Ohio mom uses social media, side hustles to make ends meet during government shutdown: ‘No days off’

Natalie Folino is making ends meet for her family. 

The stay-at-home mom of three from Dayton, Ohio, is harnessing the power of social media and side hustles to get her family through the federal government shutdown. 

"Currently, my husband is an essential employee for the Department of Defense, which means that he is still going to work every day," Folino told Fox News Digital in an interview. "He's commuting 40 minutes every way, but we are just not receiving a paycheck, which is a little problematic for a family like mine, who is a single-income family."

Folino was already growing her social media brand before the shutdown, but now her side hustles are taking on a whole new significance. Due to the shutdown, her family has been without her husband's income for 29 days and counting.

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To help keep her family afloat this month, Folino has taken on numerous side hustles and is documenting them on social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok, where she has amassed nearly 200,000 followers combined and more than 2 million likes on TikTok alone.

Her goal for October is to earn $5,000 — an ambitious target. (Spoiler alert: she did it!)

"I have to earn $160 every single day. No days off, we have just a couple of days to go," Folino told Fox News Digital.

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Folino isn’t new to earning extra cash on the side. She began documenting her side hustles about two and a half years ago to help pay for her children’s increasingly expensive soccer activities. Over time, her experience juggling odd jobs has primed her with skills for financial emergencies like the one her family is facing this month.

"Overall, we are dipping into our savings," Folino said. "I know that we are in a more blessed position than lots of people, so nothing for our family has actually changed other than the fact we're kind of moving my earnings around a little bit."

Folino has showcased a variety of side hustles, including laundry services, dog walking, social media monetization, coaching calls and even affiliate shopping links. In her videos, she notes charging $70 for two bags of laundry and $25 for dog walking.

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In her videos, Folino said her earnings have ranged from as high as $431 on some days to as little as $22 on others. She noted that she could have earned even more this month, but because she lives in a large Air Force community, some of her clients have also been affected by government furloughs and layoffs, further exacerbating the strain on the local economy.

While families with government employees can’t control the federal shutdown, Folino said people can control how they respond to challenges.

"There may be circumstances that are entirely out of your control. But there are a couple of things that I think that you can control," she said.

"I think that you could control your attitude and your outlook and I really think that you can control your work ethic. I am definitely a pull yourself up by your bootstraps-type mentality and I think that if you set a goal, and you're willing to just really work and put yourself out there, there's really no limit to it."

In a video posted on Thursday, Folino shared an update with her followers on her efforts to earn $5,000 in the month of October, saying not only did she hit her goal, but she surpassed it by $224.

A visibly emotional Folino thanked her followers for their support and revealed that she will donate her earnings from the last two days of October to those in need in her community.

"Anything is possible," she said.

TPUSA spokesman shreds podcaster's ‘disturbing’ defense of protester who celebrated Charlie Kirk’s death

Turning Point USA spokesperson Andrew Kolvet fired back at far-left podcaster and former reality star Jennifer Welch for arguing that Democrats should cater to voters like a "No Kings" protester who celebrated Charlie Kirk's death in a man-on-the-street interview.

"So listen up, Democratic establishment," she said on her "I've Had It" podcast. "You can either jump on board with this s---, or we're coming after you in the same way that we come after MAGA. Period."

"Kudos to Bernie, to AOC, to Zohran, and that woman out in somewhere middle America saying, ‘F--- Charlie Kirk. He was a racist. He was a piece of s---,’ she continued.

"There are so many more of us than there are of them. And these Democrats that continue to play patty-cake with corporations and lobbyists, nobody wants that. Nobody wants you."

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Kolvet reacted Thursday on "America's Newsroom."

"That's disturbing language. There's no other way to look at that," he said.

Kolvet contrasted Welch's behavior with that of Kirk's widow and current Turning Point USA CEO Erika Kirk, who delivered an inspirational message to a massive crowd at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) on Wednesday.

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"[Welch] maybe gets eyeballs, maybe people are tuning in, but she is not inspiring anybody," he said, rebuking her profanity-laced comments.

"We want dialogue. We want to humanize each other," he added.

"We are in a very, very rough spot as a country if those are the types of voices that win out, and I hope instead it's voices like J.D. Vance and Erica Kirk that have those debates, have those dialogues and give us space to treat each other as humans and fellow Americans..."

Charlie Kirk, who co-founded Turning Point USA, served as the organization's executive director until his assassination on a Utah college campus on Sept. 10.

Vice President Vance joined Erika Kirk on the Ole Miss campus to carry on the Turning Point USA mission in Charlie Kirk's absence, addressing a crowd of thousands and, in Vance's case, answering questions and debating student attendees.

Fox News' Alexander Hall contributed to this report.

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