Passive income, side hustling, whatever you want to call it is all the rage these days stuck at home.
Why?
Because we all need money to survive and feel secure! Thereâs nothing wrong with wanting to earn more unless you donât know how to spend it wisely and in that case, you are better off having less. Too much of anything, especially money is a bad thing as well.
The reasons I work are not to purely have more in my bank account to eventually invest and profit off the stock market, it is to be self supported, financially free with no looming debt, have a cushion and really, be kinda motivated to do something.
If money wasnât an issue, would you do something differently? Unfortunately, most say yes.
Since weâre all stuck at home more often, we feel obligated to fill up all of this free time. Thatâs not always a good thing and you can read about why it isnât here. But if you are truly bored and want to take advantage of your 10+ hours that are dedicated to commuting like I have, making a little extra these days can make you more satisfied than ever.
Check-List
There are a lot of mistakes people make while searching for rich quick schemes and outlets to attempt to live off by. Just purchasing that e-book the drop shipper in that YouTube ad wonât get you places if you donât find the excitement and purpose in it. Sure, it could make you upwards of $1m per year if you are fully dedicated and re-sell unique products from China, but that rarely happens. Most people fall into the category of average. And once again, thereâs nothing wrong with that or wanting money. If youâre average, that means you want to earn a stable wage to keep yourself afloat with no hassle of going broke, very essential in this day in age with the 2020 recession still in full force leaving millions unemployed.
But if youâre just shooting for that, your bar isnât high enough. Donât fall into the trap of lifestyle inflation, attempting to make more and work harder for it until you plummet. Instead having aspirational dreams whether itâs buying a nice apartment near Central Park or getting the chance to work with top coaches for $700 per hour like Ed Mylett, you will find a deeper purpose that way than just making money out of the ordinary, because it does get boring and scary if you have no real considerable plans on what to use the money for.
Hustlinâ
Over the last year, Iâve adopted these extra activities, as I like to call it into my life. I have a few goals of reaching my target $1m in net worth in a few months and possibly buy another rental property in the city to lease out, so in order to do that, I needed to be creative.
When we talk about these activities of making extra money on the side, itâs all about scalable income. You wonât see the benefits immediately and your earnings right away. It rarely happens, if not at all. You can play the gambling game with options and short squeezes like a day trader mixed with volatility, headaches and barely any profit or seek real rewards by being in it for the long term. No games, you decide how much fun which will make it easier and having patience is key. This mentality will provide you the benefits.
(None of these offerings are sponsored nor affiliated, theyâre just what I do, recommendations and where Iâve found them)
#1: Transcribing Videos
Ever forget your headphones pre-Covid while binging that episode commuting or at the airport and had to become a bit educational and start reading? Those words donât populate out of nowhere! There are transcribers to record every word and write it down for you when it happens.
You can go to Fiverr or Upwork, the two most popular freelance sites where I personally found out about this opportunity. You can work on transcribing everything from 20 minute YouTube videos for a small creator to 2 hour films for a pro director. Depending on how much you want to work and who your client is, prices range from $50 per hour to $210 per hour for one of my clients in the publishing space ironically.
#2: Proofreading
Out of the 4, this is the most energy depleting freelance jobs out there. Since I write already 4â5x per week on here and have to meticulously correct spelling errors, grammatical mistakes, syntax, you name it since Iâm a sloppy writer always on my first draft, proofreading for a client is something I prefer to do on a light week when Iâm either taking a hiatus from writing which happens rarely since I enjoy adding valuable content to your lives or on a remote vacation. Other than that, I tend to skip out on this hustle but if you believe your time is really valuable and have the mental stamina, this may be the jackpot for you. As always, it depends on the piece and length of writing. If itâs more complex, the publisher/writer would want to see your writing pieces in advance to match their style and make sure you have solid vocabulary and experience. I tend to get matched up randomly on any proofreading site to bloggers and college/grad students who want me to check over their essays since not only Iâm in the same boat as them, I write with a simple, casual tone which they tend to look for too, even in research papers believe it or not. Iâve done a hand full of psych papers, let me tell you. They pay generously well ranging from $20 to $300.
KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) is my writing tip.
#3: Website Testing
This requires the most experience out of all 4 in computing and IT to get certified but is certainly manageable to learn if you take a certification test in hardware, search engines, SEO, back end development and itâs always helpful to have a good grasp of programing since all websites are run and built through some programming language. The type of language doesnât matter since everything from Python to Java have the same uses just different syntax.
Testing simply involves making sure there are no errors when launching, everything looks formatted, no underlying bugs in the backend, testing unknown variables, going through checkout with false ids, seeing what error pops up and communicating with the engineer at times to see if he had any trouble troubleshooting problems as well.
Iâve only tested 3 websites thus far and they were all prior to various startupsâ launches. I was paid $230 for roughly 1.5 hours of testing.
#4: Virtual Assistant
Now this is the most fun activity I have to say. Out of all 4, I do this the most often because not only I get to meet new clients and connect with them, I get to understand what people are up in their personal life, outside of work!
Assistants literally do anything, but since it is virtual, remember, this is not the type of manual labor that a housekeeper or cook would do. The work I did in fact improved my efficiency with Excel, habit tracking and grocery shopping! You never know what youâll learn until you try it!
For one of my unorganized but extremely friendly clients from North Carolina last month, I was given several tasks which included being given a contact list to organize alphabetically and put it into Excel color coordinated by layers, help clean out her desktop + DropBox files and pin point certain criteria, remove and unsubscribe any spam emails and wait for Wednesdayâs at noon to pick out 4 meals on her favorite meal delivery site since they open with new recipes every week that day.
These tasks anyone can do but I would strongly suggest if you are organized, compatible, easy going and flexible being someoneâs assistant, this is the right job for you. Taking care of our own selves can be tough so get used to being dictated by someone else for this job. I was paid $180 to compete all these tasks by the end of the next day. Very manageable.
Unlike other activities, the beauty of these is that you can do them whenever you are flexible and set your own time commitment. I tend to limit these to 5 hours per week since after that, I just wonât focus and that doesnât help anyone. These are one of the few where you can set up your time commitment. I tend to do the virtual assisting on the weekends when I can dedicate a few hours to mundane, easy tasks.
The internet is your oyster when it comes to the multitude of opportunities presented for you. Everyone has an equal chance. They could care less where I went to HS or that Iâm a college student. These clients just want the work done!
Yes, you have to have some experience and basic knowledge, especially for IT positions, but anything is able to be learned with a little patience and excitement. Most if not all of these 4 side hustles involve skills you already know. From writing to making a to-do list, unless you are below the age of 5, there is no reason for you not to get involved!
Time is of the essence. If you really want something, you can always make the time plus if youâre feeling a little bored like I am these days, take on new new activities. If these donât appeal to you, feel free to take on dog walking or Uber driving, with caution due to the pandemic of course. The world can seem bombarding and the last thing you want to do is look at a screen again, but this is also a great way for you to experiment with this time you wonât be able to get back.
So what are you waiting for?
What are you up to next?
Someone needs your help!