What It's About
A new teacher supplements her day job to pay off student debt in record time.
Business Model
Skills Required
Complexity
Profit Potential
Words of Wisdom
Diana says that if you want to start a side hustle in tutoring or babysitting, you need to find the right client base. She was lucky and moved to an area with lots of families that need babysitters and tutors, which made it easier to get jobs. Once you know you have potential clients, find Facebook groups for that area that Moms and Dads would be in. Diana has found all of her clients through Facebook groups!
Fun Fact
Diana first began babysitting when she was in middle school. When she got her first client, she was so excited and soon made flyers to pass around to her whole neighborhood so that she could find more clients.
Notes from Chris
Episode 874
Like many millennials, Diana Farmen graduated from college with a lot of student debt. After entering the workforce and scoring a job as a teacher, she wasn’t making nearly enough money to live on her own and pay the minimum monthly amount of $2,000 on her loans. As a matter of fact, she had to move back in with her parents so she could afford it. She knew that she needed to find another way to make more money, work her way out of the hole of debt she was in, and live independently, but she wasn’t sure what to do... So, Diana started thinking about what she liked to do and what she was good at. What she discovered is that she truly loved to work with kids. Her first job ever was as a babysitter, and over the summers when she was still in school, she worked as a camp counselor and a nanny. Thus, Diana decided that she would start babysitting again and offer tutoring to help kids improve their reading skills. It was a simple idea, but as a teacher, these two side hustles were a natural fit for her. Diana knew that if she was going to spend hours a week hustling, after working her regular job, it needed to be something that she enjoyed doing. Because she already had a reputation in her community for working with kids, it was easy to find her first few clients. However, as time went on, she wanted to increase her clientele. Instead of creating flyers to post around her neighborhood like she used to as a young girl, she turned to Facebook instead. Her dad was a handyman and had found some of his clients from local Facebook groups full of adults from the area. One of the groups was specifically dedicated to parents, and Diana knew that if she could get in, it would be the perfect place to promote her side hustles. Luckily, one of Diana’s family friends was an admin for the group and added her to the “recommendations” portion of the page. When Diana made her first post advertising her services, she found that many of her current clients were in the group. They liked and commented on her post about how amazing she was at babysitting and tutoring which led to more attention from other parents. Most of them were friends, so if one person trusted someone, the others were likely to follow suit. She made a combined total of at least $1,200 a month from her hustles as a babysitter and tutor. By making this amount of money and by being very frugal, Diana has been able to live completely off of her side hustle income and dedicate the entirety of her income from teaching to her loans. In three years, she paid off more than $100,000. Diana says the key to her success has been to “go for it”. When she first started working her two side hustles, she would make an extra debt payment every week with the money she made to ensure that she wouldn’t spend it on anything else. Once she started making enough money to live on, she made debt payments every month on the 15th and 30th, which was when she got paid for teaching. Diana created boundaries for herself and stuck to them, rather than spending money here and there on things she didn’t truly need. While she worked through her debt, she also started a blog, called Diana on a Dime. Originally, it started out as a place to hold herself accountable, but it soon began to attract an audience. Now, she uses it to help others who are in the same situation as her. She has also just launched her first coaching program. Diana plans to continue to hustle until the rest of her debt is fully paid off. However, she’s hoping to move away from babysitting and tutoring to working more with her blog. She knows there are only so many hours in a week that she can spend on her current side hustles, but that her “website income can grow without a tie to time.” Next month, she’ll move out of her parent’s house and be able to live independently. Since she’s paid so much of her debt off already, her minimum monthly payment has been lowered, which has allowed her the freedom to be able to afford her rent. When she first graduated, Diana had no idea how she’d be able to pay off such a daunting debt. Now, thanks to her hustle and hard work, she has an even bigger vision for the future.MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
- Diana on a Dime: Learn more about Diana's dime pinching endeavors over on her blog!
- WordPress: Diana used WordPress to set up her blog, and here you can learn how to install your own WordPress site in 5 minutes
SEE ALSO:
- Mom Starts Uber Easy Side Hustle Taxiing Kids: An Aussie mom of five discovers an easy way to make cash by giving rides to her kids’ schoolmates
- Atlanta Chess Champ Finds Checkmate With Tutoring Side Hustle: It started as a hobby when he was four years old. It’s now a profitable passion project for an Atlanta chess guru
- Rocket Scientist Launches Out-Of-This-World Tutoring Business: A NASA rocket scientist engineers her students toward top-flight grades
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Resources
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