An average income earner is barely able to keep up with the cost of housing, transportation and food. Make extra income with side hustles to get ahead. Start a side hustle to pay off debt, increase savings, and improve confidence. In the process, you may end up becoming an entrepreneur.
Reasons for Starting a Side Hustle
Debt
Having a large debt whether it is student loan or credit card debt, it can be daunting and down right depressing prospect to pay it off. Side hustles can help you make some headway toward paying off your debt sooner. Depending on the amount of your debt, you may need to have more than one side hustle.
Savings
Similarly to side hustles helping you pay off your debt, it can help you build an emergency fund. Murphy’s law is that if you have an emergency savings, you won’t need it. If you don’t have it, you will surely need it. This has been true for me. Building an emergency fund will help you feel more secure especially if you have a family to support.
Financial Goals
With a side hustle, you’ll be able to achieve your financial goal faster. This could be to save for a down payment on a house, pay for your kid’s college or accumulate 10x your salary for retirement.
Improve Your Confidence, Competency, and Creativity
Increasing your earning potential improves confidence. Being a lawyer was my childhood dream but I wasn’t smart enough to go to law school. In spite of this, my fascination and intrigue with law never waned. I was and still am completely obsessed with Law and Order. So naturally, legal nurse expert in surgery fit the bill as the perfect side hustle for me. While doing this, I learned a lot from reviewing the cases and it resulted in doing my 9-5 job better. In addition, doing a different nursing without gave me the ability to be creative in a different way.
Potential to Become an Entrepreneur
Start a side hustle and you’ve become a solopreneur. Scale up and hire one person to fill in for you while you go on a short vacation and you’ve become an entrepreneur. Okay, I know it’s not as simple as that but you get the point of possibilities.
Finding the Best Side Hustle
What You're Already Doing
Think about what you do already. A teacher can make a sizable income by tutoring. an anywhere from $10-$40 hour. I actually knew a teacher who made $100 per hour tutoring math. You can charge more for subjects that most people aren’t very good and what most tutors aren’t teaching such as math. How about teaching English to kids in Asia through Zoom or Skype?
Expert
Depending on what you do for a living, you’re already an expert at something. If you’re an accountant for a firm, you can do other people’s taxes as your side hustle during the tax season. My side hustle was working as a legal nurse expert for law firms. I reviewed cases and let them know whether the nursing standard of care was met. The starting fee was $150 per hour, then eventually increased to $250. If you have expertise in surgery, ICU, you can request a sizable fee.
Do What You Enjoy
What do you enjoy doing? If you love animals or enjoy walking, consider pet sitting/dog walking. You can charge $15-$20 to walk a dog. Do that three times a week and you have extra $240 dollars per month. Tax free.
If you like to drive, consider driving for Uber, Lyft or Postmates, or all three as side hustles.
Side Hustle Ideas
Social Media Expert
These days everyone is teaching or selling something via social media. Not everyone is proficient with social media. If you know how to navigate through Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Twitter, or Instagram, you can charge a good chunk of money to manage them for a small business or teach it. I wonder what you can charge to create an Instagram post for a start up company. Sell your service on Fiverr.
Airbnb
Rent out a room on Airbnb to make an extra income. You don’t want any stranger in your house? How about building an ADU (accessory dwelling units) and renting it out on Airbnb? If you no longer want to do that, now you have a guest house and increased the value of your home. None of those ideas suit you? Then manage an airbnb. You can charge 30% of the rental.
Sell Stuff
Buy items in bulk at a discount and sell it on eBay or Craigslist. Determine what you know and buy. Drop shipping anyone?
Before You Go For It
Flexibility
Depending on the hours you have to work your full time job, you may need a side hustle that has more flexible hours. Most side hustles mention above allow you to do them whenever you have time whether it is after work or on weekends. Determine whether your side hustle is flexible and fits into your schedule.
Time is Money
Determine how much time you want to spend doing your side hustle. If you’re selling items on eBay or Craigslist, it takes time to take pictures of the items, list it, sell it, and ship it. Calculate how many hours you’re likely to spend doing your side hustle. Find a side hustle that is at least equivalent to what your time is worth. If you put in a lot of work for only a small amount of return, you will feel under appreciated and not valued for your time.
Advertise
Let people know you’re available. Advertise, put up a sign around the neighborhood. Put yourself out there on Nextdoor. You know how to do something people would hire you for but they need to find you first.
Multiple Side Hustles
You can rent out a room on Airbnb, walk dogs, housesit or sell something on eBay. At one point, I had three side hustles. Depending on the reasons for your side hustle, you may want to have more than one.
Summary
The beauty of having a side hustle is that it can be an easy source of income. You can be creative and have fun while earning more income to pay off your debt, build an emergency fund, and achieve your financial goal faster. In the process, you’ll learn more, become confident, and most importantly, have more money.