It is it just me or is everyone really getting into the side hustle game lately? I actually think I am late to the game for learning about side hustling. For those of you who don’t know what a side hustle is, it’s basically just a way to make extra cash that differs from your main source of income. I honestly love the idea of side hustling. Entrepreneurs, go-getters and people with a lot of drive seem to be the one’s side hustling. Now that sounds a lot like me and its about time I get in the game.
My sources of income are currently my day job income, rental property income and the very little blog income I make from Cash Flow Diaries. The blog and rentals are technically side hustles but they have become such an integral part of my life that I don’t really consider them side hustles. I have mentioned in earlier posts that this year will be challenging for my finances because I have a wedding and a honeymoon that I will need to contribute funds to. I still don’t know exactly how I much I am going to have to fork over for this but it concerns me in that it will prevent me from growing my rental property empire at the fast pace I have had so far. If you did not read my last post, you will want to make sure to read it as it has been a big hit for me. The article was on How I Purchase Four Rental Properties in Ten Months and the engagement I have received from that post has been tremendous.
So with that being said, in order to keep up with this growth and at this fast of a pace, I need to be making more money. That is the bottom line, I need more money so that I can afford more rental properties. The cash I need is to pay the 25% down payments that I am having to pay on my new rental acquisitions. How will I earn more money this year? That is the key question and the only answer to that is to side hustle!! I have spent numerous hours reading up on various side hustles and all kinds of ways to earn additional income. Nick Loper has a blog dedicated to just side hustling which is great called Side Hustle Nation. J Money over at Budgets Are Sexy has a whole page with over 60 ways to make extra money. We live in a world that is up for grabs and if we really want to make money, we can!! It just takes drive, perseverance and determination.
The past few weeks I have done extensive research on the side hustles that interest me and the ones that I think I can actually do and succeed with. My plan is to conquer each one of these side hustles and add them as sources of income for me. To be successful though, I have to put in 100% effort. I don’t want to half-ass any of these. If I am going to do them, then I need to do them right! Below are the side hustles I plan on pursuing to earn extra money to help pay for my future rental properties.
How To Side Hustle To Buy More Rental Properties
1) Amazon FBA/Private Label
- In a nutshell, this consists of buying merchandise/products in bulk from a manufacturer, printing your own logo/label on it, sending to an amazon fulfillment center, and selling these items as Amazon Prime products. There are people making ten’s of thousands per month by doing this. This by far I think is the best strategy for side hustling for me and it is the one I am concentrating on right now. I am literally in the process right now of setting this up although I am in the super early stages. I have done extensive research and am going in full throttle. It will take another couple of months before I have a product ready and being sold on Amazon but I am very excited about the opportunity I have here to make extra income. If you are interested in doing this, I highly recommend you start with this free e-book on amazon called Amazon Selling Blueprint – How to Find and Launch Your First Private-Label Product on Amazon in 90 Days or Less
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2) Create an eBook
- Creating an e-book and selling it on your own site or even through amazon is a great source of income. The catch here is that it needs to be a good book with good content. It’s not easy coming up with the material to create a successful book. I have been thinking about doing this for months now but just haven’t learned enough about starting this and making it sure it is done correctly from the beginning. My goal is to release an e-book of my own sometime this year.
3) Coaching/Mentoring/Consulting
- I have noticed more and more that most bloggers out there offer this kind of service to their readers and if the value is there, this can be a great way to earn extra money. I actually just implemented this a few weeks ago and have already had 2 sign ups. The key here is to provide good value and information at a good price. Before I even made this official, I have had numerous people already ask me for this service which is a great feeling. So for now, I will continue offering my consulting for helping newbies acquire their first turnkey rental property. I have listed all the information and packages for this on my contact me page. I don’t think I can earn a lot by doing this but if its something I can do while I’m at my day job then its a no brainer to do this. Its extra income!
4) Teespring – designing and selling your own t-shirts
- I don’t know about you but I am huge T-Shirt person. That is all I wear and I have a million t-shirts. I just love them and since I was a teenager, I have always wanted to create and sell my own t-shirts. Teespring is a place where you can do just this and they provide the means to do all this. All you really have to do is come up with a super cool design and advertise. I recently discovered about this side hustle from Mateen over at AFFEngineer. He blogs about how he makes money doing just this and he has been succesful at it. I don’t think this is easy by any means and you have to be super creative to come up with a design that will sell to the masses. I am very intrigued by doing this and think I might make a few trial runs with it later this year.
5) Create an online course via Udemy
- It seems these days, anyone can become an instructor and make extra money teaching others how to do something. I really like the idea of Udemy as it provides the medium to do just that. Anyone can literally create their own set of “how to” videos and sell them via Udemy. The catch of course is having the right material and demand for whatever knowledge you want to put out there. I am very interested in doing this as well but just need to figure out what kind of course I could create.
Those are just 5 of literally hundreds of ideas to make extra money. Side hustling is taking over the world and I am not lying when I say that I would rather just side hustle my way to financial freedom as opposed to working a 9 to 5 type job. My plan is to side hustle my way to financial freedom by using the side hustle money to buy more cash flowing rental properties. At the end of the day, it will be my rental properties that make me financially free and the side hustles are going to help reach that goal faster.
What about you? Do you side hustle? What kind of side hustles do you do or which ones are you interested in?
Greetings Alexander. Side hustles provide additional capital for our investments, and can help turbo charge our journey to early retirement. From my own experience, be careful not to work too hard and burn out! I do some freelance writing, my wife works a few hours a week at our church, and I put together a lucrative real estate deal every year or two. Each provides a few bucks that goes straight into our investment portfolio
-Bryan
Hi Bryan!
