This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
Welcome to Sinus Hill School, welcome as well to Throwback Thursday. This is our weekly segment where we take an in-depth look at someone whose story has evolved since we first featured them. My name is Chris Guillebeau, I am your host. And last week we got to hear from the founder of Pizza City USA, which offers walking tours and an upcoming festival from its home base in Chicago. Now today in our latest feature, we're going to hear from Katie Cashman Fitzsimmons from Bismarck, North Dakota.
Katie is one half of the Cashman auctioneer sisters known as auctionisters. They are the auctionisters. They facilitate charity auctions that raise millions of dollars for good causes all across the United States. It was really fun to work on their original episode long, long ago. I actually remember it quite well, but what has happened since then?
Well, a lot of stuff has happened. It was episode, I think, 765, okay? So there was a global pandemic, you might have heard about that. But they've also continued raising lots of money, getting paid themselves, upgrading their business and navigating the world of childcare and other parts of life. You know that whole thing about like how do you manage your day job and your side hustle and also your family and your health and your well-being and your other relationships and all that kind of stuff.
Well, sometimes that's a challenge, but most of the time it's worth it, okay? So let's hear directly from Katie. I'll come back at the end with a quick wrap up. Just a programming note, we actually recorded this conversation with Katie towards the end of 2021. So when she talks about next year, she's actually talking about this year.
So keep that in mind. Here's Katie. >> Hi, I'm Katie Gashman-Binsimmons. I am chiming in from Bismarck, North Dakota. My side hustle is that I'm a charity and benefit auctioneer with my sister.
So we are the Cashman Auctionisters, the auctioneering sisters. We were featured back in episode 765, I think it was back in 2019. We went to auctioneering school. We were the only people like us there, I can guarantee it. Lots of people there that have been auctioneering or have auctioneering in their family lines for generations.
They do estate sales, cars, livestock, all that kind of stuff. And we want to get dressed up, go to fancy events, and raise money for charities. So we had a very different angle, but when we went to school in 2016, we had about five events that panned out for us in 2016. And then at our height in 2019, I think we did 35 events that year. And so things just started taking off and snowballing, which was great.
For me, this is truly a side hustle. I serve as the Director of Student Affairs for the North Dakota University System. I'm married and I have three kids, ages one, four, and six. So I've got plenty of hustles going on. [LAUGH] My sister, however, she left her TV anchor job and some of her radio jobs in the winter of 2019 to do auctioneering and to do work like this full time, which was not a great time to do that.
Cuz then a global pandemic hit three months later. So since we were last featured on the show a couple years ago, two, three years ago now, and I think this happens with lots of people. Once they get into a side hustle, you know what you're getting into, but you don't know what you're getting into, right? And there's certain dreams that you have and certain ways that you think things are going to pan out. And I would say for us, auctioneering has panned out the way that we dreamed and more, to the point where we've had to make some hard decisions as to what events that we do and which ones we don't do.
Whether that's the size or whether we agree with the mission of the group or anything like that, we've actually been spoiled for choice, which is really fantastic. And it's really great to feel like you're in the driver's seat. And now life is coming back, events are coming back. So we did collectively between her and I, we did 17 events this year. We were booked, I think, for another five or six that ended up getting canceled.
Just now with Omicron starting to show up and then a little bit earlier in the year when people started scheduling events, but it was jumping the gun a little bit too much, but they were trying to get something on the calendar. And when I look at our numbers, our best year of 2019, we raised a little over a million dollars, $1,066,000 for charities and organizations. And last year, we did less than half the amount of events, and we did $1.1 million. So we know that the generosity is out there, the crowds are out there, and we're really starting to hit our stride with how we work with crowds and how we work with our organizations. I would say the biggest challenge personally that I'm currently facing with the side hustle is sometimes when I get a call to do one, to do an event.
They give me the date and I think about it and I maybe this is just the mom exhaustion of having three small kids. I think about, do I really have it in me? Do I really wanna do this? The group aside, the money aside, all that aside, just having the energy to do it. And I think that that lack of energy is real and palpable for many people, not just those with the side hustle, you know?
Life in general just seems to be a little bit more exhausting these last two years. And so it might sound silly and it might sound small, but I would say that's the biggest challenge for me right now is really trying to figure out where do I wanna expend my energy and where do I have to expend my energy. But then whenever I do sign up and do an auction, I'm always glad I did. I'm always glad I did it. It's sort of like you're always glad after you work out, even if you have to drag yourself there.
You're always glad when you make a good choice and you're on the other side of that good choice, so I haven't regretted it yet. >> Big thanks to Katie for chiming in from Bismarck, North Dakota. I just love what her and her sister are doing. It's a very fun business. I wanna encourage you listeners, check out their website, the auctionisters.com.
It's just like it sounds, it's like the auctioneering sisters, the auctionisters.com. They have live events coming up in North Dakota and Montana. At least those I saw on the website, but there might be more. Because as you heard, they are in demand for good reason. All right, let me know what you think and who you'd like to see featured from our archives of more than 1,000 stories.
If you've got a question or an update for us about your side hustle, tell me that too, sidehustleschool.com/questions. Thank you so much for tuning in today. This has been, let's see, episode 1916, I believe. So today's show notes are at sidehustleschool.com/1916. Hope you'll tune in tomorrow.
It's gonna be a new month. I'm excited to share a whole new set of stories and updates with you. My name is Chris Guillebeau, this is Side Hustle School. From the Onward Project.
