In order to protect yourself financially, it makes sense to create multiple income streams. These sources of income can potentially generate plenty of money when they’re doing well, but also gives you something to fall back on if something happens to your main source of income.
Even if your full time job seems secure, none of us know what the future holds. While it’s important to have an emergency savings account, having a continual source of income will be much more beneficial for you.
Thankfully, in today’s economy, it’s possible to earn money without even needing to leave the house, making things completely hassle free. The following are SMART ways to make extra cash as a side hustle.
Blogging
Blogging has become of the most common side hustles to have. You can write about what you are passionate about, hobbies you are pursuing, and other things that interest you.
Blogging helps you to find your ‘voice’ as a writer and be a creative outlet for you. The key is to write interesting, valuable, and shareable content that will benefit other people. You can use an email service to collect emails, then send out newsletters to your readers.
Once you build a loyal fan base, you can sell ebooks, consulting services, or other products that your readers will want. If you are able to gain a solid reputation as a blogger, advertisers and sponsors may contact you to advertise on your site.
You can use google ads or other advertising platforms such as affiliate links to bring in income. It takes time to build up a blog that earns money, but blogging can be lucrative, and is a fun and relatively easy way to turn a hobby into a great source of income.
Freelancing
While blogging will take time to develop into a continual source of income, you can make money immediately by offering freelance services. You can offer your services through a blog or website that you setup, or a freelancing platform.
A freelancing site either can connect you to those that need your services, or give you the opportunity to bid on projects. Freelancing is perfect it you are a writer, web designer, app designer or a graphic designer who can create logos and other marketing documents for companies.
Another benefit of freelancing is that you can set your own schedule, your prices, and your own location. You can choose the products and companies you want to work with. If you want to take a break, or work more to bring in more income in one time period, then you have the flexibility to do so.
Running a Home Business
You can google and find hundreds of home business ideas that you can start. You could buy and sell items for a profit, or you could outsource lots of different projects, essentially running a larger company from your home.
You could even turn a hobby into a business by selling crafts you’ve made. You could monetize your skills too, for example, if you’re an artist you could take commissions or sell pieces you’ve created. You could make your art into prints or greetings cards. If you’re a baker you could bake custom cakes to order for celebrations, or you could hold classes or tutor small groups on a certain skill you have.
You could even teach these skills via video chat apps like Skype or other web-conference software programs. Whatever you choose to do, the key is to effectively market your services. Once you have your website setup, ensure that you use SEO techniques to rank high in Google searches or hire a marketing agency to do this for you.
Having many streams of income makes good and SMART financial sense. Given that some will take time to develop, the best time to get started is now! In time, you could eventually have lots of fun, easy ways to generate extra cash. Click here to find resources to help you get started!