Since the Most Common Multiple Income Stream is a primary salary, you may be asking yourself how do I go about earning money through secondary income streams while working a main job. Well, first off, you can definitely create multiple income streams while working. But there are a lot of questions to ask with this – Where do you find the time? Is it legal? Will my employer care? Will my family care?
I think the biggest challenge we all face, including myself, is where do you find the time – that’s the driver. I personally find myself to be a late night individual. I do my best work after everyone else has gone to bed. This works for me, but probably doesn’t work for everyone.
I know other bloggers that do their best work in the morning. They will get up and work on their website before they go to their day job. I know others who are earning a second income stream by driving for Uber that do it right after they get off work.
The big thing you had to decide is what are you going to give up to earn more money?
How To Find Time To Earn More Money
There are many ways to find more time. Some are creative, and some just require different prioritization. Here are a few to think about:
- Stop Watching TV/Playing Games/Etc. – The average American watches over 750 hours of TV per year. That is crazy. If you cut out the TV, you gain 2 hours per day! And, you don’t even need to cut out the TV all together. Maybe you watch in the background as you work on other tasks. Or, if you DVR your favorite shows and skip the commercials, you can cut an hour long show to 40 minutes. I will share that, personally, I started blogging while my wife was watching shows I didn’t find appealing (think Real Housewives of Someplace). She would watch TV while I’d be on my computer blogging.
- Multitask While Not Multitasking – You may wonder what I’m talking about? Think about all the time you spend in you car or at the gym. Instead of listening to the radio, maybe you should go for something more educational? Maybe a podcast for someone influential in your niche (here are our favorite money and investing podcasts)? There are many options available, and they could give you additional insights to be more successful.
- Combine Earning More With Another Task – I shared briefly about my friend who drives for Uber above. In this case, she gets off of work, turns on her Uber app, and starts driving from her work parking lot. She does it for about 2-3 hours per evening. This is a great way to combine something to earn more money – she’s combining driving home (which would have taken her 45 minutes) with earning money with Uber. She earns about $200 per week doing this. You can sign up with Uber here and get a bonus for starting.
Combining Your Work And Side Incomes
As you side businesses grow, there will inevitably be overlap in most cases. However, here are some important guidelines you may want to consider when overlap between your multiple incomes occurs. Remember, “Big Brother” watches everything now in the workplace, and you don’t want to get caught with your pants down.
Do’s At Work
- Do your side businesses relate to your job? If what you are doing relates to work, you could leverage that to your advantage.
- Working on your breaks and lunches. These can be great times to check your side business emails and stay current on the latest in your niche.
- Do maintain your network. Your work network can also be vital to your side business. Especially if your business relates to your job.
Don’ts At Work
- Don’t use the internet for non-work related side businesses. Like I said above, “Big Brother” is always watching. In fact, you may be surprised how often management does actually watch the screens of their employees. It is kind of shocking.
- Don’t borrow supplies, no matter how abundant they appear in the supply closet. As companies watch their costs, they monitor these items closely.
- Don’t copy anything on the company copier. Many copiers, especially the fancy networked ones, retain images of all copies for a period of time.
- Don’t use any type of confidential information from your work in your side hustle.
Remember, as you businesses grow, use your common sense and best judgment about handling time and overlap. Don’t neglect personal relationships for a side business, and don’t compromise one income stream for a lessor one.
Easy Income Streams To Create While Working
There are some income streams that are much easier to create while working – true passive income streams. These are mostly investing-related income steams, such as investing in dividend paying stocks, owning rental property, or even doing things like peer to peer lending. All of these things require some money up front, but then have the potential to continue to earn you more money over time with little commitment.
When thinking about what works for you and your lifestyle, keep that in mind. Not everyone is going to want to work a job, only to have to go work a second job. But if you want to earn more, you have to decide what to do.
Readers, do you have any tips on handling income stream overlap and time management?
Robert Farrington is America’s Millennial Money Expert® and America’s Student Loan Debt Expert™, and the founder of The College Investor, a personal finance site dedicated to helping millennials escape student loan debt to start investing and building wealth for the future. You can learn more about him on the About Page, or on his personal site RobertFarrington.com.
He regularly writes about investing, student loan debt, and general personal finance topics geared towards anyone wanting to earn more, get out of debt, and start building wealth for the future.
He has been quoted in major publications including the New York Times, Washington Post, Fox, ABC, NBC, and more. He is also a regular contributor to Forbes.