Want to start a side hustle business? I don't care who you are, whether you are a stay-at-home mom, a full-time wage earner, a farmer, or retired — everyone should start a home business. Often called a “side hustle,” a part-time home business has huge financial benefits. And it's a lot easier than you think! In this post, I cover 5 main reasons to start a home business.
5 Reasons Everyone Should Start a Side Hustle Business
I personally believe everyone should have a part-time “side hustle” business. Especially in this day and age, when most of us don't make as much money as we would like, we're saddled with student loans and high insurance premiums, and these days, lifelong employment, retirement packages and pensions are rare.
Side hustle businesses are part-time “on the side” stuff you do in your spare time to bring in extra income. Anyone can set up an LLC on LegalZoom (it's easy) and start a part-time business selling makeup or supplements, walking dogs, making YouTube videos or writing a blog, tutoring kids or teaching guitar lessons. Instead of watching 4 hours of TV a day or wasting time on Facebook or Instagram, turn a few extra hours a day into spinning gold. OK, dollars.
Why start a side hustle business? I have 5 reasons why a side hustle business can help to create the freedom and security we all want more of…
1. Pay Off Debt and Invest
These days, most of us have debt. Credit card debt, medical bills, student loans, you name it. It's tough to pay off debt when you can't increase your salary.
The worst part about debt is it prevents us from using that extra money to invest. If only we could set money aside to invest in real estate or Bitcoin… but we're stuck paying bills.
When you start a side hustle business, you can create extra money each month out of thin air. You don't have to ask your boss for a raise or more hours. All you have to do is invest a little of your time to run a business on the side (on weekends, in the evenings, or early in the morning before the kids wake up — that's how I built my first business back in 2007-08 after my daughter was born).
We all know we should be investing in order to save for retirement… but who has extra money to put aside? And you can't get ahead with your corporate plan of mutual funds investments. If you could find a way to create an extra couple hundred dollars a month to pay off your debt, and then eventually start investing that money, it would be life-changing.
Here's a fun fact: if you invested a measly $100 in Bitcoin 7 years ago, you would have $72 million right now. (Well, actually a little less… that article is from May and it has dipped a little since then… Still, you'd be a multimillionaire. And I am positive it's going to continue to increase in value.) And guess what? It's not too late to invest in Bitcoin — it's still early. You may not be able to 70 million in 7 years but you could make plenty.
Or take real estate… all you need is 10 rental properties netting $500 per month to yield $60,000 per year. And, once those homes are paid off, you own them. You typically put about 30% down on a home. To buy 10 rental properties that cost $100K each, you'd be investing around $300,000 for $1,000,000 worth of property (since the mortgages will be paid by the renters).
Let's say your properties double in value in 20 years' time (that's a conservative estimate, as I've read that homes in the U.S. have an average annual appreciation rate of 5-9%). You'd be sitting on $2,000,000. That's a nice amount of money to retire on — for most Americans, anyway.
So, OK, we all want to get out of debt and we all know we need to be investing. The question is, how do we get that extra income to start? A side hustle business.
2. Develop Multiple Revenue Streams
One of the biggest downsides of a job is you can get fired. In fact, working for someone else is one of the riskiest things you can do. Because you can get fired at any time, and when you get fired, you have no income and no backup. Putting all your eggs in one basket is always a bad idea.
Starting a side hustle business gives you more security. If anything ever happened and you lost your job, you'd have money coming in to help get you through.
As a blogger, I have multiple revenue streams within my business. I make money from the ads on my site, from products I promote as an affiliate (I earn a commission on products sold), and soon I will be making money from network marketing. Network marketing is a lot like affiliate marketing, only you also earn from the people in your downline (see my next upcoming post about this which I'll post in the next few days — I'll go into more detail.)
3. Create Passive Income
This is why a business is different than a job. A business creates PASSIVE income. That means you make money while you sleep.
Over the years, I've seen this happen for many bloggers and network marketers. And I've done it myself. When you own a business, it makes money every single month, whether you work or not. Say you have a family emergency and someone gets sick or you are going through a move… the ability to take time off and not have to work is such a blessing.
4. Get Tax Write Offs
Wage earners don't get tax write-offs. They have to pay the full tax due to the government. Unless you have a side business. You can write off anything and everything you use for your business… computers, printers, office supplies, cell phone. And if you travel for your business (for conventions or trainings or research), you can write that off, too.
So not only can your business bring in extra money to pay off debt and invest, but it's also lowering your tax bill.
5. Work Anytime, From Anywhere
Wouldn't you love to be able to fund a family trip to Costa Rica or Australia or the south of France? Wouldn't it be awesome to be able to spend summers in Hawaii or Italy? And what if you didn't have to work 9-5 and you could work flexible hours, and maybe stay home and homeschool your kids?
Guess what… you can! When you work for yourself, especially when you have a location-independent business like network marketing or blogging, you can literally work from anywhere. And your schedule is your own. I love that we can take off on a Monday to go on a homeschool field trip to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park (we're doing that later this month). And next February, I'm planning a trip to take the kids to Washington D.C. (we're studying American history this year).
Learn From My Experiences
In my next blog post, I'll be writing about how I built my blog business over the past year since I restarted my blog in August 2016, and how I'm now making the leap back into network marketing.
I'll talk about some of the companies I will be working with and the products I'll be promoting. I hope my experiences will help to inspire you.
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