Wanting to work from home, finish my education, and looking back at my life

Some ideas include proofreading and editing, translation and transcription, writing and blogging, scoping ( editing legal transcript documents for court reporters), visual design and web development, digital marketing, etc. I want flexible remote work that I can do from anywhere and will be recession proof. If I can make enough like $50,000-$100,000 per year or realistically more like $30,000 to $60, 000 I will be cut off from disability benefits. This is all before taxes anyway. If I can work 25-30 hours per week for me that would be very good. But at minimum I need to make an income of an extra $1,000-$1, 500 per month to help supplement my disability income so when I live on my own in subsidized housing I can afford for example groceries and hygiene products and extras. If I get off disability I can say good bye to state covered health insurance and affordable housing. As a freelancer I would need to pay for my own vision/dental/medical insurance which costs hundreds of dollars per month. I also wonder how I will pay that and for furthering my education because I want to go back to school. This time though no student loans. I would need needs-based scholarships and grants and maybe the vocational rehabilitation agency for people with disabilities to help chip in for tuition costs. I need to pay off my student loans first. My family helps me pay for them but I still have over $5,500 dollars in student loan debt. In addition I would need flexible asynchronous.or self paced/competency based degree programs to complete online while I worked remotely with a flexible schedule. I wish to finish my bachelors and maybe if I can push myself my masters. It will be some years from now because I have vocational courses to do before my degrees and also during/in between my degrees. These courses have certificates of completion and diplomas. If I could work full time as an employee, I would. The job would provide health/vision/dental insurance and other benefits. But to be an employee I would need remote work with a flexible schedule. It is more stable than freelancing or being self employed. Also additional taxes are put on self employed individuals which is very aggravating. In some other countries you have high taxes but the subsided services are the tradeoffs. In this country you have high taxes and none of the services including a well developed. Welfare state in case you should lose your job for some reason. I am torn because on the one hand all these taxes self employment taxes, income taxes( federal and state unless you live in a state that doesn’t tax income), property taxes, sales taxes, estate and inheritance taxes seem like a complete rip off. It’s no wonder people move to states or other countries to lower their tax burden because they are losing so much of their earnings. On the other hand, without taxes how will money be raised for public services and infrastructure? So despite being a social democrat I can see why some people are fiscally conservative. I would not mind the taxes so much if it guaranteed economic security and not falling through the cracks to live in poverty. And hell if we paid people a living wage and universal healthcare and affordable higher education for all and welfare for cases of severe physical, mental, developmental, and intellectual disabilities we probably would not need welfare as much. Yes there are job training programs and vocational and educational funding but there could be more done for people with disabilities. I understand diversity equity inclusion programs for racial/ethnic minorities, women, those with disabilities, etc. because unfortunately there is discrimination sometimes. Also there is age discrimination in the working world towards those who are middle aged or elderly as if somehow they are incompetent or not capable of learning anything new. Now diversity equity inclusion should help bridge the gap to reduce discrimination but also partially be based on merit for someone who can do the job with reasonable accommodations. Granted if not with that caveat, some men may feel discriminated against in the workplace or when applying for jobs. Well I know one person who said because of being white and a man so the wrong color and sex he was not hired for some jobs he applied to. So that could happen too. I also know what jobs I can and can’t do for example labor intensive heavy lifting jobs I could not do. I also hate customer service, sales, and retail jobs. Hell even fourteen years ago working with boring jobs like data entry and bookkeeping would have been better than customer service. I could drive back then. Well I could drive until three years ago just about. If I had been a 9-5 person I could have worked in an administrative position in an office behind the scenes for a part time work before I would finish school. Yes the work would be mind numbing and boring but it would have been better than running around like a chicken and being burned out from customer service retail.jobs or jobs that were dirty and labor intensive like cleaning/janitor jobs or homemaking healthcare jobs. The only jobs that I had years and years ago that I liked were petsitting and dog-walking and being an elderly companion just to talk and entertain the elderly. I like working alone in solitary endeavors or being with one on one or a small group at a time in calm slow paced environments. I should have completed my tutoring training and I could have been a tutor for my time at community college and maybe become a part time tutor at a four year college. Or I should have stuck with sewing classes and maybe got into dressmaking and fashion design school so I could have been an independent fashion designer and seamstress and made clothes and did alterations for a living. Now I’m looking for remote flexible career paths for convenience. I learned I like autonomy, freedom, independence, variety, flexibility, creativity, and intellectual stimulation in my work as well as my hobbies/passions/interests/talents/skillsets/aptitudes. If my job is not particularly creative but gives me intellectual stimulation I could settle for it as a compromise. But I need flexibility in when and where I work. Also how I do the work meaning if I need a break after several hours of working I don’t have to ask permission to take a break. As long as I deliver a superior work product ( the project or task) and have it due by the deadline, I don’t see why it matters when and where I do the work. Not having a boss breathing down my neck would do wonders. I need to be able to control my schedule and my environment. This is why freelancing and self employment would work for me. To be honest if I were to do it all over again I would first learn short term career training skills that only took a few months to a a year to learn that would have allowed me to work remotely and flexibly in say for instance the healthcare field. Medical translation from the medical interpreting and translating institute online and medical transcription editing from career step. Or with the companies around at the time when I was 18 court reporting and captioning at