Supplemental Income/Side Hustles

[Jjones-stevens_2020]

Hi All!

Wanted to start a thread to hear thoughts/ideas on secondary income and the steps you took to feel financially fit. I’m debating getting my real estate license for supplemental income, but wanted to hear if anyone else had ideas. I interned with an individual in Colorado in college in 2018 who has his own team and he is originally from Indiana (where I live currently).

He would love for me to move out to Colorado, but I’m not comfortable making that jump as I love the work I do currently, and don’t want to sacrifice focus with my current job. Therefore, he offered for me to get licensed here in Indiana to help me gain some supplemental income. Goal is roughly 15-20k/year in extra income to help with putting what I learned from my Econ degree to work. I currently cannot max 401k contributions. I contribute 6% of my salary, which is the company match, but I would love to start saving for investment properties, get ahead on student loan payments, etc. I simply don’t have the disposable income now to really feel confident in our future. I know the money will come eventually at my current company, but after all bills/expenses I only have around 1k left per month.

All this to say, my question is does anyone have any experience getting into the real estate business on the side? From my internship experience and spending time with who would be my team leader, I am hesitant to believe I’d have the time to dedicate to this to be successful. Current job is WFH, and I work 8-5, and am not confident I could be successful without going all in. I’m also open to other ideas as well beyond real estate.

I’m sharing some background below to share a bit about our situation to see if anyone else has been in a similar situation.

Quick Background:
- Graduated from undergrad May of 2020 and started my first “real” job with a Pharma company July of 2020 (interned with them in college and accepted an offer prior to my senior year of college).
- I’m in the marketing department and while the pay is “good” (considering benefits too) after almost 2-years my base salary has not increased as much as I would have hoped. Not due to performance, but because of how compensation increases are determined (must be in a role for at least 2-years for promotion eligibility).
- Current salary is 64k with an additional yearly bonus dependent on company performance.
- Purchased first home October of 2020 @ 2.75, original value of 270K and latest appraisal was 356K. Current loan amount is 240K. I share this as to why I don’t want to uproot us and move. We love the location and I work from home. I would for this to be a rental property once we have the funds to build and with the price of homes we feel like this property was a true blessing and need to stay where we are. Depending on future rates/home prices and after my S/O has a full-time job after finishing school, I plan to leverage this equity to purchase a rental. But that is at least 2-years down the road and I want to start saving and investing more now.

Thank you all in advance for sharing your stories, advice, and thoughts.

 

[sunbyrned]

My wife, a former pre-school teacher, got out of that career during Covid and went into real estate. Being new, her goal was to recover her salary from the pre-school salary. She did that by selling one house and went on to sell ten houses that year. She is juggling ten currently into the second quarter of this year. Unbelievable! However, I don’t know that she would call it a side hustle. She says it’s exhausting. There’s a lot to it than just selling or representing. She also may have gotten into at the right time. Who knows what the future house market will be like though.

 

[Jjones-stevens_2020]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. That is exactly my concern. I do not see real estate as an easy buck at all, and don’t want to dedicate my time to get licensed, to only let clients down when I can’t fully represent a client to the extent they deserve because of my 8-5. I spent 4 years of my college career managing a restaurant and customer service/helping others is something I take deep pride in and don’t want to be a “half @$$” agent who can’t deliver the experience a home buyer/seller deserves.

 

[Jim_in_Delaware]

Personally, I wouldn't hire a realtor who works a fulltime job and does real estate as a side hustle. My expectation is that my realtor gives me 100% to get the job done. Our last realtor (and current neighbor) works part-time, but he is a retired engineer, who is extremely knowledgeable and works with a limited amount of clients. Since he does not have another full-time job, he was available to us, as needed.

Regarding uprooting and moving, you definitely will have a higher interest rate on a new mortgage. We locked in our 30-year mortgage rate 5 weeks ago (settled last Friday) at 4.125%. I believe current 30-year rates are at/near 5%.

Jim

 

[sunbyrned]

Something else to consider is that you’re young and have a good thing going. Once you start building your salary with side hustle stuff, you may never want to let it go. Maybe just let the career unfold and enjoy life while you can. If you can manage one extra house payment a year, you’re looking at not having a mortgage payment in 20 years. Maybe just consider a side hustle that allows for that.

