When you are fighting a chronic illness, especially one which limits your energy levels, it makes working in an office or physical job difficult. We still need ways to make money even with fibromyalgia. These are not “make a quick buck” ideas, these are “build a micro-business, it takes time and effort” ideas.
Affiliate notice: Some of these links are affiliate links. If you make a purchase using these links, I will make a commission at no extra cost to you. It all helps me to keep making these resources. For more information see here.
Ways to Make Money with Fibromyalgia
Etsy Store
I created an Etsy store to share the templates I had created and used for myself in my own journey – things like My Wellness Planner Kit and My Sleep Workbook. I share a lot of detail about it in this post, My Etsy Diaries. It took a lot of time – I created and fine tuned the templates, created the copy for the listing, researched keywords, created the images and then had to promote them on social media. This has created a small but constant stream of income. If you were focusing solely on it, dedicated to researching best practices and good keywords etc. then you could likely make much more.
Here is an article with a run down for creating and selling printables.
Online VA
One thing I haven’t done but had in the back of my mind for a long time was to be an online virtual assistant. You can choose your hours, work in the comfort of your own home and take on the type of work that interests you. It is time consuming to actually find the work and then do the work and take care of the background administration for your own company. It is the easiest way to make a full income if you can work enough hours. Here is an introductory video about it:
You could specialise in:
- Working with small business owners
- Helping bloggers
- Pinterest VA
- Social media manager
- Bookkeeping
- Website support
- Transcription services
- Ghostwriting
- and more!
Blogging
This blog has been around for several years now, when I started, I never imagined that I could make any income from it. As it has grown and people have told me how much they love it, I have had to look for ways to make some of my income from it to enable me to keep dedicating time to it. I did everything one thing at a time. Even creating blog posts is done step by step. So it is definitely a long-term plan.
I dabbled with a free site for a long time, but now I am finally settled with a host I like I am playing massive catch up. Starting with a host from the beginning and setting it up right is actually a time and energy saver. I recommend GreenGeeks – I chose a three year subscription and got a very good price. In this blog post I share how I create posts step by step and some resources for getting started blogging.
As part of the blog I have the opportunity to do affiliate marketing. This means I can promote products and services I like and receive a portion of the cost. Like when I told you about MSM supplement for pain in this post. If you decide to try it and use my link, I make a tiny commission. Eventually it all adds up. The important thing here is that I would have written the post anyway, the potential to make a little bit of income is secondary.
Some people have made very successful blogs and make a good living from them, but that takes investment and a lot of energy. It is also usually in other niches (subject areas) because nobody goes into the chronic illness niche to make lots of money.
Online courses
Do you have a good understanding of something? Perhaps your previous profession gave you some tools you can teach other people. I have lived, researched and actively worked to fight fibromyalgia – so I have created courses to help you do that too. My courses and books and coaching are shortcuts for you so it doesn’t take as long for you to figure it out. Do you have a subject like this?
I chose Teachable to host my courses. I did a lot of research around the key players in online course software and chose this one after careful deliberation and a play with a couple of the other options. It has been easy to set up and use.
Teaching /Live Services
Do you have something to teach or a service to perform in real life? Or live, virtually? I am doing this with yoga – if you are curious about yoga or coaching or a blend with me, click here. You could do it with:
- English lessons (can be done virtually or in person)
- Reiki
- Massage therapy
- Nail technician
- Personal training (exercise)
- the list is endless!
The idea is for using your skills (or honing new ones) in a way that provides flexibility around your needs. Do you need to work early in the day? Have long breaks between clients/sessions? Do you come alive later in the day? Can you do a few hours over six days, or a couple of fuller days?
Write Books
One or two books doesn’t make that much money, but I didn’t write my books for that. It was a life dream to write a book. I had no idea I could achieve it while living with fibromyalgia and with two small children. With the help of my brother, I did it. My Pregnancy and Fibromyalgia book is still one of the only books written on the subject so it was necessary. I wrote my books very slowly as at the time of writing them I couldn’t sit at the computer for very long at all. They do bring in a small amount of income every month (I don’t receive it every month, Amazon holds onto the money until it reaches $100 and then they deposit into my bank account and then my bank takes $15 processing fee).
If you were able to write multiple books and focus on really marketing them – telling people they exist, then you could make much more.
Coaching
Are you an expert in something? Or do you have a passion for helping others to achieve their goals? Life coaching training gave me the framework to take my expertise to my clients. It is a process to support clients to achieve their goals.
Research around coaching for fibromyalgia is in its infancy but the initial findings are that it is enormously beneficial. This article discusses the benefits on patients receiving coaching for fibromyalgia. At the conclusion of the study it refers to, 12 months results included that Revised Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire scores improved by 35%. Illnesses interference in function was reduced by 44%.
I became a coach because it was a natural extension of the work I have been doing in my blog, books, courses and Facebook groups. I wish that there had been a coach capable of helping me back when I was beginning my journey fighting fibromyalgia. My purpose is to save people the time and energy I had to invest in order to learn what I needed to learn to start improving my quality of life.
Coaching is about more than the initial training, however you choose to train, it is ongoing professional development. I am constantly learning about treating fibromyalgia.
Writing articles
Freelance writer and teacher Elna Cain is a great resource for getting started in this field. She has a free introductory course. Writing articles for online businesses in a great way to make super flexible income. You do have to watch out for places that will pay appropriately for your content or you will end up writing yourself into the ground just to make a decent income. I have only written a few because I haven’t had the time to focus on finding the places to pitch to that pay well.
You Tube
I have been making videos for years, mostly as a way to add to the blog posts. In all this time I have not hit the metrics required to monetize the content, so I don’t personally make money this way. If you are prepared to focus and work at it, you can make some money this way. Gillian Perkins is a great resource for learning about using YouTube to generate income:
E commerce store
This is kind of like an Etsy store except that you host it on your own website and then drive all of your own traffic there. If you create your own products, this is a great way to do it. You can also host affiliate products in your store. It is just another way to present affiliate products to your audience. If you genuinely like the products you are recommending it is a great way to make income while serving your audience (reducing the time it takes to find a good product for a particular solution).
Membership site
Have you been providing something to people for free, like a blog, YouTube channel, supportive group etc? Perhaps people have been telling you they love your work, think it’s valuable and would like a way to support you?
Patreon is a really cool way to set up a pay what you can membership model. The Melissa vs Fibromyalgia Inner Circle Membership is the way that people who love my work can sign up to support me for as little as $5 a month. They are simultaneously supporting me to create this blog, the YouTube videos, live monthly talks and run the Facebook groups. They also get access to the exclusive library of content to help them in their journey. Toolkits, videos, audios, templates and more.
You can include bonus content in the form of videos, blog posts, downloads and more. You can simply provide more access to you. Or create a private group where you help people more in depth.
I hope that something here has peaked your interest if you were wanting to start making money in a more flexible way, despite fibromyalgia. Is there something you do that isn’t listed here?
