A side hustle doesn't instantly make you rich
Money, money, money! It defines us. It determines how we dress. Not just what we eat, but how we eat. What social groups we are accepted into. Can we retire early or, will we be working until we die of old age? Whether we like it or not, money influences what we can and cannot do with our lives.
Being financially independent means different things to different people. To some, it may mean retiring as early as possible. To others, it’s never having to worry about where your next meal is going to come from. The quickest way to financial independence aside from winning the lottery is by having a job that pays you enough money. Unfortunately, not everyone can find that dream job or even keep that dream job, so we must get creative and have a few side hustles.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, a side hustle is typically not your main job but something you do on the side to earn some extra cash. My side hustles started way back in my youth when I began collecting money for taking people’s garbage cans to the curb on garbage day while I delivered their morning newspaper. I wish I could say I have an entrepreneurial spirit but, I’m merely looking for financial independence. I want more time and resources to explore my skills and abilities, personality, passions, and dreams. Over the years, my side hustles and money goals have taught me a few important lessons.
Define your goals
One of the smartest investments of my money came from post-secondary education. I invested in myself by getting into an apprenticeship here in Canada. The model was simple and brilliant. For four years, I would spend ten months each year in a paid job and then attend government-sponsored technical training for the remainder of the year. As each year past my knowledge grew, my employer had to pay me more to keep up with trade regulations. At the age of 27, I found myself holding a trade certification, and by the age of 28, I was making over $100,000 a year fixing and repairing vehicles and equipment. While all the training helped make money, it was terrible at teaching me what to do with it. Soon I found myself eating out almost every day, spending far too much at the bars, and purchasing goods that were more ego-driven than practical. It wasn’t until a few years after, when I was going through my divorce that my lawyer took the time to sit me down and show me where my money was going. It was a $400 per hour wake-up call that led me to create a weekly budget report that I still use to this day. In it, I list my principal and passive incomes, as well as any income from side hustles, and keep track of my expenses, and even after a divorce wiped out most of my savings, I am back on track to retire at an age where I can still enjoy life.
Who wants to dance?
Who you choose to spend the rest of your life with will have a direct effect on the quality of your life. Earlier on in my life, I got involved with a woman that helped feed my ego, and eventually, we did what most couples do, we got married. Looking back, I firmly believe my spirit animal is a bull because I run head-on into red flags. How did I miss the signs that she had a hidden gambling problem and eventually forge bank documents that would cost me my life savings and end our relationship? Who knew that her side hustle was working in massage parlors while I was working overtime.
Fast forward a couple of years, I now find myself back to enjoying life, and once a week, I set time aside to look at my financial and career goals. Sure it will take me longer now to reach my goals, but it’s easier for me to save when I am the only one spending. My failed past relationships have shown me that money is loaded with power and meaning, and it is the most common source of conflict in any romantic relationship. How much we have, how to spend it, and how to save for things that matter. These are all topics that you need to discuss to understand each other’s goals. Choose wisely.
Return On Investment
While a side hustle may not be your principal source of income, it still needs to be treated like a regular business needing constant re-investing of profits to ensure it not only remains viable but continues to grow. How much you need to re-invest can vary from side hustle to side hustle. As a rule, most experts recommend re-investing up to 50% of your profits back into the business. To enable and support growth in your business requires planning as you will need to figure out the priorities in your business that need attention. While there are no magic formulas, I have found that time-consuming tasks, coaching, new skills, and technology all seem to have the largest return on investment for me.
Time Consuming Tasks
Every business has a task that needs to be completed that eats up our valuable time. Having a full-time job and several side hustles means I have more than my share of challenges to deal with daily. As my businesses grew, I could see the writing was already on the walls, so I started using a virtual assistant to handle mundane admin tasks that often kept me away from other business opportunities. If the tasks were keeping me from making more money, I look for ways to outsource them.
Coaching
Sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know until someone points it out to you. If you’re serious about growing your side hustles, eventually you will need to reinvest profits into a professional mentor who can guide you to the next step. I like to look at it as preventative maintenance, as a good business coach will help keep you on track with your long-term strategy and help you avoid some very costly pitfalls. Worst case scenario is, you learn another new skill and create a new side hustle as a mentor and coach
Skills
The more you learn, the more growth opportunities you can make happen. Technology is advancing at an incredible rate, which means we may be required to learn new techniques to take full advantage of it. The great news is that the more skills you acquire the more confidence in your abilities you will have. While it may seem easy to search YouTube or simply Google how something should be done, there are many times where we just don’t know what we don’t know. To help keep me up to date and informed I usually turn to Eventbrite. I search for conferences, seminars, or workshops to learn new skills or a new technique that I should be using. There is a lot of online training available, and one of the side benefits of this pandemic is that a lot more workshops and conferences have moved online, making them very accessible. Remember, if you’re done learning, your business is done growing.
Technology
When it comes to technology, it can get very confusing incredibly fast. When I first started my side hustles, I used a notebook to keep track of the money I made, contacts, appointments, and so on. Today we have smartphones that are much more suited for these types of tasks. I tried to get away from investing in any new technology as it seemed like an unnecessary expense, and I would try to extend the use of my trusty laptop that had served me so well for the previous eight years. If you’ve been running your businesses on a shoestring budget, it’s probably time some of your systems got a serious upgrade. Along with hardware upgrades, now is time to embrace using one of the thousands of email marketing services instead of trying to send out mass emails from your Gmail account. Unless you have unlimited financing, the best bang for your buck is probably Mailchimp, and while it does have its issues, people can easily subscribe, unsubscribe, and change their preferences without any work on your side. Learning how to use Facebook ads strategically is another avenue to pursue along with setting up your business on all the social media platforms. While it can be challenging to find ways to repurpose your content to all the different platforms, the payoff is huge. Larger content should go on your YouTube channel, Facebook Watch Page, and IGTV, while the more micro-content can go on Instagram, Snapchat, and LinkedIn. Oh, you’re not using all of those? You should be. If you are posting on all these, then you’re probably running out of time, and you may want to look at a social media management system. There are numerous players in this area, but for those just beginning to use these tools, Hootsuite and Buffer are your best bet. Both are reasonably affordable, but they are also easy to use for beginners.
If you’re just starting or you’ve been in the game for a while now but just can’t seem to grow, most of these investments are things that will have a huge impact on your business. It takes money to grow money, and you’re simply using this money to open new doors and take your business to new heights.
