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Last Updated on November 30, 2020 by Yovana
Side hustles.
Some people praise them. Some people think they aren’t worth it.
Side hustles come in all shapes and sizes. They aren’t just ride share driving, pet sitting, selling your stuff online, mystery shopping and blogging.
They are passion projects from everyday people that end up transforming their lives.
As you might already know as a returning reader, they have definitely transformed our lives. And if you are new here, hey – we love to side hustle (like a lot)!
I can admit they can be a pain in the butt sometimes. But they have been able to do wonders for our finances and completely change the way we are looking towards our future.
We aren’t trying to sound braggy or get you to by into this lifestyle. It can be pretty exhausting at times. And other times, completely not worth it.
But for us, it is worth it and we will discuss why along with some tips, tricks and red flags to watch out for in your own side hustle endeavors.
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Table of Contents
Why are we reporting our side hustle income?
You’ve seen the blog income reports like crazy. But do you see many side hustle income reports? I have seen 1 or 2 but not many.
We love side hustling. Besides for the blog income report from March 2018 and our small eBay report from this post, we don’t talk about the exact numbers that we are able to make with our side hustles often.
Some months are better than others, that is for sure. We were able to have a pretty decent side income when I looked at the totals at the end of March.
We thought we would share with you some more behind the scenes.
Income breakdown
Adding an income breakdown here at first might be confusing for those who don’t know much about blogging. But I wanted to add as much transparency as I could for the blog numbers since many people are not familiar with how bloggers make money.
The expenses for each side hustle from March 2019 are listed below the income so you can see how we calculated total profit.
These are all numbers representing only the month of March 2019. Some of the expenses laid out are billed annually and not monthly so those portions are also noted below.
Math is hard, bear with me.
Blog Income: $3,070.58
I bought the iliketodabble domain back in March 2017 and even though it was a slow growth from there, it became so much more than I ever thought it would. This is the second report of my blog earnings since the first income report 1 year ago.
As seen in the screenshot above, my ad income has gradually gone up over the past couple of months. So has my sponsored income as well but I did not feel comfortable sharing screenshots from those transactions.
Affiliate income has gone down a bit and kind of scattered all over the place. I am still working on my affiliate marketing strategy and probably need to go through Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing another time. This course was such a huge help to me when starting out but since much of my blog has changed since then, I think my affiliate strategy needs to be revisited.
Blog Income: $3,070.58
- Mediavine ads: $545.89
- Sponsored content: $1,745
- Affiliate links: $779.69
- Impact Radius (DoorDash and Instacart): $180
- Bluehost: $100
- Panthera (Surveys): $98.40
- Ebates: $75
- Airbnb: $60
- Maxbounty (Neilsen): $51.70
- Flexoffers (Trim): $45
- AWIN (Swagbucks and Stubhub): $36.30
- Shareasale: $36.21
- Stash: $30
- Dosh: $25
- Amazon: $17.71
- Ibotta: $15
- Creative Market: $9.37
Blog Monthly Expenses: $244.99
- Cloudflare: $20
- Semrush: $100
- Convertkit: $49
- Adobe: $30
- Hosting, Security and SSL: $20 (This is paid yearly so this is a monthly estimate)
- Picmonkey: $5.99 (Billed annually)
- Tailwind: $20 (Billed annually)
March 2019 Blog Profit: $2,825.59
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Etsy Income: $109.49
This is a new endeavor we just started on
Back towards the end of February 2019 we created the Etsy shop as a part of iliketodabble. It features tshirts, hoodies, stickers, accessory/makeup bags, backpacks, phone cases, etc tailored around the hustlista vibe.
We have no physical inventory and are using the dropshipping model by involving a third party to ship the product directly to the customer.
Even though it was easy to get set up with out any initial investment upfront, there are costs with the third party to print and fulfill the orders. These costs don’t come until the actual order is made.
As shown above, Etsy sees a revenue of $109.49. After Etsy fees and taxes (and a small marketing campaign I have running on new listings), we then have a $55.33 profit. But after the costs with the third party the profit ended up being $18.53.
To be fair we didn’t sell much and are still experimenting. We probably should have charged much more on some of our listings.
So we are still learning.
Etsy Income: $109.49
Etsy Expenses: $90.96
- Etsy taxes and fees: $54.16
- Third party costs: $36.80
March 2019 Etsy Profit: $18.53
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eBay Income: $895
On my eBay I mostly sell brands I find in thrift stores that didn’t sell on my Poshmark or old stuff I need to get rid of like jewelry, electronics or kitchen accessories.
My wife flips guitars on eBay but as things are more hectic with her full time job, the guitar hustle hasn’t been as bustling. You know, Life happens.
