Easy Ways to Passive income From Home
Easy Ways to Passive income From Home
Easy Ways to Passive income From Home, Passive Income Ideas.
If you read a bit about personal finance, you'll find suggestions for starting a side gig for extra cash.
A "side gig" is a term that describes any type of work you do in addition to your regular job to supplement your income.
If you want to improve your financial situation, this is one way. The math is simple: with more money coming in, you have more cash to pay off debt faster, pad your savings account, or even invest.
But working more isn't always a healthy solution — or even possible — for everyone. Important questions to consider include how to get started and how to balance a full-time job with a side gig or on-the-go push.
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Starting with a side gig
Balancing a full-time job with a large freelance workload.
5 Practical Steps for Managing Your Primary Work and Your Extra Work
It looks like $4,000 when you work for yourself
Making the leap to full-time freelance work.
Starting with a side gig
Easy Ways to Passive income From Home, A few years ago, I was making $28,000 per year from my full-time job, which wasn't enough to sustain my ambitious financial goals. I knew I had to make more money if I wanted to achieve those goals.
I started by exploring some of my existing skills and determining how I could use them to increase my income. My background is in research and professional writing, and I've always been obsessed with financial success - so I started writing about it. I created my own personal finance blog and gained valuable experience writing about money. Before long, I was pitching ideas to magazines, newspapers, websites and blogs.
I wrote many of those early articles for free. But then I started looking for freelance opportunities - and I landed them. The first paid article I wrote was 500 words long and only paid $15, but it was a start.
Fast forward three years (and a whole lot of effort). Not only did I increase my skills and value as a freelance writer, I turned my experience into a new full-time job paying $47,000 per year. I am adding $4,000 per month from my freelance work and my financial goals are quickly becoming my financial reality.
Balancing a full-time job with a large freelance workload
Easy Ways to Passive income From Home, The biggest challenge to making $4,000 a month freelancing? Balancing a significant workload with the regular demands and responsibilities of a full-time job. When I started, I worked 80-hour weeks to make the most of my time.
Obviously, this was not sustainable. During that period, I didn't meet my friends and didn't spend much time with my significant other. My life became work, eat, sleep and repeat.
Still, it allowed me to finally increase how much I charge for my work. And that means I can take on fewer assignments and still get the same amount of work done, which translates to a much healthier work-life balance. I slowly cut out tasks that didn't pay and took steps to align my schedule with how I value my time.
5 Practical Steps for Managing Your Primary Work and Your Extra Work
Taking on additional professional responsibilities and tasks in addition to the job you already have can create chaos. I've learned to rely on several tools and systems to keep me on track and keep me from dropping the ball on my freelance work or my job.
Here's how I managed my time and workload.
I used a task manager
The web application Asana (which offers a basic tool for free) tracked all my to-dos, and I mean all of them. It was my one-stop system for my personal work, work projects and freelance assignments. Everything was organized and sorted into different projects, but I could also see a master task list that I used to plan my days.
I have determined everything
I scheduled my appointment at the very last working minute. Again, this included my freelance writing along with work responsibilities and something for personal needs. I used Google Calendar to make sure I didn't forget any appointments, meetings or deadlines.
I strictly guard my work hours
I'm a writer, so of course I like to communicate in writing. I'd rather email someone than get on the phone. Calls require you to sync schedules and they often run longer than necessary. Not to mention, stopping work to take a call disrupts your flow and productivity. So I cross out days in my schedule that are just for work and I refuse to make phone calls or meetings on those days.
I delegate some of my tasks to virtual assistants
Making $4,000 a month doesn't just require a lot of writing — it also requires a lot of administrative work like scheduling meetings, sending invoices, and researching new ideas to pitch. But I wasn't making money to complete those tasks, so I hired a virtual assistant to help me. I paid them $20 an hour for their time - when an hour of my productive work time could be worth $100.
I prioritized my work
Easy Ways to Passive income From Home, A few times, I had to cancel and reschedule existing appointments. I didn't like doing it, but managing so many commitments meant prioritizing. I've always tried to learn from when I had to flat-out cancel, and I practiced saying "no" in advance when similar meetings came up in the future.
Most of the time, these activities allow me to successfully juggle everything. But with all that, just one unexpected problem was enough to throw off my entire week. I made mistakes and had to deal with the consequences, but I learned some important lessons about how to manage a job and a side gig.
Here's how I coped when things went off the rails:
I reached out to my editors as soon as possible. Even if I suspect I might miss a deadline, I reach out to the editor to let me know I'm behind. Giving them a heads-up means they can work with me and possibly offer a deadline extension.
While this still put them at a disadvantage, they were never surprised by a missed deadline.
I canceled or declined unnecessary meetings. When I didn't have time for everything, I saved my days from things that weren't essential. I declined the coffee meeting and asked to communicate via email instead of video or phone calls.
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It looks like $4,000 when you work for yourself.
I had to work hard to earn an extra $4,000 a month - and that was my gross - not gross income. When you work freelance, you don't have to keep every penny you make. I kept 30 percent of everything I earned to pay my additional income tax. The tax on 1099 income is more than the W-2 income you receive as an employee.
Easy Ways to Passive income From Home, After taxes, $4,000 per month was closer to $2,800. Running my side gig successfully also costs me (like paying an assistant to help me, attending networking events and traveling to conferences where I could potentially land a new gig).
After taxes and expenses of about $1,000 per month, I was left with roughly $1,800 net. It's still a good amount of money to earn on the side, and I've used it to help me achieve several financial goals, including:
My Roth IRA (in addition to funding my employer-sponsored retirement account from my day job).
Contribute to a SEP IRA.
Creating an emergency fund of $15,000.
Bringing my travel savings to $5,000.
Investing $10,000 in personal development (specifically, hiring a life coach, which was transformative).
Making the leap to full-time freelance work
Working both a day job and a side gig was fun because it gave me such a discreet income that I made incredible financial strides in just a few years. But I also knew I didn't want to do this forever.
Once I started consistently making $4,000 a month on my own, I began to think that I could easily double that amount — and possibly more — if I freelanced full-time.
My day job still takes up 40 hours of my week, while I freelance about 10 hours per week. (Remember, I constantly worked to get higher paying assignments so I could do the same, or less.) If I could devote those 40 hours to freelancing, I figured I could make more on my own.
In October 2016, I officially took the leap. I was terrified, especially because I was used to the smooth life of double income opportunities. Before I quit my job, I was taking home $3,900 a month from my paycheck (before taxes or contributions to retirement accounts). Leaving would mean my income would be cut in half. But it turns out, I was right in my initial thought that I could do more on my own.
In my first month of full-time self-employment I made $14,725 - $10,000 more than I made at my job! I did not receive any benefits from my previous position, so my expenses did not change while working for me.
Next step
Full-time self-employment brings its own set of challenges that could fill a book, but I don't regret the switch. My experience with taking on extra work taught me what I needed to know to successfully navigate difficult times, and today, I feel I can take on anything self-employment can throw at me.
If you're in a situation where saving more money simply isn't possible, or taking other steps to get out of debt doesn't give you the motivation you want, you can find ways to earn more instead.
Be sure to think about how you will handle the extra load and whether it will work with the existing demands of your life.
