How to Make More Money in Side Hustles

I started researching about paying off debt when I was in grad school in 2015. When I graduated, I got serious about paying off my debt. I had my budget under control for the most part, but knew I needed to make more money than my teaching salary to really make some movement in my debt free journey. That was November of 2015 and I started to brainstorm how I could make more money and now, almost 3 years later, I’m averaging between $1,200 and $1,500 extra every month just from my side hustles. Now I can live off of my side hustle money with some left over, making my paycheck from my teaching job completely go to debt. Follow my steps to increase your side hustle income.

1. Be realistic with your schedule.

When I decided I wanted to make more money, I sat down and figured out when I could realistically be available for side hustles. It’s important to know your schedule and what you can realistically do because that will help you figure out what side hustles you can do. It’s also important to not stretch yourself too thin, make sure you provide yourself with enough time to take care of yourself. Increasing income is important, but your health is so much more important.

2. List out all of your passions.

This is one of the most important parts of truly making side hustles work. I work a lot of extra hours and if I didn’t love my side hustles, I’d never want to be doing it. Sure, you can find jobs to just make money, that’s definitely going to work, but when you start adding a lot of extra hours, you’re going to burn out if you hate it. I tutor in many different ways, babysit, and blog. I love all of them, so when I work an extra 20 hours a week in my side hustles, I don’t mind as much. Once you have your list, figure out if there are any ways to turn your passions into side hustles.

3. Find multiple side hustles.

The biggest change I made to increase my income was diversifying my side hustle income streams. Sure, I was making some money from tutoring privately, but once I added other streams, my income tripled from my side hustles. I found more ways to tutor that allowed me to make more money, but not add a ton of extra work on my part outside the actual tutoring time.

4. Get creative with your time.

Once I started looking at my time differently, I was able to find more time in my day to double dip on my side hustles. For example, my school was in need of after school reading tutors and 30 minutes of the program were during my required contract time anyway. So, I got paid extra when I already needed to be there. Another way is when I’m babysitting and the kids have gone to bed, I work on my blog.

These are some of the ways that I have found to make more money in side hustles. I love having multiple side hustles jobs and it truly has changed my debt free journey complete. Without side hustles, I would still be looking at a debt free date of my 31st birthday when now I’m pushing to be debt free by my 29th, maybe even get it before then. What are your best side hustle tips?