home and internet scoping school. Actually the legal industry I could have started to learn before I turned 18. Proofread anywhere, knowadays.com, transcribe anywhere, skillcrush, digital marketing institute and many more companies all came later into existence.,I could have learned. From medical interpreter training school too. Basically any companies that was around from the 1990s to early 2000s to start with. Although court reporting/broadcast captioning/CART providing would have been extremely hard because of needing high accuracy rates at extremely fast speeds of 180-225 words per minute. I would have learned career skills first for a couple of years and then gone to university in my early 20s. I would have gotten English ( creative writing and journalism) degrees bachelors and masters degrees from my early 20s to early 30s working while I obtained them. And then from my late 30s to late 40s I would have obtained my history bachelors and masters degrees. (U.S. and world history) or if not either of those public history. I would have learned many languages. To be a writer and a scholar. Now I’m lucky if I finish one bachelors and masters degree. Or even if I finish a bachelors. I would be so proud of myself if I finished my degree. I at least want an English BA and MA and learn ancient/classical/modern/foreign languages to be multilingual. I also.would learn illustration ( advanced drawing and painting ) and textile/fiber arts and crafts for fun and jewelry making for fun., ( at advanced levels) also photography for fun If I was tech savvy I would learn digital illustration, animation, visual and graphic design and web development. But I’m not very tech savvy. So I’m looking at learning. to work with words and languages. My flexible goal is a bachelors of English. If not also a masters of English. If no masters a bachelors will do. I have looked at university of Maine presque isle, southern New Hampshire university, open university. Athabasca university, Arizona state university etc. all with online degree programs. I won’t get any funding from the state for my education unless it’s an instate school seriously how irritating. I think the state funding should be used for any school the disabled person wants. It’s only $7,500 a year. It’s not much but it helps a little bit. But if I work enough maybe that will cover part time costs? I partly don’t want to spend my life on disability benefits. It will continue to make me poor and severely restrict my earnings.,I’ll never be able to save up or buy anything outright because of the $ 2,000 assets limit in the bank. Plus I just feel shitty being on disability benefits. I can work the right kind of career path with accommodations like a flexible schedule and remote work and not going over time on hours. I think 25-30 hours is ideal for me. Enough to make a considerable amount of money but not so many hours that I get burned out from working too much. Living at home that kind of pay would be great but living on my own might mean I struggle. I might make anywhere between $3,000 and $ 5,000 per month before taxes but that will not be much after taxes. Healthcare plans through the freelancers union could be as low as $50-$125 a month which is very reasonable. Compared to some plans which are hundreds of dollars per month. Some plans can be $350 like in Colorado to $750 in New York. Averages are $200-$500 per month. I already fell behind in life and I have a lot of catching up to do. Being gainfully employed would be a step up and help fund some of my life goals. I could also think if I stayed gainfully employed and finished at least my bachelors degree ( and preferably a masters degree) I would have more opportunities to work from. It may take me many years to finish both degrees but when I have it finally I will be so proud. Long ago my parents had higher hopes for me than just being on disability benefits. They got used to the new reality but when I was in my late teens and early 20s they thought I would go to college and get a full time career after. When I dropped out of college after junior year, they thought if not university than vocational and career training would help me get a career in my mid 20s-late 20s. I feel I disappointed myself and wasted my family’s money with not sticking with anything. I got frustrated if I didn’t learn fast enough for sewing classes or became confused on course content or final exams for online vocational courses. When I became academically and socially disengaged at the 4 year university locally I was very lonely and depressed. I stopped caring about my classes as much. Even as an introvert, I needed at least one or two close friends to be happy that I saw on a regular basis. My introversion is closer to the middle of the spectrum almost ambiversion. I would say I’m like 40% extroverted 60% introverted. I should have made more of an effort to hold on for my studies and finish my degree regardless if I was depressed or not. I should have thought of my future and my family’s sacrifices. I was immature and irresponsible. Now I’m working to undo my poor choices as an older adult. I will be 34 in September. I’m entering my mid 30s I have to learn to take care of myself physically, psychilogically, and financially. I feel conflicted about being on disability. And having my family set up a disability trust for me. On the one hand, it is a safety net but on the other hand I will remaining poor and living at the taxpayers expense. I look back at my life and wish I didn’t develop mental illnesses or low motivation. I wasted my youth. I should have been preparing myself for young adulthood. And in my young adulthood I shouldn’t have quit things when they got tough. If I persevered I would have gotten somewhere today. Instead of taking meaningless jobs I could have already been on the way to working career jobs with the right training and education. I could have been on my own by 28-30 once I worked for a few years and achieved at least a bachelors degree. Also I should have studied and worked online and used my young adulthood to travel the world and do part time work trade for reduced rent opportunities. I could have saved up to buy a nice spacious class c rv motorhome secondhand and taken trips on a part time basis. I could have purchased cheap rural land in the southwest USA and built a cob or adobe house on the land There were many other alternatives to renting a traditional apartment or having a mortgage or rent on a house. I could still be driving a car if my parents didn’t think it was dangerous for me to be behind the wheel of a car. Living rurally would mean having to drive to bigger towns and cities to get supplies but the peace, quiet, and privacy would be heavenly. I would live in the big house with just couple of other people so I wouldn’t be completely alone and live in nature on a few acres. It would be within one to one to two hours to a major international airport. I have looked into all sorts of alternative living arrangements besides traditional renting and mortgage on apartments, condos, and houses.

Cob houses, adobe houses, rv motorhomes, tiny homes on wheels, houseboats, finding work that comes with housing, etc.