Evaluating Side Hustles – What Actually Makes Sense to Pursue?

The Cheesy “Side Hustle” Phrase

This won’t be a long post making fun of side hustles – but instead this post will talk through how I have evaluated various side hustles and believe most people should follow the same thought process.

To get it off my chest – I hate the label of a “side hustle.” It’s called life and everyone needs Revenue to drive their personal P/L to get where they want to go financially as I discussed here: The Framework: Your Life as. Profit and Loss Statement and Balance Sheet

Step 1: They All Work in Their Own Way

The first thing to call out on nearly every “side hustle” you may read about or see posted on social media is the fact the side hustle likely does work / does make money. You’ll likely be able to make money on these gigs if you push forward and put in the time that is needed for these various systems.

The big catch is “if you push forward and put in the time that is needed” especially for that given hustle… each one will have a different time or skill ask.

What I have learned over the years is that anything is possible but I don’t always have time for one of these side hustles or the effort is not worth the reward given my free time is less and less over years.

Step 2: Why Do I Want to Pursue a Side Hustle and What Are My Realistic Expectations?

I’ll admit it – I have struggled with this question and you likely have as well if you are reading this post. Obviously the first answer for everyone on why they would pursue a side hustle is achieving the dream of making money with no effort…. that really isn’t a side hustle and the closest you are going to get to that is an Income Portfolio: see my post here on my Income Portfolio.

For anyone who is expecting to hustle (put in work) – You likely end up with a side hustle wanting to achieve one of the following objectives:

1. Establishing a Small Amount of Sustainable Income: Making money with limited effort that you can’t achieve from a Income Portfolio or you need money to fund the growth of your Income Portfolio. This is where I am and most others are as well.

2. Trying to Stand Up a Sustainable Income to Live off of (trying to make it a primary income): Typically achieved through some sort of passion project that you hope to monetize and or something you believe you can one day turn into a full time business.

3. Part Time Income: You have spare time and you just want to generate income during that time.

Step 3: How Much Time Do You Really Have to Put into a Side Hustle?   How predictable is it?

This is probably the most important question to ask yourself as it may also feedback to how you address Step 1 and Step 2 above.

I always seem to think I have a lot of free time and I would be able to carve out a flat hour or two easily everyday…. I just don’t have as much time personally as I would like to and the time I do get is much more spotty. My younger self had ALOT more free time and looking back on it all I wish I was efficient with my time as I am today… I literally get more than twice as much work done than my younger self now a days…. I’ll speak towards that in a post later.

Ok I get it – Let’s Look at Some Side Hustles

Here are some of the ones I have looked at that I have grouped into the buckets above.

Part time hustle:

1. Uber or Lyft – Given I have kids and car seats this one is out. I have seen ALOT of retired guys/gals as well as students doing it recently. Maybe when I retire. What I like about this hustle is you can “stack it” with other hustles (be blogging while Ubering or Delivering Items as well as driving).

1. Selling stuff on eBay – I do this one often. See my post: Why You Should Always Be Selling Stuff on EBay

1. Side consulting aligned with your core profession – I did some consulting work when I was fresh out of school with an internet design company on their finances. It was good money / I set my time and hours. Not sustainable and clients are a pain in the butt.
2. Task Rabbit or any of those “find a gig” jobs – the tasks were easy but compensation was waaaay too low when I looked into this. Not doing this one.
3. Filling out surveys for pine cone research or amazon’s Mechanical Turk….. we are taking very small dollars here $3/hour or so….not worth my time. I gave it a try and this was a lot of work for nothing. Maybe if I was in India and $3/hour was good money but not for me.

• Trying to Stand Up a Sustainable Business

1. Drop Shipping is one of the fast growing side hustles that I have seen. I continue to look at this one but don’t think I can make this work without ALOT of uninterrupted time to devise a strategy… I just don’t have the time.

Oberlo.com

is one of largest one stop shops to help get going. If I was young again I would go for it.

Full time blogging with multiple sites. I think this can be done but I don’t have enough time to establish the engine that would be needed. I think this could be done very easily if you could get 5 or so committed people to go at it part time….. my friends and wife don’t have the drive.

Setting up an Etsy site and selling my wife’s successful baby clothes ideas. Not enough time for me.

House flipping / doing any one of those real estate ads you see on Facebook ads (real estate wholesaling by matching buyers and sellers of distressed properties). I think this can be done – I just don’t have the time – this is a full time job I don’t care what those ads say. I believe all the money the quote – just not the time.

Starting up an Amazon or FedEx route / buying rights to an area. After looking into this and talking to a few individuals who know others that have done it – the money is good but the hours excessive primarily from the people management part (drivers quitting or doing dumb stuff). This isn’t a business you can own and sit on the beach unless you hire someone to do everything. Not doing this one.

Flipping houses after work – BIG time commitment and a lot of financial risk. Most guys I have talked to at work only net $10k to $20k a deal and can only pull one off a year…. one turn of the market and those profits are wiped out. Not for me!

Establishing a sustainable Income but not “quit your job money”:

1. Blogging. Obvious that I am doing this one. I write most of my posts at red lights, when I have a small streak of energy, on the toilet, or right before bed when my wife and I are unwinding from the day. I don’t have good income from this yet…. optimistic I’ll get there.

1. Writing an e-book and selling it on Amazon. I know a few people have done this. I view it just as another form of blogging and less lucrative after I have looked into it – don’t think I’ll ever do it.

1. Trading Options for income (selling in the money covered puts and calls). This one is probably too sophisticated for most people given the level of risk. I’ve looked at this and concluded my yield would be close to my income portfolio but take more time….so I am not doing this one. Viable but nope!

1. Build an App and sell it. High barrier to entry and I don’t have the tech know how right now to do this. I have a few ideas that I might do in the future with my sons.
2. Affiliate Marketing driven websites for consumer goods (go to amazon.com or target.con and click become an affiliate to learn what this is). I see this as VERY hard to be successful at and would only venture into this as an offshoot of my blog or drop ship website. You have to have a lot of traffic for this to make sense. Not going for it.

• In Conclusion

• There are obviously a lot more side hustles than the above but I wanted to share my thought process on the ones I have thought through. Your Time is what you are really giving up with all of these…. I would encourage you to approach these hustles from that view point when considering for yourself.
• My primary goal is to sit on the beach and earn income and I remain convinced building up an Income Portfolio and maybe a blog or two are the easiest ways to get there. I am not convinced the blog will net me much so I see any side money I make as a way to boost my income portfolio and fill up some “bored” time.