Chatting Money

Saving money is critical to your financial health, but instead of spending less, isn’t it more fun to earn more money?! Have you thought about a side hustle, something outside your normal job, that can perhaps earn you a little something on the side? Extra earnings can help you pay off debt, increase savings, and potentially may even inform what you want to do with your future! Nobody stays in the same job for 40 years any more, so it’s great to think about multiple options for income.

Let’s talk about some ideas. What can you do? What makes sense in your life? A side hustle will be most satisfying if you pursue something you’re most interested in, and figure out how to monetize it. Some examples:

• You love putting together a fabulous outfit, styling yourself up – you could offer your services as an online stylist
• Your favorite hobby is gardening – create a online blog or site giving gardening tips, or consult on people’s gardens
• Cooking makes your heart sing, and you make healthy, fresh quick meals for your family every night – create a subscription site where you regularly share menus
• Reality shows are your guilty pleasure that bring you joy and make you just want to gossip with your girlfriends about the drama – create a YouTube vlog (that’s a video blog, I think) or podcast or written blog digging in to all the dirt

We’re just getting started. I mean seriously, you can watch people on YouTube put on make-up, and it’s POPULAR, so you can do this. Think about what you love – what websites do you regularly visit? What do you watch online? What books do you read? What do you do in your free time?

I personally love real estate, and HGTV is my happy place, so I dug in to rental properties. Don’t think I haven’t done many a reno, testing out my Property Brothers potential – I’m no Joanna Gaines, but it’s fun. This hobby is more investment intensive up front, but I love nothing more than an open house, so my side hustle plays right into one of my favorite activities.

I was just reading about a woman who loves vintage furniture, and going to swap meets and estate sales and antique stores. So she started an instagram feed dedicated to her finds, and she them sells them to people who can use them in their place. That’s just plain clever – shop all you want, and then sell it to someone else for a profit. You gotta be thoughtful in finding your buyers, but with websites and social media and email marketing, it’s easier than ever to identify an interested audience.

Want some more ideas? Try to offer things that you’re great at, that you get excited to do, that someone ELSE may not be as good at, and would pay someone else to do. I surfed about looking for ideas, here are some good ones:

• Tutor students live, or online, or even teach an online class
• Offer organizing services or specific cleaning services (clean and organize closets, desks/offices, kitchen pantries)
• Offer Taskrabbit services (errand running, picture hanging, go to their site, sooooooo many ideas)
• Become an online virtual assistant
• Deliver food for one of the 6 gazillion food delivery companies
• Write a blog on ANYTHING you’re passionate about
• Do paid surveys online
• Sell your old stuff online (cell phones, electronics, clothes, furniture, light fixtures) and offer to do it for your friends
• Peer to peer lending, where you do online loans to people who need them without going through a bank, and make interest! This site shows you 6 of the best, like Upstart or Prosper, which states the average historical return is 5.3%. Sweet!
• Rental income – even airbnb your house when you’re out of town, or rent a room in your place, or go as far as buying a place to rent
• There is also real estate crowdfunding, like PeerStreet, where they manage loaning your money to people buying real estate
• Publish and ebook or kindle book, 50 Shades of Gray was self-published, if you can tell a good story, dig in!

The internet really gives all of us access to easier ways of making money than ever before. So hustle it out! It’s fun being an entrepreneur, and you never know where your passion will lead you, just think, your side hustle may become your main squeeze!! Got more ideas?? Share them with us in the comments.