Me, My Guilt, and My Side Hustle

By Emma Edwards, @the.brokegeneration

Ever since I was little, I’ve been a spender. From the sneaky fiver my grandparents would slip me when my mum wasn’t looking to income from my salaried job, money has always burned a hole in my pocket. But it wasn’t until my mid-twenties that I really dug into my negative relationship with my finances. I got serious, faced my problems, stopped pissing all my money up the wall, and managed to pay off my credit card, buy an (albeit tiny) apartment, and actually have a savings balance for the first time in my life. Oh, and then I started a blog about my financial backflip.

I know, I’m a walking millennial cliché.

Within a handful of months, my money saving blog and Instagram account had amassed a few thousand followers. My personal brand as ‘The Broke Generation’ was evolving, and in the modern digital-first world, a following brings with it the opportunity for monetisation.

Before long, emails from brands offering paid sponsorships started landing in my inbox, and all of a sudden my little hobby that I’d hoped might land me a few extra freelance gigs or look good on a resumé one day had become a side hustle in its own right.

I was earning money by educating people on how to be better with money. Weird.

The thing with unexpected success is that you get to bathe in this weird sense of innocence for a while. Everything is a surprise and everything is unexpected, and ultimately, you’ve really got nothing to lose, because you never planned any of this anyway.

But with time comes experience and responsibility, and in my case, a following of forty-five thousand people watching me on social media. When your content is designed to help people in some way, there’s an extra sense of pressure to do the right thing by people, and by yourself. And for me, one question in particular lives rent free in my head: should I feel guilty making money from teaching people about money?

When there’s so much lack in the world, who am I to make money doing this thing I enjoy?

It’s been almost three years since I started that little blog and Instagram account, and of course it’s evolved into more than just me making a bit of content on the weekends and posting about my savings account. I’ve sold digital workbooks helping people set budgets, run workshops on how to make money freelancing, and held month long challenges with daily content helping people implement mindset and strategy tools to improve their financial wellbeing.

Aside from the usual clowders of online trolls, the majority of feedback I get from my audience is positive. People tell me my content has helped them pay off debt, get a pay rise at work, save an emergency fund, buy their first home, and most importantly changed the way they think about money.

So why do I feel guilty for being paid to do that?

I think it’s because as a society, we seem to have a strange sense of dissonance when it comes to what’s considered an acceptable way to earn money. Lots of us want good things for the world – accessible financial literacy, a cure for cancer, equitable access to food and water. But when people make money doing good things, it feels a bit weird.

It’s as though we’d prefer someone to go to work all day and earn a living as a tobacco manufacturer, but come home and do their ‘good work’ for free. It’s as though we feel we can only make money doing ‘bad’ things, and anything that brings good or purpose to the world must be done without financial compensation. But that belief in itself limits people from contributing to things they care about, because by the time we’ve seen out the 8 hour work day, commuted to and fro, fed, watered and bathed ourselves and our children, there just isn’t enough energy left to do the good work. And as if by magic, the good work doesn’t get done, and we’re kept exactly where we are. Good one, capitalism.

Surely it’s better to make money doing good shit, than to make money doing bad shit so we can fund ourselves doing the good shit for free?

And if that’s the case, why the guilt?

Because running a business that involves you making good on your own values is really fucking hard. It’s hard because you don’t have that detachment that you do when you’re in a job or a business that isn’t values-driven. You’re quite literally putting your money where your mouth is. You’re constantly questioning whether what you’re doing and what you’re accepting money for is doing right by the people you’re trying to help. You’re turning down money even when you’ve had your lowest income month all year because it doesn’t pass your ‘right thing’ test, and in a constant cycle of confronting what you really think about the world and trying desperately to not get swallowed up by the capitalist system that’s, by design, easier than sticking to your morals.

A lot goes into running a business that helps people, that cares, and that doesn’t see money as “just business.” Making a living off of delivering on your own values is a constant game of guilt. It’s impossible to feel completely comfortable making money from teaching people about money, when ultimately you disagree with the entire construct of capitalism and money that we live by.

But ultimately, I do think it’s worth it. Despite the bad days, the tears, the anxiety, the judgement and the constant questioning of whether you’re doing the right thing.

Someone once said to me, ‘guilt is a useless emotion’. Feeling guilty for what you have doesn’t do anything to compensate the people who don’t. In fact, it’s an almost narcissistic emotion to lean into. Guilt makes it about you.

So instead I try to use guilt as an accountability tool. If I feel pangs of guilt when money hits my account, it’s my reminder to keep true to what I believe in. To continue to speak up about pay gaps, consumerism and the traps we’re nudged into to keep us where capitalism wants us. Yes, I might be making money educating people to manage their own, but the bigger picture proves that there’s more to be lost by staying silent.