Unlocking Financial Stability: Exploring Side Hustles

During career transitions many people are faced with serious financial circumstances resulting from uncertain income. It’s a painful place to be, but not unsolvable. An important part of transition time should be to consider how you can bring in multiple streams of income to keep afloat.

Multiple Income Streams

One way to do that is to strategize about building multiple income streams. By creating a side gig, turning a hobby into a money-making venture, or investing in real estate or other goods and services, you can protect yourself from the instability of employers and cost cutting lay-offs. A part of any career transition plan should be to evaluate what types of side income be built into a second or third stream of income. What are you good at and what are you willing to build over time?

Here are some secondary income ideas to consider:

Fluency in Other Languages

Are you fluent enough in another language that you can be an interpreter? Interpreters are always in demand and if you have a particular knowledge in a specific field, like real estate, medicine, law, court proceedings, you can make even more money. I know of multiple people doing this, one was from Nigeria and helped out at the Immigration Office part time. The others were French native speakers who translated in real time, a real estate conference from French to English. Both were very specific topics. English as a second language teachers are in real demand. Can you build a business on this, yes you can. And additionally, if you can take it online, you can do group classes and reach even more people nationwide or worldwide.

Online Digital Courses & Products

There is an explosion of online digital courses and products being offered today. Many people have taken their knowledge, skills, hobbies and passions and turned them into an online course. Many teachers have created online courses for various topics. Some people have made multi six-figure empires out of subjects like organizing, menu planning, gardening, raising children, home schooling, knitting, sewing, creating digital planners, calendars, birthday cards, wedding planning, health and wellness, fitness, the list is endless! One of the experts in digital course creation is Amy Porterfield. Her website is https://www.amyporterfield.com/ it is very well worth checking out!

You can also start a YouTube channel. This does have a longer ramp up time to monetization, but, established YouTube channels are making liveable incomes from affiliations, subscriptions, and memberships.

Skills

Do you have another skill that you are good at? How about teaching other people that skill? Or using it to create a side business? Sign up for Task Rabbit or Angie’s List if you are handy. Computer skills are always in demand. Putting together furniture, handling big screen TV’s, wiring sound system are always needed. What can you put into a “how to” video on You Tube? You can turn that skill into a side gig and then market it on Fiverr or Upwork.

Virtual Assistants

If you have been an executive administrative assistant, social media marketer, office manager, event coordinator, online trainer, or good with various online platforms, there is a world waiting for you in the realm of Virtual Assistants. There are employment agencies for Virtual Assistants to help online marketers, enterpreneurs and companies plan meetings, post social media, coodinate schedules, train new platform users, etc. The list of duties is extensive. No one who has these skills should be sitting without income coming in from some source. These are very much in-demand skills!

Passions

Perhaps you’re a secret photo-shop creator, a committed cook, or an obsessive organizer. There are innumerable ways to share those skills with others. I know of a few people who are making over six figures from an online business doing crafts and organizing. Their business is based on teaching these talents through videos and online courses. If you are musical, good enough and enjoy playing for others, consider playing side gigs around town in houses of worship, or restaurants, coffee houses, or for weddings and other special events.

Professional Licenses

If you have a professional license like law, nursing, accounting just to name a few, you can moonlight in private practice seeing clients. You can also create podcasts or You Tube videos on a variety of topics related to your field that would be useful to the non-licensed public. General tax tips for accounting, health tips for nurses, basic documents that are needed like wills, trusts and power of attorney for lawyers. (Disclaimer alert: most likely, if you are in one of these professions you are not unemployed, but it does happen sometimes.)

Thinking Outside the Box

If you love dogs, you can always consider starting to walk dogs for other time strapped people. You can get exercise, be with furry friends and even invite other to join and help. People have started dog walking businesses while unemployed and built those businesses up into successful entrepreneurial ventures.

The point in sharing these ideas is to get you thinking “outside the box” about what else to start on the side to make long term extra income. Think of the trapeze acrobats in the circus. They act with a safety net below in case they fall. In some cases, they just bounce back up to the swinging trapeze. The point is that they recover and go on.

The idea of side incomes is very important for a variety of reasons:

1. It gives you another income stream to help boost up your savings in case of a downsizing, and it can sustain you until you land again.

2. It can supply supplemental retirement income, especially if you get into an online business with residual subscription income, or self-paced online classes or products that people can just buy off your website.

3. It can give you a sense of deep personal fulfillment because you are doing something you are passionate about while in the hunt for another full time job.

There are many stories of how people have turned their passions, hobbies and skills into a profitable next chapter of their life. It is worth thinking about and planning out as part of your action plan.

Wrapping up!

I’m Diana Stephens, PhD, Holistic Coaching, Founder of Mindful Job Alignment, committed to helping you form a job search action plan, taking you from stressed and confused to motivated and in control of your search. I’ve been where you’re at and know how it feels. I remind you that job search does not need to hurt!

Check out our other blogs on career transitions and coping with the emotional side of job transitions. Be sure to sign up for our email list to get a free copy of our Top 10 Things to do when Downsized and Supportive Reading Resources for Transitions. As always, please feel free to reach out to us with any questions or thoughts at support@mindfuljobalignment.com. We’d love to hear from you!

By: Diana C. Stephens, PhD