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Today, we dive into the incredible benefits of side-hustles, and specifically how even tiny amounts of side income can make extraordinary dents in saving for FIRE!
But you already know this. You’ve probably heard of a 1,000,001 crazy side hustles ideas.
Well, Kevin from Financial Panther joins us on the show today to remind of us of the doability of side hustles. If doability is even a word.
Generating an extra $100-1,000 a month doesn’t have to eat up a ton of time, energy, and capital.
Kevin, Gwen, and J also chat about:
- Kevin’s journey (a lawyer descending the ladder)
- Paying off 87k in debt in 2.5 years
- Dog sitting on rover as a side hustle and other low-hanging side-hustle fruits.
- Why Kevin wants to obtain every college degree…just for the fun of it.
Kevin is an outstanding blogger, an inspirational side-hustler, and an overall impressive, nice guy! Enjoy!
Show notes and links from today’s episode
- Kevin’s blog: Financial Panther
- Kevin’s side income reports (super handy!)
- Rover pet sitting and dog walking! (Love dogs? Side hustle. Hate dogs? Get off our website. Just kidding 🙂
- Root of Good – Fantastic little FI blog (he retired at 33 in 2013)
- Paula Pant @ Afford Anything
Key takeaways from our chat with Kevin from Financial Panther
1 – 457 Retirement Account
401ks, IRAs, ok we got those. 403b’s for non-profits or something, gotcha…But what’s a 457??
Similarly, how about the “solo 401k?”
Oooo nice. Here’s more reading.
The point of all this is to illustrate one of many different tax-advantaged retirement accounts available to certain individuals. There’s a whooole lot more than your employer-sponsored Roth. Here’s another super quick read on the most popular options (including the ones mentioned above).
2 – Kevin’s low-hanging fruit path to starting a side hustle
“Do things you’re already doing.” (but get paid for it). Simple enough.
For example, Kevin already owns and takes care of his own dog, therefore pet sitting doesn’t create that much of a burden on him. He already has to walk the dog, provide food bowls, take potty breaks, etc.
He already has a house. Why not rent out the extra room on Airbnb?
This is good news for people just searching for a side-hustle idea. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel, or think of something super crazy, weird, off-the-wall idea to make money.
What sort of projects do you already work on? What side-biz could you easily start tomorrow with “assets” you already own or have in place??
3 – Happiness > Money
“Duh FIRE Drill. Like, we know.”
Do you?
We’d all jump at opportunities to say “money doesn’t equal happiness,” or recognize that optimizing our lives for happiness is probably WAY more beneficial than optimizing for max income….but how often do we walk the walk?
If you listen to our podcast, you’re probably half-decent at saving, frugality, investing, etc…but don’t you still fall prey to the occasional shopping spree for stuff you don’t need? (and likely won’t make you happy?)
Don’t you still splurge on $11.47 lunches every now and then, just because Tuesday?
Don’t you work and work and “driven” and “persistent” and “hustle,” when maybe it’s a little too much?
Under no circumstances would we tell you what to do with your life/work, but Kevin’s law career trajectory is a great reminder of this fact: we all chase money, sometimes too much.
Kevin’s on a “reverse” trajectory in his law career, and he couldn’t be happier about it. He could definitely make more money crunching more billable hours and hustling to partner…but that’s not what makes him happy.
Side hustles and freedom make Kevin happy.
What makes you happiest?
4 – One of the best times to focus on student debt is…immediately.
(One important caveats here: If you still have debt and you’re in your 30s, 40s, 50s, and beyond, it’s not too late. The best time to start crushing debt is now. Today.)
1st world societies are on an odd trend right now: people are switching careers (not just jobs, but careers), more than ever before, and at a faster rate.
You might not want to grind your way to partner at your law firm (in Kevin’s case), or even stay in your same job in 5 years.
For those just coming out of college, perhaps the best way to prepare yourself for “future unknowns” in your career is to gain flexibility.
And as we allllllllll know, destroying student loan debt as quickly as humanly possible is key to vocational flexibility.
Big words….but..
You’re also more likely to crave flexibility later down the road due to
- marriage
- kids
- multiple kids
- aging parents
- ???
The American Dream would be to spend the heck out of that first real salary you get out of college, but the smartest thing to do would be to pay down debt during this period.
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