 

[Jjones-stevens_2020]

Very fair response and that thought is one I’ve struggled with. I worked 30-hours/week in college missing a good amount of social activities and told myself work/life balance would always be a priority moving forward. But after being with my S/O now for over 8-years and living together for the last 3.5 years, I am struggling being content with where we are. She’s a full-time student and runs her family furniture stores’ social media accounts so she’s able to fully pay for our groceries, her car, etc. We are pretty certain we want to have kids, and I want to ensure we never have to feel the financial stress our single mothers felt and inevitability made us feel growing up. Not looking to drive the latest car or have the biggest home, just want to be able to prep for our future family and give back to others.

 

[Crob83]

I take it you are

Hi All!

Wanted to start a thread to hear thoughts/ideas on secondary income and the steps you took to feel financially fit. I’m debating getting my real estate license for supplemental income, but wanted to hear if anyone else had ideas. I interned with an individual in Colorado in college in 2018 who has his own team and he is originally from Indiana (where I live currently).

He would love for me to move out to Colorado, but I’m not comfortable making that jump until my S/O graduates from college and explores her opportunity here. Therefore, he offered for me to get licensed here in Indiana to help me gain some supplemental income. Goal is roughly 15-20k/year in extra income to help with putting what I learned from my Econ degree to work. I currently cannot max 401k contributions. I contribute 6% of my salary, which is the company match, but I would love to start saving for investment properties, get ahead on student loan payments, etc. I simply don’t have the disposable income now to really feel confident in our future. I know the money will come eventually at my current company, but after all bills/expenses I only have around 1k left per month.

All this to say, my question is does anyone have any experience getting into the real estate business on the side? From my internship experience and spending time with who would be my team leader, I am hesitant to believe I’d have the time to dedicate to this to be successful. Current job is WFH, and I work 8-5, and am not confident I could be successful without going all in. I’m also open to other ideas as well beyond real estate.

I’m sharing some background below to share a bit about our situation to see if anyone else has been in a similar situation.

Quick Background:
- Graduated from undergrad May of 2020 and started my first “real” job with a Pharma company July of 2020 (interned with them in college and accepted an offer prior to my senior year of college).
- I’m in the marketing department and while the pay is “good” (considering benefits too) after almost 2-years my base salary has not increased as much as I would have hoped. Not due to performance, but because of how compensation increases are determined (must be in a role for at least 2-years for promotion eligibility).
- Current salary is 64k with an additional yearly bonus dependent on company performance.
- Purchased first home October of 2020 @ 2.75, original value of 270K and latest appraisal was 356K. Current loan amount is 240K. I share this as to why I don’t want to uproot us and move. We love the location and I work from home. I would for this to be a rental property once we have the funds to build and with the price of homes we feel like this property was a true blessing and need to stay where we are. Depending on future rates/home prices and after my S/O has a full-time job after finishing school, I plan to leverage this equity to purchase a rental. But that is at least 2-years down the road and I want to start saving and investing more now.

Thank you all in advance for sharing your stories, advice, and thoughts.

I take it you are young, and I also take it you work at Lilly? If that is the case, I would just say to stay patient. Been there for over a decade and I have more than doubled my salary since I started

 

[Jjones-stevens_2020]

Thank you all for the words of wisdom!

 

[sunbyrned]

I started doing a side thing driving for a bourbon distillery tour company. I wanted to make up for the 9k cut I took from work. Although I made up the difference, we decided the trade off was not worth it. I was gone on the weekends and my wife had to take care of the dogs and everything else all day while working her real estate thing. Plus, we lost out on a lot of boating days. So, if you do find a side job that does what you need it to do financially, look at the trade offs too.
Check out Dave Ramsey’s book Financial Peace. A great strategy on how to manage finances and become independently wealthy, regardless of your salary or situation.

 

[AZMark]

You're too young to settle for a little extra money from a side hustle. Build a career and hopefully give yourself the financial flexibility to do whatever side stuff you want, if you want, in the future.

You have an econ degree (me too) which implies you're fairly intelligent and/or can work hard. I'm not sure why your degree/career are mismatched, but in any event you should focus on one primary career, whether that's marketing or real estate or something else more economics or business/finance focused.

Maybe its where you live or maybe I'm out of touch, but your salary seems kind of low these days for someone with a degree like yours. If you really love your job then talk to your bosses or higher up people in your division or comparable companies that can give you some insight into the growth trajectory you can expect for your salary if you stay on that career path and perform.

Last thought is that there are probably a few million people thinking the same thing as you about being a real estate agent for quick money. Seems like it's always been that way here in Phoenix and I think Colorado is similar post covid. That may become a very crowded market when housing sales trend back to normal and like others have said, agents doing it as a side job probably aren't going to be most peoples' first choice.

