- Hey YouTube World, it's me, Evelyn,
let's go ahead and A some Qs about being funemployed.
(lighthearted whimsical music)
This video will answer those frequently asked questions
from the comments section of my Funemployed Creative video.
This video will not spill any sort of beverage
about my former place of employment,
like this internet cousin had wished.
You can go ahead and be unhirable
for being messy on the internet but I shan't.
First I want to define what funemployed means to me,
because I noticed a lot of you from the comments
thought that funemployed was synonymous with being
a hashtag influencer, an entrepreneur, being self-employed,
which ended up happening because
I don't know how to not work
but that was never the intention.
Funemployed simply means unemployed on purpose,
hence, the fun.
That's it. That's all that is.
My one and only goal was to quit my full time job
and not have to immediately look for another one.
Unemployed on purpose. Funemployed.
Next, I want to go into a little bit of my background
and the privileges I have that made giving up
gainful employment an option for me.
Number one. I worked one salaried, full-time job that
paid me enough to have disposable income.
I wasn't living paycheck-to-paycheck
and at the end of the month,
after all my bills were paid for, I had money leftover.
Number two, although my job was stressful,
(yells) Stressful,
at times, like all jobs are.
Once that clock hit five or really six in the P.M.,
I went home.
I had manageable and ethical working hours
so that I can go home every evening
and work on side hustles if I wanted to.
I always tell people I worked a nine to five
and the five to two A.M.
Number three, I have a college degree
and since a lot of jobs require you to be college educated,
even just to apply,
I felt a lot more comfortable giving up this job
and just finding another one.
Later, gotta be funemployed first.
That's the goal.
Number four, I have access to things like a car, internet,
I have an iPhone with the internet on it.
Number five, I'm not married and I don't got no kids,
alright, so my decisions only affected me.
And number six, I have parents that with a lot of
questioning, and stipulations would let me move back home.
I had zero intention of doing that
but just knowing that's an option,
even if you think that option means failure,
if worst comes to worst, just alleviates so much stress
running in the back of your mind.
It is a truly a privilege to know you have a place
to lay your head at night.
Since my definition of funemployment meant to not work
and essentially not make any more cash,
that meant I had to live off of money I had saved.
With about five years of income from side hustles and saving
my disposable income from my full-time job's paycheck,
combined with a little bit of money leftover from
my YouTube grant, I was able to save about $20,000.
I think its important to note and a lot of you have asked
in that video, when I decided to quit my job.
I toyed with the idea, you know,
this little drop in my brain, brain bucket.
About a year out, so the top of 2017.
It wasn't until about four months out,
from when I actually turned in my two weeks notice
that I said, oh okay, this bucket of money is going
to be used for my funemployment endeavor.
So that means, for years, since 2012, every paycheck,
from YouTube AdSense, every PayPal invoice from
a time I edited someone's video or filmed someone's video,
every hashtag sponsored piece of content
that I really only recently started doing,
in the scheme of my 10 year YouTube existence,
went into a separate banking account
that did not have a debit card attached.
What I'm trying to communicate is that for years
I had no idea what I was saving the money for.
It could've been a downpayment on house.
I could have saved up to go to grad school,
what is that a year, half of a year of grad school?
Jesus! I could've been had paid
my undergrad student loans off.
It could've been used to move out of Texas.
But it wasn't until about August 2017 that I decided
that this money was going to be used to support me
in the amount of time that I wasn't going to be working.
So initially, I wanted to take maybe three months off,
give myself a summer vacation again. Cute!
But then I really realized that this is probably
the only time in my life that I will be able
to do something like this.
So I decided to give myself a full year.
Why not?
So that meant is that in addition to saving money,
I had to reduce my costs.
Sure, I went through my bank statements
and try to cut out subscription services
that I didn't really need,
try to reduce my spending, you know,
at tex mex happy hours, you feel me?
But really and truly the biggest way that I cut my expenses
was to move out of my apartment.
My rent was about $900 a month and combined with bills,
I was paying about $1200 a month to live.
I lived by myself and I loved my apartment,
even though we had some issues in the past,
I loved that place but I knew I couldn't justify staying
there and paying $1200 a month, when I ain't got no job.
So my friends, who have a house, had a spare room,
and I now rent that room,
you all are familiar with it by now,
I rent that room for $600 a month flat.
That's it. No extra bills.
Y'all I essentially cut my living expenses in half.
So I quit my job, I moved out of my bachelorette pad
and I moved in with my friends, into their spare room
and now, what was my goal?
I noticed that some of y'all in the comments section
of that past video, assumed that being funemployed
meant I was renouncing nine to five life,
that I had no intention of ever working for anybody else
ever again, and I never said that.
Fam, never said that.
I loved having health insurance, which I didn't have
during my funemployed year,
I enjoyed contributing a little dust of my paycheck
to 401(k), which I had to stop doing, when I was funemployed
and I love the stability of knowing that a paycheck
will come through hashtag irregardless.
I never said that I never wanted to work
for anyone ever again, all I said, I'm taking a year off.
I wanted to travel, I wanted to participate in
some opportunities that I couldn't participate in
before because I had to go to work.
I can't just abandon your job and your team because
something cool, you've been invited to something cool
and I wanted to use this time to learn new skills
and be creative again.
I had a note on my iPhone called SABBATICAL, all caps.
It had things like, learn to grow food,
visit the National Parks in Texas,
go to museums, take a screenwriting class,
support people's events happening in town,
make a family history book.
