Is your Side hustle game strong? If you are looking to become financially independent - it should be!
If you think you side hustle better than me - Tell me about it in the comments!
What is a Side Hustle
A side hustle is a hobby that earns an income. It should be something you enjoy doing. Its called a SIDE hustle because it should not be your primary source of income, rather something that brings in a few bucks here and there. It should also be something with a small (if any) commitment on your time. My favorite side hustles are passive income generators.
The opt-out life guys have the best resources on side hustles. Especially Dana’s book - OPT OUT: Rethink success. Reinvent rich. Realize the life you want
Benefits of Side Hustling
The benefits of a side hustle are unique to each individual, but here are a few that apply to me.
Income - The money I generate from most of my side hustles is not significant. It's play money. Discretionary income, some would call it. But it does have an impact on the bottom line. Mostly due to the hobby nature of the work. It's something I LIKE to do. Therefore it takes the place of hobbies that COST money. So any small gains within the side hustle are magnified by NOT spending money playing golf - laugh - who am I kidding, I mean buying a race car and trashing it around the track on weekends.
Pass Time - This might be why I like side hustles the most. I am laser focused on our family’s net worth. I’m not cheap, but I am measured in our spending. I also get bored easily. So having a fun and easy activity I can focus my time and energy that is a benefit to the bottom line is a huge win-win for me. It also doesn’t hurt that I’m happiest and most fulfilled when I find a way to earn a buck. I want to underscore here that fun and intrigue have to part of it for you. There is no point in finding a side hustle that feels more like a job rather than a day at the ballpark. You should enjoy your time doing the activity that you choose AND drop it as soon as you aren’t enjoying it anymore. Don’t get burned out on your side gig - that’s what your job is for ;)
Business Lab - For me, this is a new benefit I only realized this year. Having a side-gig (or many side-gigs) is a great way to test drive business ideas at small scale. Do you think you can be a real estate investor one day? Great, flip 1 house, let it take 6 months (way too long to be really profitable), do it on the weekends, enjoy the project. Then you can figure out if you are good at it and can make real money as a real estate investor. For me, I started cryptocurrency mining in my basement. 1 rig turned to 6 then 12. I learned all the ins and outs of how to mine at scale and eventually, this side hustle turned into my main source of income. I would have NEVER been able to pull the trigger and quit my job without it!
Here is a short list of MY notable side hustles. Some worked better than others. But I learned valuable skills in each one. And all of them put together is still the reason why I have no time to buy a race car - and that’s a good thing.
Real Estate - When we bought our current house, we saved enough $$$ to put a down payment without needing to sell our current place. We refinanced, renovated, and rented out our old house. Year 1, monthly rent was $1600 and our mortgage was $1100. Year 2, the rent went up to $1850 and the mortgage was still $1100. Plus the bulk of the mortgage payment was equity in the house. We made $500-750 each month AND someone else was paying the mortgage. There are also tax benefits to doing real estate as a passive (non-professional) investment.
Not all fun and games though. By the time our second renter moved out, there was enough cat poop on the walls in the basement to make me think twice about allowing pets.
eBay - I love eBay and other auction sites. I started selling on eBay when I was in my teens. Ebay is my “crime of opportunity". I take advantage of any arbitrage deals that come my way. My most successful auction hustle was selling 30-round AR-15 ammo magazines right before they were banned in Colorado. Magpul was running a deal that allowed any CO resident to get VERY cheap 30-round magazines about a month before the ban went into effect. They had a 20 per customer limit so I recruited everyone I knew to buy them for me. I had hundreds of them. I ended up selling them for 2-3x what I bought them for on a gun auction site. This is arbitrage. Getting access to a deal that few get for an item that many want.
Cryptocurrency Mining - This is my side hustle that went mainstream - a unicorn if you will. I received a bonus at work that I funneled into building a small GPU mining farm in our basement. My initial investment of $10K into a 36 GPU mining farm quickly became a $30K investment into a 72 GPU mining farm (pictures below). At the end of the year, I had over $200K and the 72 GPUs each worth twice as much as I paid for them. I used the profits to start a commercial mining operation. The irony is that if I had just bought the cryptocurrency that I was mining instead of the miners with the $30K, the return would be in the millions at the end of the year. But I don’t focus on what could have been. I made the right decision for me at the time.
Fiverr - I started with Fiverr this year after the crypto market went upside down. I figured out what my most marketable skills are and posted them to Fiverr, Crypico, Upwork, Freelancer, etc. I have a small set of active customers that bring in additional revenue. All of this is project-based work so I’m selective in what I want to pursue. Just the projects that sound fun to me.
https://www.fiverr.com/leomalyutin/setup-any-masternode-for-you
Gig Economy - Uber, Lyft, Doordash, Grubhub, the list goes on. I’ve tried them all. I love the flexibility of working for these companies. You work when you want and don’t when you don’t! It's not much more then $10/h after factoring in all expenses but in a pinch its there. There are many people that complain about these companies not paying fare wages, but most of them are trying to make it their full-time job - it's NOT. If you do it as a side gig and only work during profitable times, it's GREAT. The flexibility can’t be beat!
These are just a few of the side gigs that worked for me. Tell me about your favorite side hustles in the comments!