Q&A: “How many income streams is best?”

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

Alright, alright, let's jump into today's side hustle school episode. My name is Chris Guillebeau. Thanks for tuning in. I'm on a mission to help you create extra money without quitting your job and using the skills you already have without going into debt. All good things.

Now, today's caller has a question specifically about, well, how much money should they make? I guess it's not quite like that. Alan Jackson once said too much money, no such thing. But what about sources of that money, also known as income streams? Okay, so that's what our caller wants to know.

They are diving into the world of side hustling, already earning money from one or two sources with plans to add more. So that sounds great. But they're wondering, is there an optimal number, optimal number of sources, especially considering the need to focus as well as keep up with that pesky day job? Let's see if we can help them out right after this quick message from our sponsor. Hi, Chris, this is Dylan from St. Paul, and I've been selling on eBay, and I'd like

to do more of that. I'm also trying to build a website and learn about coding. And then of course, I have several other ideas on the back burner, mostly from listening to the show and hearing cool stories. I know that I can't stretch myself too thin, and I also have a day job, but I like doing different things. And I want to make sure my income is truly diversified.

Therefore, I'm wondering, how many income streams is best for the average person? Is there an optimal number? Thanks for any advice you can give me. All right, all right, congratulations on getting started. And let's look directly at this question.

Obviously, there is a tremendous range, but let's try to give a specific answer. Generally, most people I have worked with, they tend to have somewhere between two and five sources of income. Now, this caller's examples are typical, especially for someone getting started. The eBay selling and now branching out into building a website, moving into other projects. One time, we featured a guy who had 10 side hustles, and he earned $100,000 a year from them.

That was cumulative, not from each one, unfortunately, but that's kind of difficult to manage. And my suggestion to him was like, you might be more successful focusing on a few of these projects, the ones that are working the best, and potentially increasing revenue to multiple six figures. It's pretty hard to keep up with 10 projects. Now, I would say I have a preference for passive income, right? So if you have anything that's passive, then I would prioritize that or anything that could be passive.

Just note that passive income is not always so passive. Most of the time, there are still some things you need to do for it. But if it is truly passive, meaning that it just kind of comes in without you doing anything at all, you might be best served by asking how you can increase it instead of starting more new projects. So average range, probably two to five, I mean, it could be more, but at a certain point, your focus gets diluted, and you might be better off focusing on what's working. That's my two cents anyway.

Let me know how that lands with you. And listeners, if you've got a question, sidehustleschool.com/questions. We continue to feature them every single week, and thank you so much for tuning in. I'm excited to bring you a new month of content beginning tomorrow. My name is Chris Guillebeau.

You are listening to Side Hustle School. the Onward Project.