The Hustle

For those of my readers who are also older than dirt, you’ll probably remember this disco-era song:

Little did we know back then a “hustle” would mean something altogether different in half a century. The sexual innuendo fell by the wayside, replaced with an entirely different meaning for side hustle. Now it’s just a money-making enterprise.

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G and I are always looking for ways to make money. We’ve flipped items from garage and estate sales, written books, written songs, sold photos, and G’s built various wooden doodads for sale. We have an Etsy store which would bring in more if we could find more merchandise suited to sell there. It’s pitifully small as it is, and whenever we add new (vintage) items, they’re often snapped up within 24 hours. We recently opened a second Etsy for digital photos and have made a couple of sales already, just a few days in.

We’re still writing books, though G’s doing the lion’s share of writing these days. I’m tied up with 70-hour work weeks, and when I’m not too beat to even think of lifting a finger, I edit books, format books, and design book covers for other people. I’ve also looked at umpteen investments, where I’d put money into other people’s businesses. That ranges from dividend-paying stocks and REITS (basically real-estate stocks) to friends who are running their own business. All valid, just not enough to retire on, not with the money we have to invest.

A 70-hour work week isn’t sustainable long-term. I certainly don’t want to keep working that many hours indefinitely. I’d like to retire, ideally in the next couple of years. Yeah, I have a 401K and an IRA, such as they are. Living hand-to-mouth for the better part of my life didn’t give me many opportunities to save. G was in far worse shape than I was. I’m doing everything in my power to be sure he never has to survive those conditions again. And I don’t, either, for that matter.

We have money in the bank, including a savings account with enough in it to cover most emergencies. My next focus is paying off our credit cards. They’re not maxed out (or even close to it), but that’s still money we could be using other ways, and not paying 15+ percent interest every month is already money in the pocket. I’d like to pay off the car early, too.

Of course all this requires a certain level of income. I’m grateful to be making a decent living and being able to work from home. Decent, but not enough to wipe out all debt before retirement, unless I work a lot longer than the next couple of years.

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Enter the latest side hustle.

I’ve already mentioned the book The 4-Hour Work Week. It describes how to sell a product/products online for passive income, dedicating very little time to it once established. I’ve been talking to G about doing this FOR-E-VER. It does take an initial investment in time and money, but if you do it right you can replace a full-time job and not kill yourself along the way. And there’s no reason you can’t have half a dozen products for sale simultaneously. Skipping a lot of the particulars, put simply… people are doing this. A lot of people are doing it successfully.

G has balked because of the intial outlay and because… well, because he balks at everything. See previous posts about buying this house, buying our previous house, etc., etc.

But while his web surfing is generally related to photography and/or classical music, I do a more varied mix. Sure, I listen to music and watch no-brain-required videos on YouTube. I also look for YouTube videos called, “Ten ways to make money with no money.” (I don’t know if that’s an actual title, but it should be.)

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Aside from the usual “Send me all your money and I’ll make you rich!” or “Get rich taking surveys!” there’s an occasional gem with valid ideas. I’ve watched several of them and a lot tell you flat-out, “Yeah, you’ll work harder than you work at a job for somebody else; but it’ll be your own business. And you probably can’t actually do it with no money.”

But there’s a series from a lady in Australia, and hers come from a slightly different slant. I watched a couple of her videos and thought they were interesting. One of them suggested selling merchandise on Amazon (kind of a DUH, right?) But it went a step further… it’s selling print-on-demand merchandise on Amazon. Only, not books.

That piqued my interest.

It described creating a store, uploading your own artwork for tee shirts, etc., and Amazon provides the tees, tote bags, and so on. It’s free to the seller, just like their print-on-demand book platform. “Free” wiped out G’s objection to selling products. So did the fact Amazon does 100% of the fulfillment process. I checked it out and signed up. It takes a couple of weeks to get through the initial approval process. While I’m waiting, I’m going to start building the graphics collection.

I’m happy to share the link above. It’s not a secret, though I don’t imagine the majority of my readers would be interested or able to create and manage original artwork. If you have a way with words, though, you can also do text-only products.

As for us… I’m the graphics queen. I literally mentor designers. Not only can I create custom images.; I can design merchandise which furthermore promotes our other products. We also do photography and could work with our own photos so we own the copyright, and so on. This opens a lot of possibilities.