 

[HangOutdoors]

I would be wary of the Real Estate Market. Homes cannot continue to appreciate in a lot of areas like they have been. A lot of home owners have low rates now. Interest rates are going up and they will continue for quite some time on Mortgages. Also, if we go into a full recession values could drop and equity in homes can dissolve. Country is over spending and printing money it cannot back. All the writing is on the wall for a major and possible painful correction, especially in housing.

I would suggest grooming out your primary career into something that you enjoy and can with stand the volatility. For instance I am in Information Technology. Always a demand, regardless of where the economy goes.

 

[Ronnie]

I’m in the process of selling my current home And buying a new (to me) one. I agree with the comment that I would not feel comfortable doing either with a rookie or a part time agent. That aside I got my license decades ago with the goal of facilitating refinances in the late 90s. It was a cut throat, feast or famine business. Almost all my coworkers leased their nice cars instead of buy them. A few years ago one of my peers quit her job to become a real estate agent full time. It took her a over a year to get established and she says it’s exhausting, a lot of poaching of clients goes on after the first agent does the heavy lifting. As an agent you will have to show homes and meet clients usually on their schedule. If my agents said they could not meet me or show me homes until after 5p they would not be my agents for long.

if you just want a little extra income without having to earn another degree or learn a new trade I think you should look into being an Dior dash driver. It’s a contractor position so you have to save some of the income to pay Uncle Sam but you choose your own hours and service location. My son has been with door dash for almost two years now and made $12k last year. Normally he only worked the dinner shift (5 to 8 or 9) four nights a week, sometimes he would work lunch and dinner on Sunday. They pay a minimum rate based on the service area so if you don’t make it on deliveries they pay the difference and all tips are passed through to the driver, not used to make up the delta between actual and minimum hourly. Also all related car expenses are deductible. Mileage reimbursement is about $0.50 per mile.

I forgot to mention my sons average hourly wage from door dash is about $25 per hour but he has made $50 plus occasionally as well. I was thinking about applying on line like my son did (he was hired the day after he completed the online application and has only spoken to one full time employee of door dash since being hired.

 

[2kwik4u]

I have zero experience in real estate, aside from buying a condo and a home. I used a friend that was an agent and it all just kinda worked. No advice there.

I do, however, have a ton of experience with side hustles.

The thing you need to understand is that you are trading time and energy for money. You need to make sure that trade is worth it. I'll tell you 99% of the time it's NOT. My wife has done about 101 different MLM starts. She's also tried her own side business about 6 times in 15years. It's ALWAYS a ton of work for questionable gains. I've done everything from CAD drafting at night, to Uber driving, to delivering pizza, to building PC's to building decks and cutting grass. It's a trade. It's ALWAYS a trade. I lost time with kids, wife, family, friends, and others. I lost equity in equipment (cars, tools, etc). There are a number of things that I missed that I wish I wouldn't have.

With that said, a few times it was necessary. I drove Uber in 2019 for about 6 mo. I was trading my time, and my equity in my truck for cashflow. I needed to keep the lights on, the heat on, and the checking account balance in the black. We had a shade over 120k of income that year total, but never had a balance in the checking account of more than $500 for longer than about 2 days. A poor job choice, and poor life decisions from the past catching up with us, and some other drama elsewhere had us on tilt. The side hustles have saved my ass, or paid for toys, or bought equipment a few times over. They have their place. IMO, that place is an emergency stop gap measure, not a way of life.

The most successful people with side hustles that I have seen, have embraced passive income mentality. Find a way to generate cashflow that isn't tied to actions or time investments. Things like royalties, leases, and licensing. Take something you can do or have, and find a way to make it generate income without taking away your most precious resource: time. Rental properties are good at this if chosen well, and managed by others. Book sales if you're a writer. Licensing fees on patents if you're an inventor. Dividend stocks if you're an investor. YouTube royalties if you're a blogger. Things like that where you create a thing, and that thing returns your investment more than once without a huge time suck to keep it moving. Building decks, delivering pizza, drawing buildings.....Those are time intensive, and single use products. They only make you money once.

All of this goes double if you have a good career ahead of you. The easiest way to make more money is to move companies, expand your credentials, or take a promotion. Once you start down that path, you'll find that the money will take care of itself. Keep in mind this moves at, what feels like to me, a glacial pace. I have 20+ yrs professional experience now, and I STILL want positions and changes to move faster than they do. Take a breath, look long term, and start planning. Once you have a plan and a goal, make sure every move you make is in service to that goal. Takes awhile, but once you lock down that premise, the "side hustles" will begin to look like the time sucks that they are.

good luck!

