I work as a life coach for high school students, so I'm basically a mix between a career coach and therapist.
After graduating from Brown University, I started out as a Latin teacher for a small high school. As a teacher, I realized there were lots of skills that I wished I had learned in high school but didn't, so I started meeting with students on the side -- helping them with everything from leadership, beliefs, communication and learning styles.
We would talk about what they wanted to get out of high school, and make goals. For example, I worked with a very, very shy 9th grader, who had really poor self esteem and incidents where he was bullied pretty badly. So I helped him to change his perspective and focus on his strengths, and a year later he started getting involved in a band and being a lot more confident in himself.
I worked with students like that on the side for four years, and then decided I wanted to do it as a full-time job instead. I now meet with three to four students a day, and I have quite a few clients in other states who I talk with over the phone or on Skype.
I save money by meeting them at coffee shops instead of paying rent for an office. Each 50-minute session costs $135, so it works out to be about $108,000 a year -- compared to the $36,500 salary I made as a teacher.
From sleeping in offices to following senior citizens to restaurants in order to find the best "early bird specials," these people will do almost anything to save a buck.
