The First Fall

Hello and welcome to another edition of the MabsArts blog. Today I will be sharing my experience with you on how I became a seller on Fiverr, made a killing (for a while) and then almost got killed (not really) by a Hurricane. Let’s dive right in…

This blogpost is part of a series.

Part1: From Game Development to Art

Part2: Making my First Bucks Online

Part3: The Behemoth Forum…

Part4: Charging $5 for a year

Part5: Making $1,000 on Fiverr

Part6: The First Fall

Part7: The Girl that took the money

Part8:

Part:9

Part10:

Part11:

Part12:

Part6:

Part7:

Part8:

Part9:

Part10:

Part11:

Part12:

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I remember the day I told my dad I wanted to move. He told me that I could move, but the only condition he would put was that I could not keep the car he had gifted me earlier that year. He made a comment that if I was allowed to have a car, and a house, I would be taken advantage of and lose notion of the reason I wanted to move in the first place, which was to improve my business, get better at music and hopefully finish college.

I obliged out of need, without really knowing what he meant. It took only a couple of weeks, and I had already started seeing what he meant. With an apartment all to myself, and an active college life, all sorts of people would frequent my studio, many of them looking for free work (college students do not have much of an income) and quickly what was once a dream of freedom, turned into endless grueling work for no pay, very little sleep, friends that would eat my food while I was working on their projects, and crash at my house whenever they felt it was good for them.

It was probably the worse 6 months of my life, with a few exceptions here and there.

After 6 months I was still making good money on Fiverr, but the money was not enough to cover the lifestyle the people around me were trying to force on me. They wanted to drink every day, use my space every day and not pay me a cent for it. This went on for a while, I guess because I didn’t want to be alone, and it ended in me one day having to call my dad to tell him, that I could no longer afford the rent that was to come in just a couple of weeks. I had been living off vitamins and milk for the better part of a month, and still the money coming in and going out was not enough to pay for everything. I had to stop.

I reluctantly agreed to move back home (with car privileges restored) and after painting the apartment again hoping the landlord would return the deposit (he did not), I moved all my work back home. I was devastated! It was horrible, but I learned a lot too, and being back home with my parents allowed me to save up during the summer, dedicate my full time to making money on Fiverr, and after 2 months with my parents, and cutting all connections with the leaches of the past. I gave it a second try.

A friend of a friend I had met in the earlier time living at the previous apartment, told me that they were looking for a housemate, and that they wanted to split rent and utilities 50/50, they told me how much money they had and what their budget was and I figured that if I didn’t have to pay as much as I had before, and had someone I could trust living with me, that perhaps I could in fact succeed, and I did.

I went back to having an apartment (with a housemate this time), and things were peachy again. Still no car, but thankfully no leachy friends either. The housemate would make sure of that, he allowed very little nonsense in that matter in his house. I learned from them, that it is necessary to say “NO” sometimes to protect your boundaries and ultimately yourself.

I spent about 2 years of consistent sales on Fiverr. We’re talking $80-$100 a day, on a good week and $30-$60 on a bad week. It was good living, and again I thought I should perhaps give a try to adulting a second time.