Y'all I literally had in that note,
learn about space.
I made that list in May of 2017 and what that list showed me
is that I was so overwhelmingly
unfulfilled and unchallenged in a way.
I wasn't learning or doing anything new and for a kid
who grew up turning up at the Scholastic Book Fair,
for the kid who spent summer vacations learning to code,
or who would buy a book of writing promps,
for the kid who would take pictures with her Barbie camera
and collect sticks and rocks and big, old magnolia leaves.
I wasn't feeding my curious and creative self and
a lot of the things on that note made me realize
I needed contact with the physical world,
I was making so much stuff for the internet
and I didn't really have any tangible,
I felt like I ain't had no skills, you know what I'm sayin'?
I ain't no skills, I can't grow no basil.
What are we gonna do when the apocalypse come?
You need spices. You need herbs.
It reminded me of a lot of y'all's comments from that video.
In the comments below, let me know two things you'd finally
get to do if you were funemployed.
And the responses, honestly were kind of sad
because y'all are not asking for a lot.
I don't think I'm asking for a lot.
Capitalism has tricked us into thinking that desiring
a better life, a more creative life, a more well rested life
is somehow bougie, when really you should be asking
yourself, why do we live in a world in which someone feels
they don't have time to put food on the table
and hang out with their offspring.
We didn't make that world, we just live in it.
My goal was to create an environment in
which I could slowdown, and learn things again,
and on top of that, I think there's, in general,
this stigma around creative people.
But it's creative people who make the TV shows you watch
and the music you listen to,
authors go off into woods to write that book
that you want to read
and even if you never produce a piece of entertainment
or something for someone else to enjoy, ever in your life,
creativity and curiosity - play -
help you be a better human being.
It is a shame that you have to have a level of privilege
and a level of access in order to strategize and kind of,
create that sort of life plan for yourself, to take time
off, but I think everybody on God's green earth deserves
the right to a full-bodied, well-rounded life and
that includes you.
So anyway, that's what I wanted to do
with my funemployed year.
After the year was up, I always planned on becoming
a freelancer, and working with other teams on a project
basis so that I could still have some sort of flexibility
in my life, but also make money again.
I wasn't opposed and I'm still not opposed to having
a full time job, but lowkey,
I feel like I would need to leave Texas in order
to truly level up in the way I need my career to level up.
My parents,
well, a lot of y'all asked what my parents thought
about this whole thing and truth be told, I'm grown.
I'm not like a 19 year old, trying to take a gap year,
I was 27 years old, so honestly, they didn't ask much,
you know what I'm saying?
They have an adult child, apparently, I'm an adult child.
But my dad asked me one question,
he asked me, Evelyn, what do you need from me?
And I thanked him for caring and asking and I told him,
Pops, I need you to trust me.
And trust me when I say I'm okay and know
and this is me telling you that the second I'm not okay,
I will let you know.
And I think that did a lot for him because parents,
the good ones,
just want to know that their kids are alright.
The kid's alright.
And I was. I am.
One of the most frequently asked questions on that video
was I was able to travel so much,
during my funemployed year, and that leads me to address,
the reality of my funemployed year, which has ended,
ya girl got a job, jobs, multiple.
During my funemployed year, I actually ended up working,
so the overwhelming majority of my travel was
work-related or related to being from the internets.
The biggest expense I think for traveling I found
is the plane ticket and a lot of times, that was paid for
by whatever organization was flying me out.
So for example, let's take VidCon.
VidCon takes place in Anaheim, California.
They booked my ticket but I asked them,
instead of making me immediately come home to Texas,
why don't you, you know, book my return flight,
for like, two weeks out?
And so that gave me time to visit
people I already knew in different parts in California.
Essentially, I turned one plane ticket,
into two extra trips.
A lot of y'all asked when is the best time
to be funemployed and the truth of the matter is,
that's a question that I cannot answer for you.
Because I don't know how your life is set up.
Who you have to provide for, I don't know your situation
in life, your struggle, your story.
Money, timing...
That's only something you can know
and it's a very personal decision and unfortunately,
a luxury that not everyone has.
As for me, I low key, high key, didn't do a lot
of the things on that iPhone note,
titled SABBATICAL, all caps.
Which is another video for another day.
Got two jobs right now,
I also have a year's worth of lessons learned about
how sucky it is that our self worth is
often tied to our productivity.
A lot of lessons learned about being an influencer
versus a creator.
How easy it is to get caught in the hamster wheel
of promoting someone else's stuff,
instead of making your own goddamn stuff.
Lessons about communicating with friends better
and collaborators better and not speaking up for yourself,
myself, I don't know your life.
And not saying yes to things just because you have
the time now and a bunch of stuff, we can talk about later.
But this video is long enough,
I just wanted to thank all of y'all
who spoke life into me in the comments section of that video
and in all ways and all places on the internets,
I really appreciate those thoughtful, kind comments,
encouraging words and if you're interested in
understanding more about this topic,
I urge you to go back and read the comments of that video.
There's like 700 comments, and people are sharing
their funemployment stories or their obstacles.
Maybe you can find someone who has a similar life situation
to you and I never take it for granted that y'all continue
to share your stories with me,
share pieces of yourself with me.
It makes me feel a whole lot more comfortable
about cutting the camera on and
sharing myself with you, right back.
In the comments below, if I missed anything,
holla at ya girl, and I will see you
on the internet somewhere. Bye!
That's it, girl!
That's it!