 

[Ronnie]

@2kwik4u , great points. I went on a door dash shift with my son and considered doing a few shifts a week but ultimately decided against it because it would keep me working and away from home between 5 and 8 or 9 on most weekdays. This is usually when I spend time with my wife and even at $25 to $50 per hour (gross income) it would not be worth it too me. I’m sure I would be a lot more tired as well.

side note: I’ve looked into making money by posting videos and found that those successful at it spend more than 40 hours a week creating new content. It’s not easy to get thousands or millions of views and if you don’t own the background music used in your videos you can’t monetize them, at least not on you tube.

another thing to consider is limiting additional income if you are already close to the top of your tax bracket. The more you make the greater percentage Uncle Sam takes. my “quasi father” best friend’s dad (an executive at chevron) told his wife to quit her teaching job because her salary would bump them into the next highest tax bracket. She declined and they made/kept less money for a few years afterwards. He chalked the losses up to “happy wife, happy life” plus he knew if she stayed home all day she would end up spending money and also go stir crazy as well as drive him nuts talking to him when he got home from work.

 

[Murf'n'surf]

The kind of side hustle you want (and we all want) is one that makes you money while you sleep. Not easy to get but they are out there. Put some of that extra cash into an investment property to rent.

 

[adrianp89]

Build your side hustle into something that helps you retire early, while also building your career. Let's be real here, you are not going to get rich building a career. Can you get comfortable sure.... but at best whats your max.. 150-200k a year? If you a super lucky and hard working and brown nose maybe work into a 500k+ job in your 50s or later. Find a way to build generational wealth. Increase your income, mainting or reduce current spending. Re-invest side hustle income.

What are you good at? What assets do you have to currently have that can make you money?

If you plan on staying on your house, take out 80k and buy an AirBNB home. In the right area you can net 30k+/year profit off that home. Keep buying more rentals. In ten years you could be making 300k alone off rentals. In 20 years a million a year. Like I said find what you want to do and what works for you - this is America the sky is the limit.

As far as career, as someone else said, move companies around every two years. Pretty easy way to get a 20k raise.

 

[Ronnie]

Some guys have made decent money (as in $100+ per hour or $1k+ per day) renting their boats and / or pwcs out. I rent an RV for a weekend almost every year. Typical cost including delivery, set up and pick up is $750. Not bad for renting out something you are not using yourself that weekend. The default alternative is to let it sit in storage.

 

[Select Friends]

My 8-5 job turned into a WFH position due to covid and I found my self with a lot of extra time. I thought about doing something similar but found that nothing seemed worth the time and commitment. I did find that a dollar saved is a dollar earned. I first went through my budget and canceled any old or under used subscriptions. I also started to do a lot more DIY stuff with my new found time (fixed a washer / fridge / hot water heater) all with simple youtube videos instead of calling a professional. Other simple stuff like meal prepping and finding good deals at the grocery store also add up. Not saying its going to turn into an extra 20k a year but I think I am saving an extra couple hundred bucks a month at pretty low effort.

 

[BigN8]

I have zero experience in real estate, aside from buying a condo and a home. I used a friend that was an agent and it all just kinda worked. No advice there.

I do, however, have a ton of experience with side hustles.

The thing you need to understand is that you are trading time and energy for money. You need to make sure that trade is worth it. I'll tell you 99% of the time it's NOT. My wife has done about 101 different MLM starts. She's also tried her own side business about 6 times in 15years. It's ALWAYS a ton of work for questionable gains. I've done everything from CAD drafting at night, to Uber driving, to delivering pizza, to building PC's to building decks and cutting grass. It's a trade. It's ALWAYS a trade. I lost time with kids, wife, family, friends, and others. I lost equity in equipment (cars, tools, etc). There are a number of things that I missed that I wish I wouldn't have.

With that said, a few times it was necessary. I drove Uber in 2019 for about 6 mo. I was trading my time, and my equity in my truck for cashflow. I needed to keep the lights on, the heat on, and the checking account balance in the black. We had a shade over 120k of income that year total, but never had a balance in the checking account of more than $500 for longer than about 2 days. A poor job choice, and poor life decisions from the past catching up with us, and some other drama elsewhere had us on tilt. The side hustles have saved my ass, or paid for toys, or bought equipment a few times over. They have their place. IMO, that place is an emergency stop gap measure, not a way of life.

