Hey, Let’s Prosperoo

Welcome to Prosperoo, where you’ll find step-by-step experiments toward achieving financial freedom. Here, we test side hustle ideas, share experiences, and give practical advice to know what actually works for us.

JOIN THE club what’s your freedom number

Do side hustles really work? What side hustle will work for me?

Let’s give it a shot! This blog isn’t just about showing off the wins; it’s about sharing the real, unedited journey to making a passive income dream a reality. Whether we nail it or learn something new, every experiment gets us one step closer to our big goal.

princess mae follosco - SEO strategist - thumbnail

Hi! I’m Princess

I’m a millennial, a mom of 2 toddlers, an INFJ, and an introvert.

I’m an SEO strategist by trade, an artist at heart (though a bit on the quiet side lately), a writer by passion, a teacher-nurse-EMTb once upon a time, and an aspiring experimentalist and essentialist.

As of 2024, here are my numbers:

32 years

old/young

4 niches

industries I tried

11 years

work experience

6 failed

side hustles

0 dollars

passive income

How It All Started

I’m thrilled you’re here. Let’s get one thing straight: I’m all about that side hustle and FIRE journey. I’m finding ways to work smarter, not harder, and ultimately crafting a life filled with joy, freedom, and loads of family time.

i’m WRITING THIS ABOUT PAGE With no passive income YET TO SHOW FOR IT.

Early Years of Blissful Ignorance

At the age of 6, I learned that I have some art talent. When I was 12, I learned the hard way that if you don’t know your worth, others might take advantage of your talents. But hey, live and learn, right?

By 14, I was volunteering to type up classmate’s research papers just to get faster at typing. At 16, making fan fiction book covers for other writers was my jam—it was all for fun.

This hobby greatly improved my Photoshop skills even if I didn’t get paid for making these designs. In the gig economy, we call this pro bono. But I had no intention of building a portfolio. I just enjoyed designing. I was also writing fanfictions from 15 to 22 years old to express myself and practice my writing skills. This proved helpful later on.

In 2013 I was a 21-year-old fresh graduate. I was honestly desperate to make some cash, so I tried a bunch of things to make money while waiting for the board exam results:

  • Attaching a link (I forgot what it’s called now) to my emails where I get paid 20 pesos when someone clicks on the link. I earned 40 pesos ($0.8) in total.
  • I tried selling shoutout images on Fiverr in 2013 for $5. I earned 5000 pesos ($100). I stopped when someone asked me to shoot feet pics.
  • I tried designing templates for blogger.com. I earned $0.00, but I learned a new skill.
  • I tried adding Nuffnang ads (does anyone still remember this?) on my personal blog. I earned 20 pesos ($0.35).
  • I also experienced buying my first ever domain from z.com. I was so excited to finally get rid of the .blogger.com from my blog URL (helloiamprince.com)
  • I made my own bullet journal (literally printed and stitched) because I couldn’t find a store that sells grid and dotted pages. Remember, there was no Canva yet that time, no Lazada, and no Shopee. I thought about selling my creation, so I walked around Naga City to ask how much it costs to print and bind one. It was so expensive, so I gave up. I earned $0.00, but learned a new skill.

While exploring, I learned about oDesk and onlinejobs.ph. I landed my first-ever freelance writing gig writing 300-word blog posts about horses with nothing but my fanfiction stories in my portfolio. Talk about diving in headfirst! I had zero knowledge about horses, zero knowledge about proper blogging techniques, and zero knowledge about SEO.

My grammar wasn’t the best either, and the stories in my portfolio were “cringe,” but ignorance, as they say, is bliss. I was used to writing many words for fun and for free, so getting paid $1 per 100 words made me very happy indeed.

One year after graduation, I realized that making money online, without leaving your home, is possible.

  • fan fiction cover
  • From above of young woman with long dark hair in casual clothes working at table and browsing netbook while sitting in modern workplace and touching hair
  • women's seven assorted-color footwear on surface
  • Photo Of Mother Working At Home
  • Photo Of Mother Working At Home
  • From above of young woman with long dark hair in casual clothes working at table and browsing netbook while sitting in modern workplace and touching hair

I Wore Many, Many Hats

By 22, I had a brand-new nursing license in hand. Fast forward a year, and I’ve added a teaching license to my arsenal. Why stop there, right? I dove headfirst into not one, but two master’s degrees in education, all while eyeing a teaching slot in a government high school. I wanted that PhD and principalship in five years.

But life, as it often does, threw in a twist. At 24, my principal kindly suggested I pump the brakes. And my inner go-getter felt caged. That was my lightbulb moment: my career’s acceleration wasn’t in my hands.

So, I did what any self-respecting dreamer would do—I quit. Left my master’s unfinished (just a semester away!) and leaped into EMT training. The new goal? Work abroad in two years.

By 25, I was balancing gigs as a university EMT, a volunteer in emergency units, and a freelance writer. I was throwing applications out there like confetti, hoping something would stick.

At 26, lady luck smiled at me, and I landed a sweet gig writing for a medical e-commerce site. I hit a major milestone: a six-digit monthly income in Philippine pesos, tasting that sweet semi-passive (I outsourced extra work) and six-digit income for the first time—only to be let go six months later.

But every cloud has a silver lining, right? A failed medical test for an EMT job abroad (thanks, scoliosis) could’ve been a setback, but my freelance hustle had my back.

Soon, a LinkedIn connection opened the door to my first agency gig and the wonderful world of on-page SEO. Half the salary, sure, but double the flexibility and the joy of working from home.

Then came the biggest game-changer at 27: my first baby. Cue the pandemic. I shifted gears to outsourcing most of my workload to soak in those precious newborn moments, even if it meant slicing my income.

At 28, hungry for growth, I dove into an SEO course and snagged a job with a California-based agency through Upwork.

Freelancing, Falling, and Rising Again

More freelance gigs followed, but by 30, despite hitting that income high again, I was toast—overworked, overemployed, and stretched too thin.

It took me three months to recover from burnout, and it was tough.

So, I scaled back, choosing to pour my energy into one remote agency gig.

Now, at 31, I’m on a new mission: charting a path to financial freedom in 10 years. Because it’s not just about the bank balance; it’s about time. Time for me, time for my family, and time for living this one wild and precious life to the fullest.

I’ve set myself a new challenge: find my way to financial freedom within 10 years. It’s all about figuring out my freedom number (monthly passive income goal) and trying small experiments to see what sticks.

So, this blog? It’s where I’ll be sharing all the ups and downs, the successes, and the “oops” moments. I hope it gives you a laugh, some inspiration, or maybe just a little company on your own journey.

Let’s see where this adventure takes us, shall we?

2024

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