Jackie's Japan Journal: Give Up Or Keep Going

Sunday, September 27, 2026

Give Up Or Keep Going

I'm talking about my Etsy Shop.

I've been putting designs up constantly for the past two months and have made only one sale!

I've watched 100s of hours of videos from people making way more than I do. I've read about styling, what's trending, how to find your niche, how to avoid having too many colours to choose from, and where to advertise. All great ideas; I've tried most, but I've had only one sale. I wasn't expecting to make a fortune straight away, but I would love to be able to cover the cost of the store. I managed to do that this month from my one sale, but I'm losing confidence.

The problem is that I don't really have another source of income. I think that the one girl I'm teaching will quit soon, she's in her last year of high school so she will have to start to study for her university entrance tests from next month. I have just 3 other students. Mikey is teaching the rest of our students, so I give him the money for the students he's teaching.

I really thought that I would be able to make some money with Etsy, but maybe I need to rethink things.

The only other thing is to keep teaching English, but I don't want to teach at this house. It's too small, and if I'm honest, it's impossible to keep clean. In the last house, I had two rooms dedicated to teaching, and I kept the cats out most of the time! Here, I don't have space to do that. The one room that could be used for teaching has been taken over by the cats. I tried to keep them out, but they don't really have anywhere else to go.

What's next? This is the question that stops me from sleeping. At the moment, I can survive; the kids pay for almost everything, which I know is alright, but it feels unfair. If they are going to pay for utilities, food, etc then they should have their own places, but because they are paying for everything here, they can't save to move out! Hannah is paying for all the trips we're taking! Again, I feel that is unfair because she is working and studying; I would love to help her out more.

At the moment, I'm making Halloween goods, I've come up with some really cute designs.