Writing to Pay Off Debt

Mine and my husband's goal is to go into 2026 being debt free (except our mortgage), and while I absolutely love the idea, I ran into one little problem.

I am a stay-at-home mom with no income.

I am a Computer Science student who is working towards her bachelor's degree, but that doesn't help me in the meantime. I know the work that I do at home, taking care of my three kids, is meaningful, but it doesn't bring in the extra money to help pay the bills and extra to pay off debt.

So what do I do?

I've been doing those micro-jobs you see online and playing those cash games on my phone. After weeding out the scams from the legit ones, there was only a few dollars coming in a month and with the time having to grind on those, taking care of the kids, and working on school, the burn out wasn't worth the few bucks that I was able to bring in each month.

I have considered trying my hand at content creation, but the thought kind of scares me. For one, I am typically a private person who doesn't like posting myself online, as can be seen by my bare Facebook profile. Second, I am an incredibly awkward person, and this definitely shows through on camera. Lastly, what do I post?

The ideas that are required behind the scenes of content creation do not come easily to me, and even when they do, the execution is never there. You know that scene from Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby where he is doing an interview and he doesn't know what to do with his hands? That is me.

Writing is a little bit easier, but it is not my favorite subject, and my ADHD does make it a little difficult.

What else am I able to do?

I guess I could update you and tell you about my day. I got up and had to let my husband use the van since his truck decided that it wasn't going to work, and we can't afford for him to miss a day of work if it can be avoided.

Fixed my kids' breakfast, which included an array of Pizza Rolls and chicken nuggets. (Don't judge me, it was a long night and a very early morning.)

Worked on school, which includes using Codeacademy to try and develop my skills quicker in order to hopefully be able to bring in an income from home with my kids quicker.

Our freezer was delivered today. We were able to get a small stand-up freezer on sale that will allow me to meal prep more in advance so when there is practice, appointments, or even just nights where I am not feeling it, I can still deliver my family a meal that is not take-out and easy on the wallet.

I tried my hand at taking the coding exam on Outlier.ai to hopefully get some work on there, but sadly, it had been a while since I worked with dictionaries in Python, and it caused me to fail. Hopefully, they will allow me another chance in a few weeks to take the test again after I brush up on my skills.

I made my kids' lunch, and that takes me to now, writing this. I am feeling a bit defeated, but hey, who knows? I just want to take some pressure off of my husband's shoulders financially and help us get to a better spot.

If you are still here, I just want to say thank you for the support. Feel free to drop any suggestions you have about trying to make a little money from home.