This post is from our regular Wednesday contributor, Erin.
Here on Young Adult Money, we talk a lot about our love for side hustles. While the benefits might seem obvious to those of us who have been exposed to the idea multiple times, it might not be as evident for others.
Before I started blogging, I had never heard of the term “side hustle.” I knew a few people who did odd jobs here and there, but they didn’t go out of their way to market their services.
It was only when I stepped in the personal finance blogosphere that I realized side hustling was a legitimate thing – people were making a decent chunk of change from their side hustles on top of their regular income.
So for those of you who are new to side hustling and don’t get what the big deal is, here are 5 benefits of side hustling.
1) Side Hustles Provide an Outlet for Creativity
This might not seem like an obvious benefit at first, but it’s true.
Say you’re in a job you don’t find fulfilling (haven’t most of us been there at some point?). You put in 40 hours a week or so, go home, and relax. You repeat the same cycle over and over, but your work doesn’t exactly feel rewarding, and you start feeling indifferent about it.
Having a side hustle can provide a better outlet for your creative efforts than your job. If you’re not doing something that makes you feel happy or accomplished, then having a side hustle can give you something to look forward to.
For example, most of the full-time positions I’ve held were administrative. There wasn’t anything overly-challenging about the job, and the most creative I got was ordering different colored sticky notes.
Having my blog to focus on after work was a nice way to combine my love for writing and personal finance. Freelancing and side hustling comes with its own set of challenges and learning curves, and there’s hardly a dull moment!
2) Side Hustles Can Boost Your Confidence
I’m saying this from experience. There’s nothing quite like running your own little side business to give you a dose of confidence.
If you’ve been toiling away at work, or don’t have a manager that readily gives out praise, you might be able to find confidence from your side hustle instead. Hearing praise from a client reinforces positive beliefs about your work and can translate over to your regular job.
Not only that, but running a side business isn’t easy. It will give you a taste of what it feels like to be the boss because all the responsibility falls on you.
Suddenly, minor issues you’ve been experiencing at work seem trivial. You have enough confidence to handle them after putting some fires out on your own.
Beyond that, if you should ever lose your job, you’ll probably have more than enough confidence to go into an interview and rock it. After all, side hustling involves a lot of marketing and talking yourself up. Pitching potential clients will make interviewing much easier!
3) Having a Side Hustle Increases Your Skills
No matter what your side hustle is, you’ll probably develop or grow some amazing skills that can be put to use in your regular job.
Even if you’re running a blog, I guarantee you there’s something applicable you can put down.
These days, any type of online marketing is valuable to an employer. Plus, if you have a side hustle, chances are you’ve become pretty darn good at managing your time and prioritizing your efforts. These are all good skills for any employee to have, and there’s nothing wrong with bragging about it.
However, I wouldn’t go completely overboard with it. Some employers aren’t happy to hear their employees have a business of their own. Use your judgement on how much to say, but don’t outright lie!
Also, we’ve mentioned it here before, but if you enjoy your side hustle enough, you might even be able to transition from having a side business to an actual business. If you focus on developing your skills consistently, you could become an expert in a few short years.
4) Side Hustling Allows You to Reach Your Financial Goals Quicker
There’s nothing like earning more money to accelerate your financial progress.
Yes, cutting back on expenses has its place, but as I’ve learned over the past year, earning more has a much greater impact on your financial situation. Plus, it’s empowering to know you can earn more!
It’s been said before, but your earning power is pretty much unlimited. There’s a cap on how much you can cut back. It makes sense to focus on earning more, and side hustling is the best way to do it.
There are lots of people who have been able to pay off debt quickly because they put 100% of their side hustle income toward it.
When you’re already living (comfortably) off your regular income, being able to put 100% of another source of income toward your goals kicks things up a notch.
5) Side Hustles Provide Income Diversification
Having another source of income aside from your normal one is a huge benefit in and of itself.
