Gallup’s 2021 annual job satisfaction survey suggests that only around 34% of employed Americans are happy at work. Becoming financially independent is the aspiration of the majority of workers who grind through day jobs they don’t like just to be able to afford life.
It’s always a good idea to build out multiple streams of income through side hustles instead of being overly dependent on the income from a day job. That way, you are always prepared for the unexpected if anything was to happen to that day job.
There are 6 side hustles with the potential to not only generate extra income, but can easily replace your day job income when done right.
Stock Trading
Stock trading is the behavior of buying and selling company equities (stocks) and making a profit from the price difference.
Due to high inflation, rising interest rate and a potential recession, the stock market has been very volatile since late 2021. Although many fearful long term investors are pulling their money out of the market and bracing for a potential market downturn, the volatile market environment is precisely where short-term stock traders thrive.
Although there are certain risks associated with stock trading (same as most worthwhile money-making endeavors), many profitable traders can usually live off trading income with very flexible hours ( a couple of hours a day, or less). There are many examples of successful traders out there who have generated 6 or 8 figure income and counting. Ross Cameron, Steven Dux, Clay Trader, Shark and SWang from SMB Capital, just to name a few.
Content Creator
Ever since the very first video uploaded to YouTube featuring YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim, YouTube, or social media in general, has evolved the way we generate and consume information. This evolution not only created a trillion dollar industry filled with our beloved social media platforms, it also groomed a generation of content creators and social influencers whose job is to influence the public through their contents and sharing.
Many content creators amass enough audience and viewer/readership to generate passive advertising income from their contents. Those more successful content creators with a large audience base can even generate millions of dollars of revenue every year. As an example, Ryan Kaji, a 9 years old YouTuber famous for unboxing and playing toys on camera, has a 30M subscriber base on YouTube and collectively earned over $30M dollars off his contents.
The beauty of being a content creator is its low barrier to entry. Anyone can pick up a cell phone and start recording. Start recording and share your ideas on social media today! Who knows, you might become the next MrBeast!
NFT Designer
The design industry was known for tight deadlines, critical client feedback and relatively low monetary return. This now may have changed forever thanks to the emergence of NFT (Non-Fungible Token).
NFT is a digital asset on a blockchain, the same technology behind cryptocurrencies. It links ownership to unique physical or digital items such as works of arts, music, videos or in-game items. Designers can now sell their digital or physical art creations in the form of NFT through various NFT auction platforms.
The wonderful thing about NFT is that you don’t need to be a famous designer, or even possess extraordinary design skills to make big money. Sultan Gustaf AI Ghozali, an Indonesian student who took a photo of himself everyday for 5 years, sold his selfies as NFTs for over $1M.
Knowledge Monetization
If you have a set of knowledge in a particular field where people may find beneficial, be it investing, fitness, or even math or art & craft, you may be able to monetize your knowledge.
The most common knowledge monetization methods include creating online/offline courses, consulting, offering specialized service or ready-to-go templates.
You may have come across ads promoting online courses from “eCommerce Gurus” who share knowledge on making money through Amazon or shopify. They usually earn more from selling their courses than actually making a profit selling products online.
E-commerce
Online shopping is a fast growing economy with a global size of nearly 4 trillion in 2020. Nearly 91% of the US population shop online.
With the popularization of online shopping platforms such as Amazon, eBay, Etsy and many more, almost anyone can become a seller and start selling products online. There are many successful online sellers who generate multi-million dollar revenue every year.
The principle of becoming a successful online seller is fairly straightforward – identify in-demand products, source (buy) low in bulk from the supplier, sell high individually to online shoppers, scale the ordering process with a website/app, promote business with advertising, and try best to provide responsive customer support.
There are many wholesaler and supplier hubs out there (such as Alibaba and Global Sources) that put sellers directly with the suppliers and factories, the procurement process is no longer a blackbox.
With many of the biggest shopping platforms offering drop shipping which dramatically simplified the product fulfillment process, sellers no longer need to worry about product storage and shipping process.
Thanks to the widely available ecommerce service platforms such as Shopify and BigCommerce, sellers of any size can literally set up their online stores in minutes and start selling products online.
Investing
Investing might be the best way to generate passive income and make your money work hard for you. It’s also the best way to build wealth. Over the last two centuries, around 90% of the world’s millionaires made their money through investing.
The concept of investing is to buy and hold certain assets for a long period of time, hoping their value to grow and compound over time.
From basic 401(k) and IRA, to the equity market and real estate, there are many types of assets an investor can pick and choose from to start building their investment portfolio.