The most successful people with side hustles that I have seen, have embraced passive income mentality. Find a way to generate cashflow that isn't tied to actions or time investments. Things like royalties, leases, and licensing. Take something you can do or have, and find a way to make it generate income without taking away your most precious resource: time. Rental properties are good at this if chosen well, and managed by others. Book sales if you're a writer. Licensing fees on patents if you're an inventor. Dividend stocks if you're an investor. YouTube royalties if you're a blogger. Things like that where you create a thing, and that thing returns your investment more than once without a huge time suck to keep it moving. Building decks, delivering pizza, drawing buildings.....Those are time intensive, and single use products. They only make you money once.

All of this goes double if you have a good career ahead of you. The easiest way to make more money is to move companies, expand your credentials, or take a promotion. Once you start down that path, you'll find that the money will take care of itself. Keep in mind this moves at, what feels like to me, a glacial pace. I have 20+ yrs professional experience now, and I STILL want positions and changes to move faster than they do. Take a breath, look long term, and start planning. Once you have a plan and a goal, make sure every move you make is in service to that goal. Takes awhile, but once you lock down that premise, the "side hustles" will begin to look like the time sucks that they are.

good luck!

What he said. Side hustle = manual labor most of the time. One of my first was bounce house rentals. I got into that around 2003-2004. Bought 6 bounce houses. I made money, but what a royal pain in the ass. Did it for a few years, then more people started doing it because of ease of entry and the market got saturated and the prices dropped. The final straw was an Easter weekend rental. I picked up the bounce house and it was filled with colored confetti, candy, candy wrappers, and they had used a house in it. Freakin trashed the damn thing. I had to fight them tooth and nail to recover a few more hundred dollars to pay for the cleaning. I sold all the bounce houses for about what I paid for them and was done. My goal was to hire a college kid to deliver them for me on the weekends. Split the fee with him. Couldn't find anyone dependable.

You could look at sports officiating. I was a football official for about 10 years. I did it because I loved football. Never for the money. But, I worked with guys that did it for the money and they would make pretty good money, especially doing peewee football on Saturdays. That's really easy money but I like golf so I never messed with it. Plus I hate parents. And peewee parents are the worst.... But I had guys on my crew that did football, baseball, volleyball, basketball. I bet those guys made $20k a year doing all that.

The job focus is where it's at. I have switched jobs within my industry just about every 6-7 years. The perspective you gain is tremendous. Since you have a marketing degree and that is your background, To be honest, if you are a fairly intelligent person that has good communication skills and is somewhat personable, I would transform your marketing job into a sales position. I'm in the commercial roofing manufacturing business. Our sales people make very good money. Company vehicles, 401k, gas card, etc. It's a sweet gig and all WFH. An entry level guy in a decent market is going to be making North of 100k his first year.
Good luck on your journey.

 

[OCMD]

Part time Real Estate is a tough row to hoe. I would never hire a part timer, based on my experience around here. A few of my bored housewives and divorced mom friends thinking "This is an easy way to make a buck." They have alot to learn. I got my license 35 years ago, just to save money when buying and selling properties, to get my friend's deals, and to have access to the MLS. These were pre-internet days and the only way to search for listings was the MLS so I had to get a license and worked a sweet commission deal with my broker pal. What you may find is that you work with a buyer for a few weeks only to have them dump you because they bought at an open house sucked too....which is what my p/t agent friends tell me all the time. "I worked with this dick for 5 weeks and then he bought through someone else!" If you are well established and can get the listings, that is the way to go as a house sells itself, at least in the DMV proper. Sit back and collect commissions. But taking folks to houses day in and day out with the highly likely chance they will end up using someone else? Not worth the effort.

Jumping on BigN8, if you want easy bucks and have a deaf ear, officiate high school and lower sports. Great exercise and easy money, just know the rules! My buds that officiate say lacrosse and volleyball are where it is at. They are paid 175 for a jv/varsity VB set, and if one team dominates you are out of there in 2 hours. And they are desperate for officials at all high school and lower levels in all sports. You can do kiddy football on a Saturday morning and put 300 cash in your pocket for 3 hours of chasing the kids around. I never did this, but I hear the parents and coaches are a real pita. Apparently, the younger the kids are? The worse the coaches and parents. If you get real good, you can move up the ranks and make some good coin. A typical Power 5 football official makes about 4500 a game which is nothing to sneeze at. But it takes years to get there and lots of verbal and other abuse and being used as you move up the ranks. I should write a book. But if you want easy cash? Officiate kiddy sports!