Think about it. Do you have a backup plan ready in case something happens to your job? The unfortunate reality is no one’s job is guaranteed. You could be laid off tomorrow, or your company could go bankrupt.
Even if you have an emergency fund, having another source of income to rely on is better. You’d rather not touch your savings if you don’t have to, right?
Having multiple streams of income might mean there’s less pressure on you, too. Maybe you want to change jobs, or relocate. Under normal circumstances, you may hesitate to do so because that means going without a paycheck for an uncertain amount of time.
If you have a side hustle, the money you’re generating may be enough to tide you over while you make the transition.
Of course, it’s still smart to save up for a move or career switch, but another source of income can relieve a lot of stress.
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As you can tell, there are numerous benefits to having a side hustle. With benefits always come downsides. Side hustles do require sacrificing your time and energy, but in general, the benefits typically outweigh the negatives, especially if you’re a young adult struggling to get a head start in “the real world.”
Are there any other benefits of side hustling you can think of? What’s your favorite benefit? Do the downsides of side hustling make it less attractive to you?
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I no longer have a side hustle, but I really enjoyed the extra income aspect when I did. That was my favorite part by far. I could only earn X number of dollars at my job, but my side income potential was limitless.
Like Holly, our side hustles turned into our business. The main reason behind my starting side hustles really came down to not being happy in what I was doing and wanting to find a different source of income. My favorite aspect is that you have the potential to create unlimited income if you work it right.
My side hustle makes me feel like I’m in control. It just feels so good to get that side cash and know that it was your creative mind that made that money.
For me, the biggest benefit of side hustling is income diversification. I’ve read quite a bit about the “gig economy” and one of the key features seems to be this idea that having a single job is really the most vulnerable position to be in. With several jobs or “gigs” you’re protected if something doesn’t work out.
I like side hustling because I feel so much freedom to try and fail which is something I don’t have in my day in and day out career. However, this attitude means that my side hustle adventures have not always been too lucrative. I ran a food blog for a while and after expenses, my effective income was around $.32/hour (I could have made more if I stuck with it, but I decided to give it up).
#1 really hits home for me. I’m a CPA, but definitely not your typical run of the mill professional. I’ve always felt like there was something missing even though I LOVE accounting and finance. Just recently started a blog and it has been such an incredible outlet. Can’t wait to continue on and maybe someday see some side income from it. For now, I’ll just enjoy the creative outlet!
Love this post! I love that side hustling can help you diversify your income. While I don’t do much for side income now except for renting a room to my sister, I do always try to stay diversified as you never know what may happen to a specific income source.
I prefer side hustling over a part time job. I like the flexibility side hustling allows – I don’t think I could commit to a part time job on top of a regular job. Plus there are so many different kinds of side hustle out there! I would feel too locked in sticking to a part time job.
So true on all those points. I love having diversity in income but the creative outlet aspect has become a hidden treasure. I didn’t realize that until a friend pointed it out but it really does the mind good to write, even about financial topics.
Holly at ClubThrifty It’s definitely nice to have so much earning power elsewhere. I never actually had a side hustle either as I transitioned right into full-time freelancing, but if I ever got a real job again, I’d definitely have one!
FrugalRules I think that’s everyone’s favorite part about side hustling! I love how many success stories there are in our community, too.
Petrish @ Debt Free Martini That’s a good point, Petrish. It still shocks me sometimes to know I’m getting paid directly for things I created, like an article or an image. It’s a great feeling!
Ali_AnythingYouWant Yes, exactly Ali! I had never thought about it that way before, though it hit me when my dad lost his job and couldn’t recover. I never want to be in that position, even if I have the savings built up.
Hannah UnplannedFinance I love that, Hannah! Failure in your regular job can be downright scary, but when you’re working for yourself, it’s not *as* bad. I’m a big believer in trying different things to find what works and what you truly enjoy!
Financial Tour Guide I’m so glad you’ve been enjoying blogging, that’s awesome to hear! The world can always use more financial advice, especially from an expert. I didn’t start blogging to earn money, but it’s the only reason self-employment was even an option for me.
