve got to build a big and loyal following before brands will come to you offering that kind of money. In the meantime, sites like TapInfluence and Influez are great for finding sponsors, even if you’re a “micro-influencer.” (33) (34)

11. Run Instagram ads for others

If you’ve got the ads skills and you know how to identify good influencers in a specific niche, you could start an Instagram ads business and make help make other businesses money with Instagram ads and sponsored posts.

Companies will pay you handsomely, provided you bring them results.

10. Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is another big money-making on Instagram. ShareASale and ClickBank are good places to start. They give you links to products, and if someone clicks and buys, you make a commission. (35) (36)

If you’re trying to make a living off this though, Instagram has notoriously poor clickthrough rates as the only spot you can permanently place a link is in your bio. While you the feature allowing users to swipe up on stories to get to a link has improved this, you’ll really want to start up a blog or affiliate e-commerce site and perhaps funnel Instagram followers there to make the most of this stream of income.

9. Sell fan merch

Instead of selling generic products, try coming up with your own unique products that revolve around your Instagram account. You can use a dropshipper so you still don’t have to worry about holding inventory.

Doug the Pug, this one guy’s pug, went viral on Instagram. So the owner started a Doug the Pug store that sells Doug the Pug coffee mugs, tee shirts, and all kinds of other things that are probably printed for pennies on the dollar off in China. (37) (38)

8. Share discounts

People love saving money more than they loved Jennifer Hudson in 2009.

Start an account that shares links to coupons and discount codes via Rakuten/eBates. Every time someone clicks your Rakuten/eBates link, you’ll get a profit. (39)

7. Lifestyle ‘grammer

They’re a dime a dozen nowadays, but if you can manage to make it in the lifestyle niche, it’s the best way to get that royal lifestyle. The niche is broad and can cover everything from designer clothing and furniture to luxury trips to Dubai. Lifestyle is exclusive – RewardStyle is a good influencer network for up and comings, but it’s invitation only. (40)

All you need to do is make your life look perfect. Being attractive helps a lot, too. This is definitely a shallow niche.

6. Amazon affiliate

If you don’t want to go through the work of combing through potential affiliate partners to find the ones who offer good rates, Amazon’s affiliate program is still one of the most solid out there. They offer up to 10% commission, which is not bad. And you get that commission on their entire Amazon purchase, not just the item you linked to. (41)

5. Dropshipping

Dropshipping is an e-commerce method where you sell a product on your site but never actually have to deal with inventory. Instead, you place the same order with a third party who manufactures and ships the product for you.

It’s popular because it’s so hands-off, but it’s also very saturated. However, if you can come up with some great products that are easily marketed on Instagram, maybe you could make it. Hint: posting nothing but cheesy stock product photos will get you nowhere.

In fact, a good way to make sales is to order a few samples of your dropshipping products and pay influencers in your niche to take pictures with them.

4. Etsy

Calling all grandmas at heart – if you’re good at crafting and don’t want to invest in your own e-commerce site, sell stuff on Etsy. Bump your Instagram following up and use it as a funnel to your Etsy store.

Usually, this is just side money, but Etsy shop owner Three Birds Nest nets a million in sales every year, and she doesn’t even make her own stuff. (42)

3. Self-publish a book

Self-publishing on Amazon has great profit margins, but you have to know how to market your book to make any sales.

Create an Instagram account that’s relevant to your genre, or a book account (accounts like @bookwrms net hundreds for sponsored posts), and market your self-published book to this built-in audience. If you price it at $2.99 you get to keep 70% of the profits.

2. Consulting

Good consultants make 6-figures a year, easily. (43)

If you can grow an Instagram account and a brand for yourself, based in any niche, to 100k+ followers, it’s proof to companies that you know your way around social media marketing. They’ll shell out thousands for you to share your secrets.

1. SEO for local businesses

Honestly, having an Instagram hustle sounds like the life, but building up actual followers who are loyal to you (not just bots) takes a lot of time (think years), a lot of work, knowledge of things like analytics and marketing, and a lot of luck. Going viral isn’t something you can plan. Being hot and independently wealthy also helps too.

In the end, there’s a much easier and more consistent way to make good money online, and it’s by focusing on capturing leads. You don’t have to make sales, you just have to get people to enter their info. And you don’t have to have to cross your fingers and hope for a viral post, because there’s a proven formula to SEO.

Leads are the life blood of small business. They’re worth good money…and businesses will pay good money if you can hand them over. Think 4-figure checks.

Plus, you’re honing in on a specific niche in a specific town. So instead of competing with 800 million Instagram users, you’re competing with a couple people in Columbus, Ohio who are selling garage door services. Easy.

via https://mlmcompanies.org/make-money-on-instagram/