One of my life long dreams is to never rely on corporate jobs as my main source of income. Escaping the nine to five is always the goal, am I right? We aren’t meant to sit in offices and cubicles eight hours a day, five days a week. And working from home is just more of the same, but happens to be at our desk in our home office. Same shit, different location. If you want to break free from what society keeps insisting is right, get yourself side hustles you enjoy and that increases your income streams. Have enough of them making you money whilst creating your own work schedule, and then escape the rat race for good!
Escaping the Nine to Five for Good
We’re all subjected to hearing the same shit from everyone who claims to care about us: graduate high school, go to college, get your degree, get a good job with benefits, and settle into a life of absolute boredom and basically trade your soul for a paycheck. Your inner circle of friends and family usually believe it’s what everyone else does, so you need to do it too. Screw that! Break the cycle. Create streams of income for yourself, reclaim your time and your freedom to live life on your own terms. Escaping the nine to five is the NEW norm should be your mantra from now on!
But what side hustle can you start while working so you don’t mess up your finances as you work to gain time freedom and the life you most want? It depends on:
- what you enjoy doing
- what skills you have right now (or skills you’re willing to learn)
- if you’re doing it alone, or creating something with a partner
- can you make money doing what you enjoy with the skills you have
Once you’ve figured out some of the above, you can start searching for some options!
Explore Some Ideas to Get Your Juices Flowing
Let’s help get you started escaping the nine to five, because sometimes we need a little help, right? Oftentimes, you see a short list of ideas and it sparks something in you and all of a sudden a great idea takes over your mind and there’s no stopping you from finding success in the most unexpected places.
AI Content Creator
Love being creative? Creating content is one of the few ways to combine a few different creative skills into one avenue towards escaping the nine to five. However, here’s a truth bomb: I’m not a fan of AI in most instances. However, if you can make a career out of creating content using AI assistance – GO FOR IT. Humans have to know how to use AI to churn out quality content, regardless of where the content is being used. Written content, image content, video content, or a combination of the three, will always need humans to ask the right questions when working with AI. Humans will also have to tweak and adjust much of the AI’s work, because, as good as AI is, it will never be HUMAN.
Running videos, presentations, blogs, articles, and more from a brand or company, through AI tools allows AI content creators to develop fresh content for social channels. It cuts down the workload of pouring through all of those resources, to piece together or carve out fresh spins on the older content. AI is a great tool in this instance, as it isn’t REPLACING a person’s job, it’s making the person’s job less time consuming and tedious.
Short Term Rental Manager (AirBNB)
Maybe you like being on the move all day long. If so, checking on properties being used for AirBNB, VRBO, or local companies handling short-term rentals. You can spend some of your hours working from home handling questions from potential and current renters, and handling bookings. Spend some of your time coordinating maintenance and cleanings. Get out from behind your desk to let all those workers in at the properties. Or, head there after the work’s completed to make sure it meets the property owner’s standards. You can make your money with a combination of a set rate, along with a percentage of the bookings!
Template Designer (Social Media, Newsletter, websites, Pinterest, LinkedIn)
Another creative option, if you’re good with graphic design, you can create templates for social media, newsletters, websites, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and even basic editable logos. There are tons of places to sell these templates, and if you find a specific business niche that needs content, but isn’t skilled at creating it or does not have a budget to hire someone to design content, you can make a great income.
Sell them on Etsy, Canva, Fiverr, or on your own website. You can do the work whenever you want to do it, giving you time freedom!
Subscription Newsletters (Substack)
Do you have crazy good skills that you want to share with others? Perhaps you just have crazy good ideas you want to share with other people. And maybe you’re a great story teller and wish to share your stories and inner most thoughts with the world. You can create a subscription-based newsletter and charge people to access all your greatness. Start with some fun free stuff, then create a spot for paying subscribers to access even more if they enjoyed the free stuff.
Flipping Furniture
Ever see those free furniture at the curb postings on Facebook? You can find unique pieces of furniture begging to be stripped, re-stained or painted, so they can live a happy life in another person’s home? If you can scrape, sand, stain, and paint – you can flip furniture and start making a few bucks for yourself AND keep some amazing items out of our garbage dumps.
Dog Walking/Pet Sitting/Pet Transport
People work, go on vacation, and if they have dogs, chances are they need pet sitters, dog walkers, and even pet transportation. If you don’t mind walking dogs in all kinds of weather, dog walking is a lot of fun. I mean, you must love dogs, or this isn’t the side hustle for you. Pet sitting in your own home, or offering to stay at the dog owner’s house, is another great side hustle that doesn’t feel like work. You get to spend your time with dogs – how can that feel like work????!!!!
Another great service you can offer is pet transportation to things like vet visits (you’d have to also handle the vet appointment), doggy day care, or something super popular is weddings. When I did pet sitting, there were quite a few dog owners who wanted their beloved dog at their wedding, but didn’t have a way to get the dog to the wedding, or home after the wedding. I happily provided this service, and even spent time as a dog attendant during wedding receptions for a couple of hours and then transported the dog back to dog sit in my home. Great fun, and dog owners are so appreciative!!!!
There’s so many ways to break away from the rate race! All it takes is a bit of soul searching to figure out what makes you happy and how to make money doing what makes you happy.
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