Tennessee

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It's tough to find good-paying jobs when you are a felon. I know. I am one. I have been able to find two great ways to succeed financially despite my recent felony record. As you know if you are a felon, almost all employers require a background check these days, and with the already stiff competition we face as job-seekers due to the job market, it is even tougher to find good jobs when you have that ugly felony that you have to disclose.

I used to be a high school Spanish teacher earning $45K a year but in 2006 I made a terrible mistake. I cheated on my wife with one of my former senior students who was 17 at the time, and, though we didn't have intercourse, I (understandably) lost my career. I took a plea deal that required me to plead guilty to Statutory Rape, a Class E Felony here in Tennessee, so that I wouldn't be charged with the more serious crime of Sexual Battery By An Authority Figure, a Class C Felony. I was fortunate to receive two years of supervised probation.

While I was on probation, I discovered that even though I am bilingual and have a Master's Degree, it was nearly impossible to get any sort of a job that paid anything if I wanted to do "white collar" work. I even found that most temp agencies wouldn't even let me apply because of my felony. I eventually ended up with a job as a clerk at an insurance company making $8.50 an hour, so my salary was cut by more than 50%.

I've learned that there are two ways to make good money even if you are a felon: work in the restaurant management business, or use the power of the internet consumer. You can make a very good living in restaurant management, but you need to be willing to start from the bottom and learn all of the ins and outs of the business. Nearly all restaurant chains will hire you even if you have a felony on your record.

I did not have any experience in the restaurant business, and I wanted to be able to be home in the evenings to be with my wife and my little girl.

I was in this quandry, working to save my marriage, about to get off probation, and struggling to make ends meet when I met Nathan in the lobby of the probation office. We had the same probation officer, and we hit it off right away. When we went for burgers a few days later, I asked him how he was making it financially, and he said he was using internet marketing techniques to make money. He told me he was making over $1000.00 a week doing internet marketing from his house. I asked him whether his degree was in marketing or in computer science, and he said he had an associate's degree in computer science, but that he learned how to do internet marketing from another guy and from reading a lot on the internet.

I told him that sounded amazing, but that I only knew the basics of the internet and that I didn't think I could learn how to do it. He told me that it wasn't as hard as it sounded and that he had used a training website to learn almost everything he used to make money. He told me that they provided step-by-step training, and he literally built his business while pausing and unpausing the instructional videos. I asked him about the cost for the training and he said it was not expensive and that they guaranteed you to make money or your tuition was refunded.

I thought about it and thought about it and finally asked him for the website. That was a year and a half ago. I quit my job at the insurance agency 14 months ago. After four months of making way more from my part-time internet work than my day job, I turned in my notice and have been working from home for about four hours a day ever since. I reported an income of $78,886.42 for 2009 when I did my taxes. If you are a felon, I encourage you to check out either the restaurant path or the internet path to financial success. Try not to get discouraged. Hold your head high. You can turn your life around. Best of luck.