SenseofCents Being diversified cannot be stated enough, especially when you’re working online. Like you said, anything can happen, and you have to be ready for the loss of a client/income.
believeinabudget Great point, and I totally agree. Whenever I think of the easiest part time job to get, I default to cashier. That’s not remotely exciting or fulfilling to me when you could be doing so many other things for an income!
Eyesonthedollar Yes! I’ve always loved writing, but after a bad creative writing class in high school, and not needing to take English in college, it fell off the map for me. I loved rediscovering my passion for writing via blogging – glad you feel the same!
All great reasons! I completely agree on the creativity outlet aspect. That has really been the most rewarding thing about blogging for me. It’s just so much fun and it lets me explore all of my varied interests. Of course making extra money is pretty nice too :)!
Great points, Erin! I would also add that it increases your network, which can pay off in helping you land additional opportunities. I know for me that has been on the biggest benefits of blogging.
I agree with all of these! Especially #4 and #5. Ever since I started side hustling I’ve noticed a lot more progress being made to reach my financial goals. And I love the creativity aspect of course. The only downside I can think of is managing your time and work-life balance. Depending on what your side hustle is, it can be pretty time consuming and if you work a full time job as well you could risk getting burnt out. I haven’t reached that point luckily, and hopefully I don’t.
Having a creative outlet is definitely the biggest benefit for me right now. I’d love to use it to diversify my income, but I’m not sure I’m prepared to put in the necessary time over and above a pretty demanding full time job, and especially with baby #2 arriving very soon!
Mrs. Frugalwoods It’s always great when our hobbies provide us with a win-win situation! Besides money, I think creativity comes in second for why people pursue side hustles.
ShannonRyan Yes, good point Shannon! I’ve become a lot more involved in the community since starting to side hustle, and it definitely pays off.
Chonce It’s true, Chonce – balancing your side hustle along with work and your personal life is definitely tough. It becomes easier to manage once you gain more experience, but it’s also easy to overdo it, say yes to everything, and end up burnt out!
Jason@Islands of Investing Congrats, Jason! I can’t say I blame you there – raising children is a job in and of itself.
I love side hustles for the income diversification. It’s so nice to not have to rely on just one source of income. For me, my main side hustle is freelance writing and I love writing for other sites because it allows me to research or express myself differently than I do on my own site.
blonde_finance Agreed! Writing for other sites and audiences can be challenging, but it’s helped me grow as a writer.
Cool post Erin!
Agreed with all of the above, especially the creativity, confidence and achieving financial goals quicker..
Another one I feel is that it helps you achieve your personal goals i.e. wanting to travel, spend time with family etc although one of the downsides is that it actually takes time to achieve this!
It’s all really about priorities though :)
Not to be too dramatic, but side hustles have changed my life. I was pretty depressed with our financial situation and, as the breadwinner of the family, assumed my only option was to keep working my stressful job for a very long time. Now, I feel inspired by our new goals and am ready to keep hustling towards our own version of success :)
mycareercrusade It can be a tough balancing act sometimes, but I think it’s usually worth it in the end. Especially if the hustling is only temporary to achieve something like paying off debt!
Harmony@CreatingMyKaleidoscope That’s so great to hear! I can relate, as I just kept working overtime at an already stressful job to earn more. And even then, it was just a slight increase each week. Side hustling is much more scalable.
Yup, all very true. You can also meet people for networking purposes, which can in turn lead to more side hustle or freelance work.
Beachbudget Very true and definitely something I’ve experienced!
All very true! I consider my blog to be a side hustle right now, and find that I really am increasing my set of skills in a way that I didn’t know I would through the process of blogging. It’s been very fun to learn more about monetization and teaching myself some more technical aspects of running a website.
Christina@EmbracingSimple You really do learn a ton from blogging that can be applied to a lot of different things, sometimes in your day job! Knowing the ins and outs of WordPress is a pretty good skill to have.