Entrepreneurship

6 Side Hustles to Boost Your Income

2018-02-10 13:58:57.0

Whether you’re a corporate grunt in his first job or a college student living alone in the big city, you’ve probably come to this conclusion at some point: it would definitely be great if you have a bigger salary or allowance.

You may not be treading on the thin lines of actual poverty but with so many things to pay for it might not come as a surprise if 3 weeks after getting your allowance (and maybe a dozen costly coffee shop drinks and patent leather shoes on sale later) you find yourself panicking on how to keep that last P1,000 on your ATM. It’s not a great experience.

The stress of having to worry about whether money will come on time makes it easy to fall back into the same formula of big purchase on payday + little, unnecessary expenses that build up + petsa de peligro = broke young adult (a.k.a. You) every single month. Cutting out some expenses might work but for some people, the only way to have a little breathing room in their finances is through boosting their income. Luckily, living in the age of the internet has its perks --- you can easily find a job to boost your income if you look hard enough.

1. Tutorial services

Are you good at something? Teach it! For 3 or so hours per day, tutorial services offer a pretty great pay for most individuals looking for a sideline. With only your brains, time, and patience as capital, you can profit while helping a kid learn and perform better. Tutoring also helps you brush up on your people skills which always comes helpful especially when you’re trying to connect with people --- whether in or outside the workplace. Don't have time to commute to your tutees’ place? Try online teaching! You'd need a great internet connection but hey, teaching will make you feel good while earning at the same time. Check out ads online and on waiting sheds, maybe you're the key to someone else's bright future.

2. Digital creative services

If you dream in Photoshop color palettes and beating deadlines is an instinct to you, you might want to check this out. With the marketing and advertising fields becoming so aggressive, businesses need the best creative minds to get ahead of the competition and that is exactly where you come in. Build your portfolio by working with various brands in different industries. Challenge yourself to improve while earning through a side hustle which could easily translate to a full-time job.

3. Content Creation

Whoever said that there's no money in writing is probably living the uncultured, unliterary life under a rock. With so many organizations looking to expand online, anyone who has a talent for stringing words to make an article about the latest Britney Spears album sound poetic enough to get people into buying it can earn so much by letting the print do the talking. Are you a better academic than advertiser? You can earn just the same through offering your editorial skills to students. Writing offers so much possibilities in terms of earning so check out freelancing sites to see which one strikes your fancy.

4. Translation services

Someone once said “People who need subtitles to watch foreign shows are weak and natural selection is coming for them”. If you, dear reader, are among the more evolved, who’ll survive because you know the difference between enchant from énchanté, you might want to earn through that nifty skill of yours to speak in a different tongue. Offer translation work or second language classes. You never know but you might get a chance to say hen duo qian (I have a lot of money) by doing translation and interpretation services for expats and international businesses operating locally.

5. Photography & Videography

If your pictures are worth a thousand words, you might as well make thousands out of it. Great visuals make for great business and whether it's in fashion, food, or family events that you're great at, you can make bank through offering your discerning eye for capturing the real world and turning it into images that stand the test of time. In fact, this “side job” might easily turn into a full-time job if you devote the time and effort to improve your work.

6. Fashion and Styling An old saying goes clothes maketh the man but in this age, it might make you some money too! While some might underestimate it, fashion is still a billion-dollar industry and will probably stay that way for a long time. If your talent lies in matching plains & prints, you might want to bank on that talent by offering it as a service. Feel like you don’t have enough connections to make this actually worth your time? Why not turn it into a full-fledged business online? Scour through the massive piles of clothing in your local thrift shop and get those which you could sell online at a profit. Not only will you add more to your monthly income, but you’ll also improve your negotiating skills through haggling.

The trick to make the side hustle work for you is through patience and hardwork. While not everyone is born a Picasso or an Elon Musk, that doesn’t mean that you can never try to be at least good at something, even if it’s just a side job. If it feels like you don’t have the skills just yet, it’s not too late to get started on learning them. There’s no one way towards financial success and you never know, these side hustles might just be the key for you to afford the luxury of your time.