Like many millennials, Georgina Welsh worked her way up the corporate ladder in PR for eight years, eventually landing an account director role. But by 31, she realized that despite the long hours and above-average paychecks, she was still broke at the end of the month—and had almost no work-life balance to show for it.
Now, just a year later, she lives rent-free and can travel the world while working remotely. Despite ditching the rat race for good and halving her working hours, Welsh says she’s surprised her disposable income is roughly the same as it was in corporate London.
And it’s all thanks to pet sitting.
Welsh began pet sitting casually in 2024, initially as a way to travel cheaply around the UK. But after taking a career break and a backpacking trip through Southeast Asia, she decided she never wanted to return to full-time office life.
“I wanted to maintain my flexible lifestyle,” she tells Fortune. “It’s ingrained in us that the only career options are kind of to keep going up the ladder, but you might be on the wrong path, or your interests might just evolve beyond the path that you’re on.”
Pet sitting offered a practical solution. It eliminated rent, generated income, and allowed her to stay in London intermittently without re-entering the city’s brutal housing market.
“I felt relief,” Welsh recalls of that fateful moment she quit her 9-to-5 for good last summer.
While others may perceive living out of a suitcase and not having a permanent job or place to call home as anxiety-inducing, she feels the opposite. After years of following a corporate route mapped out for her, she’s no longer in the backseat—she’s the one driving. “I feel happier. I actually feel in control of my life now.”
You can earn $70-a-day pet sitting, with no training required—and you can even do other remote jobs in between
Welsh charges £50 (about $70) a day to watch over dogs and £40 a day to cat-sit, for a minimum of 5 days. Her longest booking with one client was 5 weeks.
Her day consists of dog walks and following the strict pet parents have set for their fur babies. And, of course, during that time, she gets to stay in the pet owner’s house and avoid paying any rent.
Plus, she has enough free time to take on remote side hustles, passion projects or freelancing opportunities to boost her income and skills—currently, she does a maximum of 2 days a week in freelance PR.
Of course, there are trade-offs. She has no employer pension, less long-term certainty, and accepts that freelancing carries risk. But financially, she says the equation works.
“I was earning £56,000 ($77,000), I took home something like £3,300 ($4,500), and I paid £1,100 ($1,500) for rent with that,” Welsh says. “And then you obviously factor in paying for food, living costs in London, you know, your money gets drained by socializing.”
In the UK, her lower earnings mean she drops below the higher-rate 40% income tax threshold (£50,270) and pays less National Insurance, while also reducing student loan repayments, which take 9% of income above £27,295. By earning less than she did in her corporate job, she keeps more of each pound she earns.
In fact, by dropping into a lower tax bracket, freelancing, and avoiding rent entirely, she’s left with the same amount of money in her pocket at the end of each month—despite working less than half the hours she used to.
“I’m not one of those people who just take risks without thinking of the financial implications,” Welsh adds. “You work less, but you can effectively still take home a real decent amount of money, because you’re saving them on whatever you would have lost in tax, National Insurance and student loan, which for me was something like £1,400 ($1,900) a month.”
And besides, that’s more than Welsh had hoped for when going down this alternative career path.
“I just had to completely let go of any idea of a certain salary that I had been on; my priority was my own happiness.” After all, she had the job title and salary before and that “wasn’t bringing me happiness. I needed to do something else.”
“Obviously, there’s a risk that I could be sacked any point, and I have to bear in mind that I might not get a pet sitting job or house sitting job, and that means I have to either stay on a friend’s sofa, or book an Airbnb, or go back to my parents house or go abroad. But it hasn’t affected my standard of living at all… and I actually like that flexibility.”
Pet sitting or polyworking isn’t for everyone—but for those interested, she says it’s easy to start
Since career pivoting last year, Welsh has lived and worked across the UK—from Brighton to Devon to Cornwall—and internationally in Portugal. The millennial has also travelled through 12 countries, launched a blog, started a supper club, taken on volunteering projects and is looking at future animal development courses to bite her teeth into. She’s currently in talks about pet sitting for a few weeks in LA.
“I think they call me the polygamous career, but that sounds really negative,” Welsh says. “I’m utilising my skills, my intellect and my qualities as a person to develop and make other ways of living for myself that aren’t just the kind of linear career path that I was on—it started working out for me quite quickly, and I feel great.”
“The relief of not paying rent or a mortgage frees up your capacity to pursue other things in your life. Ordinarily, if you work five days a week, you just don’t really have a headspace to do that.”
Plus, she doesn’t feel like it’s dented her reputation or her long-term career prospects. If anything, Welsh says stepping off the ladder has sharpened—not softened—how she shows up professionally.
“I don’t feel any loss when it comes to status, I’m still respected, I’m doing the stuff I’m good at and I enjoy more so I’m less stressed, and I feel like my brain is functioning at a capacity that works for me.”
For those looking to copy Welsh and quit the rat race, her advice is this: “Think about your lifestyle first. What do you think will make you happy? And then choose a job around that.”
And for those looking to get into pet sitting specifically? Good news: Welsh says it’s relatively easy to get into, and there’s a lot of demand in major cities like London.
“My advice would be to get insurance and get your DBS (criminal record) check or any kind of reference points to show that you’re a good character…And obviously, if you’ve got experience with animals, that helps.”
She built up her own reputation by leafleting her services around London, getting testimonials from early jobs, and then sharing her LinkedIn and Instagram (@thehappyh0usesitter) with potential clients.
“Once you’ve got five to six sits under your belt, you can think about charging and just make sure you’re doing a good job every time and following the instructions that you’re given,” she adds.
“Like any starting any side hustle, you have to actually hustle. But you definitely want to be showing that you’re a credible character if you’re living in someone’s home.”
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