An article in The Wall Street Journal cited a study from Zapier done in December 2020 that showed 1 in 3 people had a side hustle. Hat tip to Michael Batnick who called BS on the data, I jokingly replied to his Tweet that Zapier surveyed Uber drivers.
Who knows how many people have a side hustle but I think just about all of us should be investing time to cultivate some sort of hustle as a back up plan in case how things are expected to go don't work out for some reason, some completely unpredictable reason.
You have 30 years in at a company that cannot fail but does anyway and you're 58. You probably should have a backup. You're forced to get a vaccine by your employer (stale example now maybe but a big deal for some folks who did leave their work over this), you should probably have a backup. You work in some sort of highly specialized technology field and the tech goes through some sort of monumental change that is for you unlearnable (maybe not realistic, I don't know), you should probably have a backup. And 100 other scenarios, you should probably have a backup.
I talk about this all the time because I think it's important. The term side hustle came to be long after I started writing about monetizing hobbies and although not quite the same thing they are related. If someone needs a second job then yeah they should seek something out and hopefully it is enjoyable. My primary context is more about cultivating a post-retirement gig in hopes of relieving the burden off your portfolio for a few years. If you've put in the work early on and then your hand gets forced like in one of the scenarios above then you're all the more resilient if you can get paid for a hobby and maybe even make it completely sustainable versus your monthly expenses.
My backup of course involves the fire department. I literally cannot envision the scenario where I lose interest in the stock market and want to move on and being self employed should mean I determine my own fate but just because we can't envision something doesn't make it impossible.
I have 19 years in with the fire department and hope to stick with it until I am very old. In all that time I've made essentially no money, a couple of hundred bucks ages ago, but the path monetizing it if I need to by working on large fires off district has been laid out for years and the department has taken steps in this direction lately so this is something I could just start doing. The way I maintain the opportunity is staying current with my EMT certificate and still being able to pass the pack test (three mile hike, wearing 45 pounds in 45 minutes or less). I have training for a couple of other things too that I could pursue.
Crucial point of understanding is how much I love everything I do that is fire department related, I've loved it the whole 19 years and haven't cared about getting paid. That love for it, I believe contributes to some of the opportunity I have beyond being an EMT.
If you love doing something as much I as love the fire department your odds of getting "lucky" with your unexpectedly needed backup plan go way up. I also think life is much better when you have an outside or extra curricular endeavor that you can give a lot of energy to.
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