In an amazing juggle between the scrubs and the saucepans, Helena Faustin learned the ropes on how to make a fortune from her kitchen.
A passionate pediatric nurse, Helena Faustin never knew she could also find fervor elsewhere. A first-generation Jamaican, Helena grew up in Crown Heights, Brooklyn New York where there is widespread Caribbean influence.
Growing up, her orientation since elementary school was to focus on her grades, getting a good job, work, and retirement. In her wildest dreams, she never envisioned a career in cooking. Instead, she chose to devote her time to the service of humanity through the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) in New York.
This is the inspiring story of a nurse who went beyond the bedside to find purpose and fortune in the power of food.
Discovering a passion for cooking.
The journey to nourish both body and soul began in a very simple way from Helena’s base in Free Port, New York. Obsessed with her native Caribbean cuisine, she started cooking and sharing photos and videos on Instagram with family and friends.
People who liked her creativity and experiments with food offered words of encouragement and support and nudged her to do more. She would therefore attend to her nursing duties and in her free time record herself cooking or simply take photos of her meals and share them.
As time progressed, an army of followers slowly built around her who waited for her cooking stories, beautifully told in photos and videos.
Then one day, with the advice of friends and family, she decided to take this to the next level, with an eye to monetization.
Laying the Foundation for how to make a fortune from her kitchen.
Fearing the age-old lethargy of dreamers who never took their dreams to the next level, Helena decided to act. She sat down and made her budget of the most basic items she needed to launch her passion.
In 2019, she made the life-changing decision to set aside $700 with which she bought the following;
- Ring light for clarity of her videos.
- Tripod stand.
- Groceries.
The tripod and the ring light were meant to help her with clarity and positioning as she staged her food to the world. Turning her kitchen into a mini studio, her passion for cooking and a business that would change her life was born.
A registered nurse for 12 years taking care of neonates and infants born with congenital heart disease had found yet another passion to warm the human soul.
Cooking her way into success
One lesson COVID-19 taught Helena is the importance of family. As first responders, nurses spent most of their time in hospitals during this time. She stayed out for hours and days on end. She missed her house and family. The pandemic made her deeply appreciate the small things like just sitting on the couch that we all take for granted.
She swore, therefore, to go even harder on her food blogging, if this could help her scale down on the time she spent at the hospital.
Armed with the simple items she needed to cook, capture, and share her food, Helena went all out cooking when she was not in hospital. While she says her mother never took adequate time like other Jamaican moms to teach her, her passion never died out.
Her mother was therefore very disappointed when she stopped her dreams of going to graduate school to work on her food and the kitchen studio. Undeterred, she worked every single day when not in the hospital schedule to actualize her dream.
Then money started flowing in and her indifferent mother came to appreciate what she was up to and how far she was willing to go to make it work.
The Income streams that helped her make a fortune from her kitchen.
Once in it, she swam along. She researched the possible income streams she could employ to widen revenue. In 2021, two years after she first purchased her ring light, tripod, and first groceries, she had a YouTube channel, brand collaborations, and recipe e-books.
The earnings she posted that year went beyond her expectations and came in as follows;
- YouTube ad revenue – $&,523.26
- Brand Collaborations – $ 39,030.00
- Recipe e-books – 71,333.19.
Nurse Helena developed eBooks detailing her recipes for those interested in trying them out at home. Thankfully, this became her highest earner.
Currently, she has ventured into SEO through her website That Nurse Can Cook, which she uses to inform about a variety of recipes and also sell her eBooks. Revenue from AdSense is also a fourth revenue stream. Even though it is not her core business, Helena also gets called to cook at functions like she did at St. Patrick’s Day, in addition to performing cooking lessons. She struck gold and pulled herself up forcefully to make a fortune from her kitchen.
Juggling Nursing and Cooking.
It is always said that nursing is a calling and only those genuinely passionate about helping alleviate human suffering and improving health outcomes stick to it. So is Helena. Despite making a surprise income of $117,886.45 in the second year of her startup and counting, she sticks to nursing.
However, she achieved her dream of spending more time with family, since the income she gets from her cooking blogs and eBooks is enough to help her scale down. She managed to cut down her nursing shifts from 13 schedules a month to only 8 a month.
The rest of the time she spends preparing her children for school, making her home, answering emails, and making contracts. Additionally, she uses this free time to think and brainstorm content ideas for her blogs and eBooks.
She likes her new line of income because apart from groceries where she spends an average of $600 a month, she has no other recurring expenses. She has no office since her office is her kitchen.
Quotes from Helena and lessons in business for budding entrepreneurs.
Like every brave starter and entrepreneur, lessons are learned along the way in the process of building a business. Helena shares some of her own with humanity.
- You don’t have to sit in front of a computer or a traditional 9-5 to live the life you want. If you have a talent, harness it, learn from it, and monetize it.
- I wanted to live life on my terms. If I can do it, you can do it.
- Spend less time complaining about how hard this is and embrace each stage. Because these are the days you’ll never get back.
- I hope no one thinks I have it all. I just trust God and don’t quit.
- We all we got (About the importance of family).
- Just start.
Conclusion on How a Nurse learned to make a fortune from her kitchen.
In conclusion, Helena Faustin’s story teaches fortitude, passion, and the wider reaches of the human spirit. Refusing to give up her commitment to vulnerable newborn children, Helena builds her cooking business while still dutifully reporting to her nursing station.
Her story teaches us to incessantly follow our passions to wherever it may lead us. We also learn that our talents, properly nurtured and monetized can pull out of financial want and accord us the freedom we so desire.
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