This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Oh, hello there. We have just finished week number 51 of season two, Sadosle School. We are approaching the very, very end of 2018. I'm gonna call this weekly recap, find holiday time to invest in yourself. And I'll try to keep it brief because I know at the end of the year, you've got so much going on.
And I also know, as I've mentioned a couple of times, that for a lot of people, holiday times can be hard for all sorts of reasons. That's just something I try to be aware of. So if you're having a difficult time this holiday season, just know that you're not alone and it will get better. Sometimes it just takes time and it's also okay to just kind of look forward to January or look forward to whatever the point in the future is for you. Also, even if that's not your situation, if you love the season, everything is joyful and bright, your family is perfect.
I mean, there might be one person out there. You still might find it challenging to devote time to yourself. And I often mention that starting a side hustle is essentially an investment in yourself. It's kind of like just taking care of yourself in a different way, the same way that you would go to the dentist to do your cleaning. But hopefully more enjoyable than that because not only are you looking out for yourself in the future, making a short-term choice to do something long-term for yourself, but hopefully this whole process, the side hustle, can be fun for you, unlike going to the dentist for your cleaning.
So you might find it challenging to devote time to yourself. If you have a hard time exercising or otherwise following your routines during the holidays, you might also run into obstacles trying to build or improve a project. I was thinking about this a bit, and I talked to a lot of people who are working on a lot of different things, and I realized that on the other hand, if you can work it out, if you can find a way to do it, this can be an ideal time to start something new. It's the end of the year. You've got some time off from work.
There are fewer emails going around that you need to respond to. So what can you do? How can you take advantage of this? Can you kind of turn something that is potentially a negative? By negative, I don't mean spending time with your family, but anything that takes all your own time away from you, I do think is a negative.
So a couple of ideas here. You can give yourself a holiday deadline. You could say, I have to get this thing done this weekend. I have to get it done before New Year's. I do not want to begin 2019 without this project well underway or without this milestone accomplished, whatever it is for you.
I might also boldly suggest that you consider if you really need to do everything you normally do during this time. Okay, do you need to bake those holiday cookies? Listen, if you need to, if that's something that is important to your family, if you're doing it together with your child or your nephew or your niece, then great, do so, of course. But if your family would be perfectly happy with Pillsbury cookies or even just cookies that came straight from the store, then save yourself half an hour and use the rest of the time to write copy for your sales page or list more items on Etsy, whatever the case may be. And last, if everyone else is off caroling or sledding or whatever it is that you do for the holidays, maybe you don't have to go on every one of those excursions.
Perhaps you could use one of them to sneak away and spend a couple of hours. It might actually rejuvenate you. You might find that you're in better spirits once everybody comes back and you're ready for the next activity. So overall, of course, you do you. My advice or encouragement is be festive, but don't forget about yourself because this is important.
So with that encouragement in mind, in today's recap, I've got shout outs to two listeners, sent me some fun notes I'm gonna share with you, and of course, an audio update from a previous featured case study. [Music]
So here are those two quick shout outs. And by the way, I really love hearing from listeners. I definitely want to do a much better job in 2019 with community in general. We're getting ready to relaunch side hustle society, which I'll tell you about probably in a couple of days or maybe like right at the beginning of the new year.
But for now, shout out to Carrie, and this is Carrie Olvera. My apologies if I'm mispronouncing that last name. But Carrie wrote in and said, "I just wanted to let you know we are an entrepreneurial family and I have my kids listen to your quick podcast of people making money with a side hustle. My daughter already has an Etsy project selling earrings and my 13 year old son asks questions. It leads to future discussion, keep up the good work." Thank you so much, Carrie.
Happy holidays and you guys keep up the good work too. Next one is from Taylor Lane, who's a college student. He writes in and says, "Little time to type, too focused. I have been flipping on eBay throughout college." Flipping means reselling, essentially he's buying and reselling stuff. "I've been flipping on eBay throughout college earning $500 a month while being the top student in our accounting program, taking 18 credit hours of classes each semester, team captain of the baseball team, SGA senator, intern, et cetera.
The money is funding a candle startup with my girlfriend. Every 30 days I will send you updates." Awesome, Taylor. Love to see hardworking college students like yourself. I was also a hardworking college student, but not so much in accounting. I tried to major in accounting for I think two semesters and that was a disaster.
But good for you, congrats Taylor. And the Instagram for the candle startup, if anyone wants to check that out is livewick. That's L-I-V dot W-I-K. Or maybe it's livewick, I'm not sure. But in any case, it's L-I-V dot W-I-K on Instagram.
