I thought it was time for an update on how the remote work is going....

I realised it's been a while since I have given you an update on what I’m doing in my day-to-day life. This is mainly because I went away for some winter sun after my house sale fell through. This was courtesy of my first buyer who got all the way to 15 weeks into the buying process and then pulled out of the deal. There is nothing wrong with the house, they just decided not to proceed. It sucked. But I picked myself up, got the house back on the market and did the viewings. I found the buyer that suited me best, but obviously had to start the entire conveyancing process from the beginning again. I knew this would take a couple of months. Since my conveyancer already had everything in hand from the failed sale, I knew I should be able to go away for a while, which in the end became a 4 week trip. This allowed me to get back to doing what this blog was originally set up for travel writing. So whilst we were away in Cape Verde I could give advice and reviews on where we were staying and what there was to do there. Which brings me back to my opening statement. So how is everything going in my day-to-day life, especially with moving my work fully online? Is it as easy as everyone online seems to say it is? There are lots of people online saying how simple it all is, but in my opinion, I think it's a hard slog, but it can be done.

My main focus is still on teaching English as a Second language. It is my main source of income now, and I really enjoy it. I have some fantastic regulars that I speak to a few times a week and I’m so proud of their progress. I mainly use Cambly (Cambly - Remote Working Teaching on the Online English Learning Platform - My User guide and review (onepawinthesand.com) as I have found it to be steady work through their priority hours, but I do also advertise my teaching on Preply and have recently begun to get more traction here. Once I have used the platform a bit more I’ll do an in-depth review of how I find it.

Since I have been enjoying teaching English so much I have also started looking into teaching Maths to children. I loved Maths in school and want to pass on my passion and help if someone is struggling. I am starting with younger children, but as I brush up on the syllabus I might go into high school-aged children.

My Etsy shop is up and running and I have even had a couple of sales. Again there are many videos online of people saying how easy it is to set up and sell your designs and products on Etsy. Often these are people with a large number of subscribers already, sometimes in the hundreds of thousands. And with a regular audience that big, it creates a large volume of traffic to their Etsy store and so yes, to them getting sales maybe does seem easy. Their experience has not been my experience. Not that I expected it to be. I am a realist. I didn’t go into this with rose-tinted spectacles on. I am prepared to put in the work and keep gradually building my sales from the low numbers they are currently at. We all have to start somewhere. I mostly have canvases of my photos, but I also have the printable activity book I made while I was in Barbados last summer. The activity book is based around the wildlife on the island and I want to inspire the next generation of conservationists and if I can help the island along the way I will. I really enjoy taking photos when I am out and about. I was trying to sell them as stock photos on sites like Shutterstock and Adobe (https://www.shutterstock.com/g/oncloud9_k or https://stock.adobe.com/contributor/210914801/Karen) and they get viewed, but aren’t really selling in as high a number as I’d like. So I thought I would try to sell them as artwork via Etsy. When we get to Barbados I hope to do more printable activities for people visiting the island. I like my photos, which is why I picked them out to use on Etsy for Canvas prints for people to buy. I have tried to offer some variety, to try and give people lots of options. If you are interested, you can check them out on my Etsy page here (www.etsy.com/uk/shop/OnePawintheSand)

The rest of my income comes from website usability testing. I use a variety of platforms for this. It isn’t as consistent in earnings as my teaching work, as when tests become available, you have to meet the criteria they are looking for to be able to do them. This can be owning a certain brand of car, or having a certain type of pet, for example. If you are in the category of people the websites are looking for it can be quite well paid, in the region of $5-$10 for up to 30 minutes of work. But as more often than not seems to happen, probably 80% of the time, I don’t meet the criteria, and then I can’t go any further and in that case, I earn nothing. However it doesn’t waste too much of my time to see if I am eligible, I usually know in a minute or two, and I enjoy the variety these tests bring. I have had some really good feedback from the tests I have done, such as: “A brilliant test, thank you for the quality narration and in-depth feedback. A rare 5 stars :-).” If I can get the work a bit more consistently, I would be very happy.

The newest thing I have started to do is videos on YouTube. These are all filmed and edited by myself wherever I am travelling that day. I have some focusing on showing a walk or the sights of a town. Others are meant as a relaxation or sleep aid, calming waves or the sunset and adding some beautiful music. I have even added a video of my quick and easy chocolate sponge mug cake. So tasty and really quick to make, sometimes you just need cake 😉. As you can probably tell I am trying a few different avenues to see what works. But also I do them just because I enjoy doing them, so it is more like a hobby. Luna is my little superstar when it comes to this, as she does so many things that are just cute or mischievous that I had to share them. Videos featuring her have only been on Youtube for a week, but other people seem to like them too, as she has had thousands of views already. You can see her videos, as well as my other videos on my YouTube channel here (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCa88X5Ryut3lSpWpaRRWojw).

I hope to do more filming once we are in Barbados. There are so many beaches that are stunning and I want to share them all with the rest of the world or my little slice of it anyway. I plan to combine all of my ideas do reviews and also film other relaxation videos etc. I also have some other filming ideas in the pipeline, so I’d love it if you subscribed to my blog, and you will get updates and be able to read all about them. I post something new every week.

All in all, I’m keeping busy and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel (let's hope it's not a train this time!) and we can start the Barbados adventure soon.

If you like what I write, you can buy me a coffee at www.buymeacoffee.com/OnePawintheSand

(Don’t worry, we are not talking about a fancy frappa-mapppa-toppa-choca-moppalino coffee. The cost of a simple McDonalds priced coffee is all it asks)