One of the most important lessons you will learn, both through working and throughout your money journey, is that the best way to reach any financial goal faster is to increase your income.
Want to pay off debt? Increase your income, so you’ll pay it off faster.
Want to save up to buy a house? Increase your income, and you’ll get your house faster.
It’s just common sense– the more money you have, the more you can do with it. And one of the best ways to increase your income is to pick up a side hustle.
In this post, I’ll share all my best tips for starting a side hustle and making extra money to help you reach your financial goals.
You’re not sure a side hustle is for you? Read this article on why a side hustle is a brilliant idea!
How to Start a Side Hustle and Make More Money
There are affiliate links in this post, meaning I may make a small commission at no additional cost to you. For more information, see my full disclosure policy here.
Step 1: Choose a side hustle idea
Some of you might already have a side hustle idea that you you’ve been waiting to dive into. For others, maybe you know you want to start a side hustle to earn a bit more extra money, but you’re not sure what exactly you want to do. That’s what this step is for. This phase is all about brainstorming!
First things first, you need to ask yourself what you are good at and passionate about. It’s important that this isn’t something you’re going to get tired of straight away!
In addition to finding a topic that you’re passionate about, you need to make sure it’s something that other people are interested in as well. Because as important as it is that YOU love your side hustle, you can’t make money with a topic that no one wants to spend money on.
Step 2: Do your research
Let me introduce this by saying that when I started my side hustle, I did not research anything.
Whether the side hustle is starting is a blog or something different, I guarantee there is quite a lot of information available online from people who have done the same thing you are trying to do. Side hustles are ridiculously common today, and I promise someone else is teaching people to do exactly what you’re trying to do now.
Research everything from the logistics of setting up your website to marketing. Join some groups with Facebook that focus on your niche and learn from them. One thing I’ve learned is that online business owners are happy to share their knowledge and create connections with other business owners. It’s such an amazing and welcoming community!
Step 3: Get it up and running
So, you’ve figured out the what and the how. Now it’s time to just do it! The launching phase can vary from person to person. Part of this depends on the side hustle you’ve chosen – some just take longer to get started than others do!
It also depends on what else your got going on in your life. The prior commitments you have, it’ll give you less time to work on your side hustle, meaning it might take a bit longer to set up.
Let’s say you’ve chosen a blog as a side hustle, the launch phase is going to include things like setting up your website and deciding on a blog design, getting your social media pages set up, and posting your first few blog posts written.
Step 4: Create a schedule
If you want your side hustle to make money, then you must treat it just like a business. That means setting aside certain hours to work on your business. But, since it’s your own business, no one can enforce those hours onto you. There will be times when something else sounds more interesting than working.
But you should remember, you will only get out as much as you put into it. How many hours you work is 100% up to you? Someone with a full-time job and a family at home is going to have less hours available than someone who is single with no kids.
Since this is a side hustle, your work hours are certainly going to be limited. You could have a full-time job, a stay-at-home parent, or be a full-time student. You know best when you are free and will be most available to work on your business.
Part of creating your side hustle schedule is respecting everyone’s time. But you need to respect your own time and hold yourself accountable for the hours you plan to work on your side hustle. But this also means respecting your employer’s time if you work a full-time job. But don’t let your side hustle interfere with your job. If you have a lunch hour or breaks available to get a little work on your side hustle, that’s great! But don’t work on your side hustle if you should be working on your full-time job. If you do, you won’t have a full-time job for long.
Step 5: Set SMARTER goals
Even though you spent a TON of time doing research before launching your side hustle, there’s still so much to learn. And you’re going to learn a ton right after you launch your side hustle and really dive into working on it every day. Once you have a better idea of what you’re getting yourself into, it’s time to set some goals for yourself.
I set zero goals for myself when I first started my blog. And guess how long it took me to make my first dollar. One year. I’m guessing you’re not interested in waiting that long! Part of this is because I started off just blogging as a hobby, and part of it was that I didn’t get organized and set goals for myself.
So what kind of goals should you be setting? This isn’t just about throwing out arbitrary goals, but setting realistic goals and coming up with a plan to meet them. In other words, you want to set SMARTER goals. And just what are SMARTER goals?
Specific: The more specific your goals, the better. Don’t just set a goal of earning money with your side hustle. Set a goal of earning $1,000/month from your side hustle within the first year (that’s just an example, the actual number will vary person to person).
