First off, I just want to share with you a podcast that I have stumbled upon while travelling for work. I am a big podcast listener. I listen to many great shows such as Every little thing, .Future, Science vs, The Smart Passive Income podcast, and many more. My favourite by far has to be Freakonomics Radio. Go check them out if you don’t know about them.
Anyway. I found a new podcast that I have been enjoying called Side Hustle School. Each episode is a ten-minute talk about someone who has started a side hustle. And each episode has one or two knowledge nuggets to take away.
A side hustle is ultimately about creating more freedom for yourself and fits right into a passive income philosophy. It may not be passive at the beginning, but over time it will become more and more passive if you design it right.
A side hustle is great. Everyone should have one. Side hustles are not only a hobby, but they offer you more than one source of income. You don’t want to rely solely on your employer’s income, because that can put your life into chaos if you lose your job, or even if the employer relocates your role to a new place.
They make you less reliant on your employer. In many cases, if your side hustle is generating a good income, your employer may even increase your salary or hourly raises. As they know that you are no longer dependent on your job for your income. You can just leave any time you want to.
Having a side hustle is not to say that eventually, you should quit your job. Well maybe if you don’t get any satisfaction from it, or it is putting you in a bad state mentally. It will mainly allow you more security in life.
Side hustle school is a great school is great for listing to when you are on the bus to work, or whenever you have a spare free 10 minute. I especially like the podcasts catchphrase, “Inspiration is good, but inspiration combined with action is so much better!”
So what are examples of side hustles?
There is no real limit as to what you can do for a side hustle. You just have to solve a problem, see a niche in a market, or just be passionate about a service or product. You can become a weekend Wedding photographer. Or if you prefer taking photos of inanimate objects you could try real estate photography.
You could open an online shop selling a niche product. The upfront costs associated with starting an online shop are very small compared to a physical shop. You could even try using a drop shipping service. That way you don’t even need any inventory or hassles with posting products.
You could write an e-book about something that you specialise in. It could be anything, from a receipt book to a guide for travel to South America. Ebooks and other online media are great as you don’t need to physically ship anything. And if you set them up right the whole operation can be completely passive.
There are many different ways of making money. And I encourage you to listen to this podcast to get some inspiration and motivation to develop a side hustle to try to grow your passive income.
I’ve tried many side hustles, with marginal success so far. I ran another website and monetize it using Google Adsense. It has been ranked number 1 in google for three of its keywords, but the readership peaked at about 100 per day. For a real niche website that may not be considered too bad, but it is only bringing in tens of cents a day.
I have imported garden machinery from China, through Alabama, and resold them on trade me. Most of the products were sold at double what I paid for them on the website. Unfortunately, I underestimated, majorly, the customs import duties and handling fees. That plus the amount of time it takes to import and sell these items makes the whole side hustle not worth it in my opinion.
I have played around with several other side hustles, like growing herbs using hydroponics and LEDs, and reselling products from Alibaba. I think my problem is not committing fully to side hustle, or not committing for a long enough time to achieve success
That’s why this podcast is great you hear real stories about people’s side hustles and how they got to where they are. Great inspiration to get back to developing a side hustle for myself. Know I just need to come up with another Idea.
Let me know if you have a side hustle and how that’s going.
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