She also sells guitars on a couple of other platforms such as Reverb and Sweetwater but no action was seen on those in March.
eBay Income: $895
- My eBay Income: $110 (this was mostly from stuff I was trying to get rid of in March so I didn’t have an exact cost of goods to work from)
- My wife’s eBay Income: $785 (this is after figuring in the cost of the guitars before flipped)
eBay expenses: $36.93
- My eBay fees: $11.83
- My wife’s eBay fees: $25.10
March 2019 eBay Profit: $858.07
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Freelance Design Work Income: $150
I use to do much more freelance work before I started my blog. Most of my freelance projects before were web development projects with small startups in the St. Louis area. Now they are more design projects I help other bloggers out with.
It was unexpected to make the amount I did with freelance in March and I am surprised I was able to squeeze it in one weekend.
Freelance Income: $150
Freelance Expenses: $0 (I already paid for the necessary software under the blog expenses)
March 2019 Freelance Profit: $150
March 2019 Total Side Hustle Profit: $3,901.19
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How Side Hustles Changed Our Lives
Side hustles changed our lives in a number of ways. The additional streams of income help us pay off debt while being able to also save and invest more towards our future.
They also help us remember that we don’t have to be tied down to our profession the rest of our lives. I personally don’t want to have only 1 career my whole life. I want to learn and explore so many things.
And we have a lot of fun with them (when I am not stressing out like crazy).
What to Think About When Looking for A Side Hustle
You should first think about any upfront costs that go into starting a new side hustle. Then think about the profit you will be able to bring in and if that amount is worth your time.
If you are like us and already working 40+ hour weeks at your full time day job, you probably don’t want to waste any more time.
And you most certainly do NOT want to end up busting your ass for less than minimum wage.
Take for example our new Etsy shop: It doesn’t look like the profit we made in March was worth our time. However, we are still in the experimental and learning phase and are working to build up that hustle to make it worth our time. It is something I really enjoy doing and want to put more effort in getting it to work for us.
That is another thing, you must enjoy what you’re doing or it is going to end up feeling like another job adding more stress.
A different example: If you want to do freelance design as a side gig, you need to charge enough of an hourly rate to pay for the cost of your design software, any costs for putting together your portfolio/resume and your labor.
If it is a new side business, there are usually business costs associated with the venture up front whether it be hosting for a site, production costs if you’re selling a product, etc. When starting a side business, you need to have a business plan and vet all these things out (something I actually never did with my blog but it’s finally coming together).
Keeping track of expenses is important for any new business venture. That is why I recommend Quickbooks. Quickbooks is an amazing accounting software that can make running your small business easy, fast and most importantly: secure. You can try it for free too!
New Side Hustles We Are Trying Out in The Coming Months
We are trying a couple of new side hustles for strictly case study purposes. These are side hustles we haven’t done ourselves yet but want to find out if they are worth it.
Since we heard great things about these opportunities, why not go see for ourselves?
Amazon Flex: I received a notification to my gmail that Amazon Flex was finally looking for new drivers in my area. This is a side gig I have actually heard very little about (when it comes to potential earnings) so I really wanted to try it out. I sent in my information for the background check and everything checked out 100% (which is not what I experienced with my DoorDash application but that story is for a different post). I am ready to start delivering when I can find some time.
Rover: I am still in the process of setting up a profile for the both of us on Rover. We will only be doing dog walking and in home ‘check ups’. Since we have a lot of pets ourselves, we don’t want to stress them out with bringing in any new ones to pet sit. Plus, that would just be disastrous.
Stay tuned for more updates to see how it all goes!
Side Hustles for You to Try Out
The side hustles that we mentioned so far in this post actually take a bit of time to work up and get a consistent income flow from. We want to let you know that there are other types of opportunities out there that you can get going on a little quicker.
Magic Ears: If you have a bachelors degree and any teaching experience, you can make up to $26 an hour teaching online with Magic ears. After the initial application and interview, the process to get teachers up and running goes pretty quick.
Instacart: You don’t have to have a car to work for Instacart. There are two categories for the gig: Instacart shopper and Instacart delivery driver. Pick whichever position works best for you and work when you want.
DoorDash: With my sketchy driving record, I was unable to pass the background check due to a ticket I had a few years ago for going 25 over the speed limit. Yes, I am a horrible driver. If you are the opposite of me, you will probably pass their vetting process and then you can get paid weekly delivering for DoorDash.
Getaround: Start making money off of your parked car without you having to ever do anything. With Getaround you can rent your car out on the app so others can find better deals than with companies like Hertz. This side hustle opportunity doesn’t require much of your time as it is mostly passive income.
What are some stories you have about side hustling? Share with us your wins, losses, pain points or anything at all in the comments below! We would love to hear from you!
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Daniella is the creator and author of iliketodabble.com. When their wife Alexandra and them aren’t globetrotting or playing with their 7+ animals, they are dabbling and working towards a future of financial freedom.