Side Hustle Your Way To Financial Freedom
Hi!
Todays post will hopefully help inspire you to take the steps towards financial freedom! Our goal is to show you that there are a few key things that you MUST do if you want to escape your 9-5 job and reclaim your freedom.
Maybe you love your job, however, 70% of Americans HATE their job! We recently wrote a well received article about why jobs make no sense and why you are much better working for profits rather than for a wage.
As regular readers know, my wife Maleah and I have been financially independent for the last few years. Much of our income and savings are a result of earning money online on our various blogs, websites, side hustles and investments.
We started these side hustles back in 2014 but now they make us a nice full-time income.
I remember very clearly the moment when we said to each other, if we could just make $50 extra every month, then that would be a start.
At the time, $50 extra from affiliate marketing seemed like a huge goal – but 4 years later we regularly make 200 times this amount!
The journey to get to this point has been very hard work but worth every single second. Leaving the ‘safe’ world of regular employment has allowed us to live wherever we like and live life on our terms again. Looking back, it is hard to believe how we did it though.
In this post you will find some of the key thought processes and actions that we believe have played a crucial role in our ‘success’ so far.
We hope that you can use some of the tips below to help you make a full-time income from your side hustle. If you are looking to start a side hustle to make some extra money, check out some of these articles:
7 Things That I have Learned Since Becoming A Full Time Blogger
13 Ways To Make An Extra $500 Today
The 5 Easiest Ways To Make $100 in Under 7 Days
10 Great Ways To Make $100 in Under 7 Days
5+ Clever Passive Income Ideas That Will Change Your Life
Disclosure: Please note that some of the links on this page are affiliate links. This means that we may earn a commission, at no cost to you, if you decide to make a purchase after clicking through the link. Please understand that we have experienced all of these companies, and we recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions that we receive if you decide to buy something through our links. Please do not spend any money on these products unless you feel you need them or that they will help you achieve your goals.
LEARN HOW TO WIN 90% OF YOU TRADES IN 90 SECONDS!
>>CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE! <<
Bullseye Trades: Best Alerts Service
Every Monday at the market open, Jeff sends you his weekly Bullseye Trade.
2022 has been AMAZING for these Bullseye Trades!
(+50% to 300% per week in my experience)
SIDENOTE! INVESTING DIVA!
How To Make A Full-Time Income With Your Side Hustle
Here are some of the tips we have if you want to make the leap and leave your full-time job to work on your side hustle as a full-time gig. This is often the goal for people starting a side hustle. It can be done but you find leaving your full-time job more difficult than you thought.
Russell snorkeling in Palm Beach in March 2018. Florida is a fantastic place to live!
Have A Cash Reserve For Emergencies
Our advice is to have as much in cash savings as possible before leaving your day job to pursue your side hustles full-time. The reason is that this self-employed adventure can be very fiscally unstable.
That is just a fancy way to say that some months you might make $10,000 and other months you might only make $3,000 (Check out our online income reports if you think that we are exaggerating about the lack of stability!)
It REALLY helps to have a few months in cash savings to help smooth out the ride. Working for yourself is very hard and it helps to have the piece of mind that you will be OK if you have a bad month.
We like to have a minimum of 15 months of living expenses in savings at all times. Having these funds available for investing in new ventures and to ensure minimum stress is crucial (in my opinion) to actually enjoying life as an entrepreneur.
Self-employment Expenses
When you are self-employed you have to pay for your own health insurance. This is expensive – our health insurance is basically a mortgage payment. It is worth remembering that most jobs will pay half of your health insurance for you, but when you are self-employed you pay all of it. You will also need to pay self-employment tax with estimated quarterly tax payments sent to the IRS.
LEARN HOW TO WIN 90% OF YOU TRADES IN 90 SECONDS!
>>CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE! <<
Bullseye Trades: Best Alerts Service
Every Monday at the market open, Jeff sends you his weekly Bullseye Trade.
2022 has been AMAZING for these Bullseye Trades!
(+50% to 300% per week in my experience)
Don’t Rush To Leave Your Job
Before you leave your job, figure out exactly how much you need every month to be comfortable. Then add 50%. That is what you will need to make in order to succeed when you leave your job.
Remember, your employer likely pays part of your health insurance. These days health insurance is very EXPENSIVE. When you are self-employed you have to pay for the whole amount – which can easily be more than rent or a mortgage! A medium level health insurance plan that we have for the two of us combined in Florida is currently $1,250 per month.
We recommend building your side hustle income up over many years before leaving your job. This may not be what you want to hear but it is better to minimize the risk before making the leap.
Also, the longer you stay at your job, the more of your side hustle earnings can be re-invested into the business rather than used for everyday living expenses.
Diversify Your Income Sources
Before we quit our jobs, we made sure that we were not reliant on just one source of income. It is important to make sure that if one of your online sources of income is ‘shut-off’ then you don’t go broke.
We make money from multiple websites with very diversified streams of income and we also have offline income streams like real-estate and a technology business.
Questions to ask yourself:
- If my main income stream vanished over night could I continue?
- Could I return to my job or find a new one quickly if I had to?
- Is my main side hustle sustainable and scalable over the long-term?
Be Prepared To Work Harder Than Ever Before
Honestly, sometimes I wonder why we work so hard to make a decent online income. We would probably be better off working conventional jobs. The reason that we do is that the future earnings are potentially unlimited with our online businesses.
From our experience, you will likely have to work twice as hard to make even a meager living with a side hustle than a ‘real’ conventional job. This is hard to swallow! You really have to love what you do and have the faith that one day it will pay off. It is not unusual for us to work 100+ hours a week on our businesses.
LEARN HOW TO WIN 90% OF YOU TRADES IN 90 SECONDS!
>>CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE! <<
Bullseye Trades: Best Alerts Service
Every Monday at the market open, Jeff sends you his weekly Bullseye Trade.
2022 has been AMAZING for these Bullseye Trades!
(+50% to 300% per week in my experience)
Partner Support
Before going full-time on a business or side hustle, you and your significant other need to have ‘the talk’. This will only work if you are both 100% committed to making it as a self-employed family. A lot of thought has to go into it. Do you have debt? Kids? Can you handle the extra stress that this life path will put on you as a couple?
Luckily for us, we both are 100% committed to this path.
Location
Where you live can be a big factor that could make or break the decision to leave your full-time job. Living in a low-cost area is essential if you want to be able to grow your business as fast as possible.
We actually moved to Florida for this reason from California because doing so saves us so much money in housing costs and income taxes.
Florida is a low-cost state for housing etc. and it is also an income tax-free state! Our advice is to leave high cost of living and high income tax states like California, if possible.
As an entrepreneur you have a target on your back in California – they will take every penny in tax. We learned this the hard way!
Here is a good article that I found about the top states to live for entrepreneurs.
Conclusions – How To Make A Full-Time Income With Your Side Hustle
Making a full-time living without having a ‘real’ job is totally possible. It just takes a good plan, hard work and a little bit of faith that things will work out. But don’t under-estimate how hard it can be to get momentum and succeed as a self-employed entrepreneur.
Are you considering making the leap to being 100% self-employed? Do you have any tips to share if you have made this move already?
Russell and Maleah
P.S If you want to learn how to start a blog or website that makes money, be sure to check out our easy to follow step-by-step guide on how to setup a WordPress site hosted by Bluehost. You can get started for just $2.95 per month and make literally thousands of dollars extra by blogging about your passion!
Related Articles:
6 Highest Paid Work From Home Jobs
These 10 Side Hustles Could Skyrocket Your Income
10 Great Ways To Make Extra Money On The Side
A Side Hustle often morphs into a full-time hustle!
