I’m a Gen Zer who makes $96K a year from freelance gigs — I’ll never work 9 to 5 again

Jobs

By Tracy Swartz

It works for her.

A 23-year-old college graduate says she’ll “never settle into a full-time job” because she earns $96,000 a year from her nine freelance gigs, which include TikTok creating, picnic planning, pet-sitting and nannying.

“It’s really easy to feel burnt out in a full-time job — I loved working in hospitality and tech sales, but I had no work-life balance,” Grace Ryu confided to SWNS.

“I find it much more fun being able to work from wherever I want,” she added. “But don’t get me wrong, it’s definitely a hustle.”

The Houston-based Gen Zer majored in recreation, park and tourism sciences at Texas A&M University while having a host of jobs including ranch hand at a bull farm and restaurant worker.

Thinking she might settle into a 9-to-5 position in tourism and hospitality, she picked up more restaurant shifts after graduating in December 2021.

But she quit to become a live-in nanny for a family in New York in the summer of 2022 after realizing she wanted more downtime.

“I decided to become a full-time nanny so I could live in New York for a while,” Ryu explained. “But after two months, I decided to come home to Texas — and I still work seasonally as a part-time nanny for that family. I wanted to try other things out — and pursue a career related to my major.”

In August 2022, Ryu took a job in tech sales, even getting promoted to account manager in January 2023.

All the while, she built up side income streams.

“I became a dogwalker and started creating content,” Ryu shared. “I got very ambitious about all these different things and decided the best time to try them would be while I’m still young.”

She quit her full-time tech job in March 2023 after missing out on a “work-life balance.”

She started earning income from nine freelance jobs — and she now considers herself a user generated content (UGC) creator, influencer, TikTok partner, affiliate marketer, picnic planner, babysitter, dogwalker, AirBnB arbiter and digital product seller.

Thankfully, her parents let her live rent-free in their old house after moving to Korea in October 2023.

“I now rent it out seasonally on AirBnB,” Ryu said. “I make $8K a month — I invest some of it, I save some of it, and I’d love to be a proper homeowner by the age of 27.”

The savings allow Ryu to travel and fuel her “shopping addiction.”

“My tagline on social media is having lots of income to fund my shopping addiction — and I love to travel anywhere and everywhere, though I most frequently find myself in New York and South Korea,” she confessed.

Ryu reckons her flexibility will put her in good stead for becoming a mom or a business owner.

“I want so many different passive streams of income because there’s still so much I want to try — I’ll never go back to a 9-to-5,” she admitted. “The beauty of working lots of different side hustles is I can do a different job from one day to the next — I love the variety of it.”