Measurable: The progress of this goal can be easily tracked. $1,000/month is very specific – you’ll know for sure if you’ve reached it or not! And once you know how much you want to make per month, you know what your daily and weekly goals should be!
Attainable: While setting your goals high is awesome, make sure it’s something you can actually accomplish. Consider what will be required of you to complete this goal, and carefully consider whether you have that to give.
Relevant: Make sure your goal is in harmony with your core values and what you’re working toward in life. If your ultimate dream is to work from home full-time, then setting a goal of $1,000/month in the first year is awesome because you’re totally moving in the right direction!
Time-Bound: Don’t make the time frame for reaching your goals open-ended. We tend to take as long to accomplish a task as we are allowed. If your goals are completely open-ended, they may never seem urgent enough to get to. As you can see, we set a time frame of one year in the goal we’re using as an example.
Exciting: Let’s be real, it’s going to be a lot easier to make time to work on goals that excite and inspire you. Emotions are a big factor when it comes to goal-setting, and you’re far more likely to reach for things that excite you.
Routine Bound: I firmly believe that creating routines and habits is the absolute best way to make changes in your life. Incorporating your goal into your daily routine ensures you’re making time for it and gives you a MUCH better chance of reaching it. For example, you might say that every evening you get home from work at 6 pm and work on your online business until 8 pm. It becomes a daily routine and ensures you’re putting in the time to reach that $1,000/month goal.
Step 5: Invest in growth
If you truly want your side hustle to be a real business that brings in income, then you must treat it like a business. And this means investing in your growth. Time is certainly the biggest investment you’ll make in your side hustle, but there will be some financial investment as well. The good news is that most side hustles, such as blogging, are relatively cheap to start, and you can increase your investment as you start making an income.
Some of the investments you’ll make in your side hustle will be tools, such as those to start your email list or market yourself on social media.
Here are a few of my favorite tools that I use to run my business:
SiteGround: This is the website hosting company I use – monthly plans start at $3.95/month, so SUPER affordable for beginners.
Flodesk: For many side hustles, having an email list is going to be crucial. Flodesk is the best!
QuickBooks: This is the tool I use to manage my business finances. You’ll need to do so no matter what side hustle route you choose to go.
Step 7: Track and evaluate your progress
You may think that once you make it through the research phase and start your side hustle, it’s all easy for your goals. I assure you this is far from the case. There are going to be bumps in the road. A LOT of them. You may have an amazing month and feel like you’re made a ton of progress, and the next month you’ll feel like you’re starting from square one.
And one thing I can promise you: you will never, ever stop learning when it comes to best practices for your side hustle.
Because of this, it’s super important that you’re diligent about tracking and evaluating your progress. Make sure to have some sort of system in place where you can track how things are going.
In addition to tracking everything, you need to regularly evaluate those numbers to decide if what you’re doing is really working. If you see a trend of several months where your
income is going down, then it’s probably time to change something up. It’s when you get complacent that things will start to really slip.
Step 8: Plan for your side hustle income
I love that having a side hustle can help people to pay off debt and reach financial goals years earlier than they otherwise would have. But to really make the most of it, you’ve got to plan for that money.
Imagine this: You start a side hustle to help you pay off your debt faster. You get it set up and start bringing in money. You’re so excited about this new income that you find yourself doing a lot more online shopping than planned. Suddenly the money is gone, and you haven’t put any extra toward debt.
Instead of letting your emotions guide your spending decisions, plan ahead of time. For example, maybe you decide you’ll spend 75% of your side hustle income on extra debt payments, while the other 25% will be fun money. You still get to treat yourself, while also making progress on your goals.
Step 9: Know the tax laws regarding side hustle income
something you should keep in mind about starting a side hustle is that there are tax laws that you will have to follow.
When you have a full-time job, your employer takes money out of each pay check to pay income taxes on your behalf. But with a side hustle, there’s no one doing this for you. But the IRS still requires their payments. It’s critical that when you’re making money on the side, you track every dollar you earn and spend so you can report them for tax purposes.
Software such as QuickBooks can help you with this process. And if you’re uneasy about handling the finances by yourself, consider hiring an accountant or bookkeeper for extra help.
Final Thoughts
A side hustle is my absolute favourite way to increase your income and to pay off debt and reach your financial goals. It can collapse the timeline on certain big goals by years! And while starting a side hustle might seem overwhelming at first, it’s a lot less worrying once you get started!