That is great you are utilizing side hustles to fund your investments. Exactly what I want to do!! You know it’s funny you mention getting burned out, the last 2 weeks I have been on a non stop binge learning up on some of this stuff and my brain hurts know because of it!
The good news is that for most of these side hustles, the most effort is put in at the beginning. After its all setup, its pretty passive.
My side hustle…UBER DRIVING! It’s easy & you get to ‘work’ whenever you feel like it. Of course, I guess this depends on whether or not this is available & feasible in your market.
Oh man! UBER is huge here in Austin where I live. Great suggestion! This is a great side hustle to do for more income.
Thanks Justin!
This is my side hustle as well. I drive for Uber and Lyft in Los Angeles. In fact, this is what put me on the path to real estate investing. I was a little bored with just my day job and gave it a try. Then I started wondering what else I can do on the side, and driving a lot led me to audio books/podcasts and then REI. Ubering allows me to get really familiar with the neighborhoods of my local market. I ask my passengers how they like their neighborhood and what’s happening there. I sometimes meet people involved in real estate, too!
Holy Cow! That is a really great idea Vanessa. I can see how that really plays into your advantage. Good thinking!!
Using Amazon as a business platform has always been interesting to me – whether it’s retail arbitrage, buying wholesale on Alibaba and selling retail, or just clearing out your used stuff. The trick is in finding something lucrative that gives you a decent return on your time and $ invested.
I definitely prefer Amazon’s financial terms to eBay’s every increasing fees.
I am really excited about using Amazon to make money. I think this could be huge for me. I need to make sure I do it correctly though. There is a lot to this and I am trying to learn as much as I can right now before I jump in head first. I like the idea of amazon a lot more than ebay because amazon ships everything for you. I dont want to have to deal with any of that.
Hey man these are all some very timely hustles now a days. It takes a bit of time in the beginning to set up but it should get easier with time. We all want side hustle income but how much effort are we willing to give each hustle is the conundrum. Good luck with the wedding, you can always post pone the honeymoon and then go after you buy the 5th or 6th rental. HAHA lets see if she agrees.
Honestly, I lost count on the amount of hours I have spent already just in the last few weeks just trying to learn how to do some of this. I cant imagine how much time it will take once I start taking action. It will be a lot to setup but like you said, once its set, the money should be rolling in!
Thanks so much on! Ha, Im pretty sure the wedding would be cancelled if I told her the honey moon is off. 🙂 J/K. To be honest, I really want to get the honeymoon out of the way because after that I can really concentrate again on building my finances.
I am going through a similar experience: wedding + honeymoon expenses have put more properties on pause for at least the next 6 months. I’ve come to peace with prioritizing spending on this one time expense, but then will get back to buying more rentals.
Wow yes you and I are on the same path for sure. Congrats on the wedding!! I think I might be able to squeeze one rental purchase before the wedding but we’ll see.
I might too because I’m going to do a cash out refi on my first property. It takes a little more savings bc I’m also shooting for properties at a slightly higher price point (~$90k) in hopes of less headaches with the tenants and to deploy more $ at once. Then I might do some lower price properties for properties 5-10.
I really like the idea of selling online courses. What kind of topics do well, do you have an idea? I actually plan to make a book out of my top blog posts some day, but I have to figure out a theme for the topic first. Right now, I’m sort of all over the place. Really glad your blog is doing to well, btw!
Hi Fehmeen,
From what I can tell, any course that can teach someone to make money is good. And of course there are a million ways to make money. I think you yourself have to go through the process and once you become successful at it, then you can sell an ebook about how you did it.
Thanks so much, I really appreciate that!
It’s great that you are tackling all these hustles with all the motivation. I’m impressed.
I do have heard/read people making a good profit from Amazon FBA, especially when combined with getting cheap goods from China(e.g. from alibaba) but sells at a high margin at Amazon. I’m tempted also, but my big issue is procrastination.
Good luck with all these hustles!
Hey Charlie,
Thanks man! Yeah I really like what I have been reading about the amazon FBA thing but it comes with its risks for sure. If you pick the wrong product you are screwing yourself and some of these suppliers in china are difficult to work/communicate with. Im going all in though! I think I can do this successfully. Let me know if you end up jumping in.
I ran into the same idea as well, I chose to go down the FBA path but buying from the big box stores vs your plan of private label and its been very flexible for me to generate some side income. It has changed a little in the last few months but still can be lucrative from what I see from other bloggers. Best of luck Alex.
So you are doing retail arbitrage? I have read about that and it seems like a good thing to do. Im glad to hear its working out for you. I really think if done properly, this side amazon business can be very lucrative. I am excited to see how I progress.
Thanks a lot!
I do online arbitrage. I used to do retail and while the returns were much higher due to clearances. I find that online was easier to scale. I have considered doing white label, but its not my cup of tea and this works better for me.
That sounds way better! I never really read much about online arbitrage but the idea of it sounds amazing. That is awesome its working for you!
Yeah let me know if you have question about the Amazon side. I can’t help you too much on the white label end.
Bryan, great post! I currently have a rental property and would love to buy more. Side hustling is the perect way to do that! I have 3 courses on Udemy and am also looking to wrote an ebook. I also offer 1on1 services for Pinterest. Hoping to use the earnings to invest!
Thanks Rachyl! I love side hustling!! Sounds like you are right on track! Congrats.