Why I turned down an 80k job to pursue my blog

It all starts with a dream….job

Do you know what your dream job is? Close your eyes think about it for a moment, is there a business venture you’d like to start, is there a company that you would give anything to work for? I bet there is. We all have the idea of a dream job. In 2008, I had an idea of what that dream job looked like. It was working for a top advertising agency in Portland. This agency was THE place to be in town. They worked with top national clients and had a reputation for being creative, smart and ahead of the trend. I just knew that if I got a job there, it would validate my talent and boost my career. So like any determined girl would do…I started working towards getting a job there.

At the time I was working at a mobile start-up in Boston, it meant waking up at 4am and taking a 2.5 hour train into work. Then I’d get home at 8:30 at night. From 4am -8:30 I worked non-stop at my job and at building my brand as a Social Media expert. I was determined to network with the right people to earn a spot at my dream job. I worked non-stop. I networked non-stop. I lost my marriage as a result. I barely saw my children because I left before they woke up and only got home after they were in bed. But I was working toward my goal..and that’s what mattered…at the time.

And then something happened….

I got divorced. A funny thing happens after you get divorced, you start to re-evaluate your life. The guilt of putting your children through a divorce is enough to break anyone, but when I realized how much of my kids lives I had missed by chasing this dream job, I was ashamed…but determined to make it right. They were still young enough and we had many years left to be together.

As luck would have it….shortly after my divorce two things happened…I started a coupon blog and was offered a job at my dream company. I suppose I should have been thrilled, I suppose I should’ve been jumping up and down with joy. Not only was I going to be working at my favorite agency with big name brands, but I had achieved the goal I had set out. But something didn’t feel right…I couldn’t quite put my finger on it at the time…but I accepted the position with hesitancy. The day after I accepted the job I received a travel itinerary to go do a pitch in New Jersey on Halloween day. And then it hit me…I’m a mom. Now I’m a single mom. Working at a high stakes ad agency doesn’t fit into my lifestyle. I cannot pick up and go to Jersey to pitch some multi-million dollar corporation on a social media campaign, when my children are waiting for me to go trick-or-treating. I told the agency I had changed my mind and was not going to take the job.

As I left the meeting with HR, I only had two things going for me…my kids…and this coupon blog that I had started a few months before. In that moment, failure was not an option. I HAD to make this blog thing work so I could be there for my children, so I could take them trick-or-treating, so I could drop them off and pick them up from school. I had already missed so much of their young lives by working too hard, things had changed..I had changed.

No option for failure…

Pursuing the blog literally changed my life. I went on National TV on TLC’s Extreme Couponing, I was featured in several publications like People Style, Rachel Ray, and Us Weekly. I gave couponing workshops across my state and for the first time, felt like I was doing something valuable, I was helping people change their financial lives through my blog and that feeling was wayyyy better than helping a multi-million dollar company sell more widgets. I found my calling. Over the 5 years that I ran CouponKarma, I earned hundreds of thousands of dollars, got to travel to many places, but mostly, I got to spend more time with my children. I got to go to school plays during the middle of the day, lunch with my daughter and had the quiet comfort of knowing that I could be there for them at the drop of a hat.

This is why I blog. This is why I will continue to blog. In my opinion, it is the best job in the world.