I went to grad school at 44 and didn't want to take on student loan debt. Thanks to my side hustle, I graduated debt-free.

It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to be.

After having kids, I finally knew, but didn’t have time.

Only in midlife did I make the transition to my dream career — but first, I had to find a way to pay for it.After high school, I started college as a drama major.

When the major wasn’t what I had hoped, I decided on English instead.

I’d gotten straight As in the subject in high school.

That is, until people asked what I planned to do with my liberal arts degree.There seemed to be very few options.

But, according to my professor, I’d be dirt poor and living in a hovel in New York City — at least at first.

Teaching was another common suggestion, but I had zero interest in it at the time.

Besides, it required more schooling.

Instead, like many 20-somethings, I floundered as I searched for myself and a career path.I shifted from job to job.

I worked as a waitress and a chiropractic assistant before I was, unhappily, dropped smack dab into corporate America.

I had stints in office management, webinar coordination, and marketing.

I would go into the office and wonder if I was contributing to humanity in any way.When I walked my son into kindergarten, I realized I loved being in an elementary school.

I wanted to get my teaching degree, but with young kids and a full-time job, it didn’t feel realistic.

Ironically, after years of saying I’d never teach, that’s exactly what I wanted.

Instead, I stayed miserable in corporate America.A decade later, I finally found myself working in the school system as an educational technician, or an ed tech — essentially a teaching assistant.

Special education quickly became my niche, especially since so few wanted to substitute in that area.

That experience made the transition to a special education ed tech natural.Ed techs made very little money.

I would have to go back to school to become a teacher if I wanted to make a living.

But I already had large debts from my undergraduate degree in English and my first master’s in television/video production.

I was still paying them off in my 40s.

I wasn’t willing or able to take on more student loan debt.

The district I worked in as an ed tech would pay for three of the 10 classes I was required to take to earn my master’s in education.But when I did the math, I saw it wouldn’t work.

With four kids at home, we could barely keep up as it was.

Taking on loans would be an extra burden we couldn’t manage, so I kept plugging away without a clear plan for paying for my second master’s degree.I had always loved writing.

I wrote short stories and other fiction.

Writing non-fiction never interested me.

But after starting a blog about parenthood, I built a following.

I’d started freelancing in 2014 after learning to pitch.

It was a slow start and an even slower build.

I sold one essay, which led to another.When the pandemic hit, my freelance writing income almost matched my full-time ed tech pay.

I wrote about parenting, childhood, and lifestyle topics.

It was a learning curve to move into reported pieces, but my English degree was finally starting to pay off.

What started as a hobby had become a lucrative side gig.That insight led me to realize I could use my freelance earnings to fund the seven classes my district didn’t cover.

With planning and consistency, I put away enough to pay my tuition.

I started my master’s in 2019 and finished it in 2021 debt-free.

I have been working as a special education teacher since 2022, and I love it.Now, I’m hoping to do the same to get my Ph.D. in education.

Funny how sometimes, the things you promise you’ll never do become the ones that matter most — and the ones you work the hardest for.

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