[Music]
Okay, in every episode for the past, I don't know, six to eight weeks or so, we have been doing a little audio update from a previously featured side hustler, someone who was on a program usually in season one, but I think a few of them have actually been in season two as well, just to hear an update from them, sometimes a tip or a lesson since we featured them in that episode. So I believe today's update is coming to us from Erin. Here she is. - Hi, this is Erin from Fort Collins, Colorado. My side hustle is writing and selling high school French curriculum online.
And it was featured on episode number 142. Since then, I'm averaging two to $300 more per month, but I have put in very little work to make those paychecks rise. Selling curriculum on teachers pay teachers is 100% a numbers game. I filled my store with everything I possibly could, sold a lot, and then took the next step of linking every item to Pinterest. That has increased both my sales and my followers with very little work.
A challenge I had is that everything went so well that I decided to start another side hustle. I also love reading, specifically music world memoirs and auto bios, so I hired a web developer to create an online music book club. An issue I neglected to consider is that teachers have very little free time. Because I'm also working on becoming a national board certified teacher, I had to put my online book club to the side and focus on teaching. In fact, if there's anyone out there who thinks they can make a great side hustle out of an online music book club, I'd love to sell you my fully created website at a deep discount.
My advice to other teachers selling on teachers pay teachers is to upload as much as possible. What isn't selling now can easily sell in a different month of the school year. Also, realize that what you might think is simple and boring, a less creative teacher might think is brilliant. Upload everything. I am now working on creating a website for French students to use to study various concepts in grammar, vocabulary, and tenses.
The website will also feature a blog for teachers, and I will use that blog to direct teachers to my online curriculum store. After I gain followers, I will monetize the website itself. This approach highlights and enhances my first side hustle instead of starting something totally new. Already having a toddler and currently being pregnant, my side hustle goal is to make $2,000 a month, which is enough to cover daycare for two kids. - Hey, Aaron, thank you so much for that update and congratulations, $200 to $300 more per month since that featured story, as well as a warning perhaps to some of our listeners.
Gosh, I need to pay attention to this myself. I really can't advise our listeners on this too much because I am probably the worst at this. Be careful about starting new projects when you're already a busy person. Good advice. Also, for our teachers out there, the resource or the platform that Aaron is uploading her lessons to is called Teachers Pay Teachers, and you can learn more about that in the original episode 142.
I like what Aaron said here about how it is a numbers game, 100% a numbers game, she said. In other words, the more content you have, the more teachers are going to download your lesson plans or curriculum or activities or whatever it is that's for sale. So upload as much as possible. And in her case, she found it linking to Pinterest was the best lead generation strategy. So thanks again, Aaron.
And if you're familiar with that platform, teacherspayteachers.com, you can follow her at her profile. The profile is called La Yogi Francophone. We will link that up directly in the show notes. [Music]
All right, as promised, wanted to keep it a little brief today. It is holiday time.
You've got a ton of stuff going on. So do I, man. I was trying to wrap up the year and build some stuff for next year, which I can't wait to talk to you about. It's coming up really soon. Looking ahead to next week, our final week of season two, gonna go out with a series of strong stories, including an art director who turns her passion for puppets into profit.
Something about bombshell cupcakes, something about Tinder photography. How about that? A story about online obituaries, which I also thought was really interesting. And of course, a special Christmas episode. Guess when that's gonna come out?
It's gonna be the 25th of December. No, shocking. We've got one more weekly recap coming up for the end of 2018. I'll say some more thank yous then, but I would be remiss if I didn't say thank you now as well. Thank you so much listeners.
Listeners, you are the reason we make this show. There's a team working on this project. We've got some new folks coming onto the team in January. But for now, I wanna say thank you to senior producer AC Valdez, content manager, Whitney Karonic, community liaison, and a person in charge of Trucker Hats, Jed Chang, and Tina Hart working with me on the new Alexa flash briefing. I'll say more about that soon.
Have you checked it out yet? If you've got an Alexa device, wanna do that? Go to status of school.com/alexa. And the official show cat, Libby Gillibow. I'm not gonna bother you about leaving a rating because it's holidays, you're busy.
But at some point, if you wanna leave me a rating, that would be super awesome. But most important, as I said at the beginning of the episode, be sure you invest in yourself. Do something for yourself this holiday season. Invest in yourself in the short term so that you can have something that you really want, a goal that you'd like to achieve in the long term. Do come back every day.
Our episodes go online at 601 a.m. Eastern time. My name is Chris Guillebeau and this is Side Hustle School.
