Monday, October 18, 2010

Multi-Stream Income: The Tsunami To The Trickle

             You've probably heard someone who deals with stocks say, “You need to diversify your stocks.” Which means that you should have your stock investments in a bunch of different stocks, and different types on businesses. Because if you put your stocks all into one business and the business takes a hit, your money takes a huge hit. What most stock investors do is diversify the stock between a bunch of different business across a mydriad of different types on sectors(ie. Technology, construction, web sites). It lessens the effect on your money. If one business or sector takes a hit, your stocks won't suddenly plummet into the abyss. Just take a look at any stock portfolio and you will see that it has a ton of different types of stock, bonds, and the like in there. That is essentially what a Multi-Stream Income is. What happens if you have one income and you lose your job? You now went from having an income to having ZERO money coming in. If you have mulitiple incomes coming in and you lose one of them, it doesn't seem like such a big hit. But there is downfalls too, but we'll get to them.
             There is always a ton of ways to make extra money. Part time jobs, online work, helping someone move,start a business. A couple years ago I did computer repair as my side job. It was pretty easy job since I am kind of tech-savvy. It netted me about $100 a month, not bad for about 8 hours of work. It wasn't much but it paid for my gas for the month so my main income didn't have the expense in it. If you have a hobby you really enjoy maybe that can become a profitable side job. My roommate's mom loves to knit so she knits quilts and sells them on Ebay. My aunt and mom runs a jewlery store at a flea market on Sundays. They don't make an a lot of money but since my aunt just retired, $100 a week in extra income for sitting around selling jewlery for a couple hours a week is nice. The thing is, all of them like what they are doing. They all enjoy doing whatever they do so they decided to make a profit from it.
             How much profit you make is basically up to you. It never has to be a lot of money but some is always good. I have 2 jobs where most of my income comes from then I do various online work to add some income. The online jobs isn't much(probably $50 a month) but it's extra money and I don't spend too much time on it. So say I lose one of my jobs, I have something else to fall back on. My goal is to have 50% of my income from my regular day jobs and 50% from my side jobs. This way I can pay for all my bills with my side jobs and have another 50% for savings. If I lose my regular jobs I can still pay for all my bills while find a new job! I am not there yet, but hopefully one day I'll be there. There is always a downfall to all of this, T-I-M-E.
             Time is a huge factor in all of this. How much time are you willing to put into your side jobs if you're already putting 20 or 40 hours a week into your main job? That is all up to you. Between my main jobs, side jobs, and writing this blog, I am putting a good 12 hours a day into it. It may seem like a lot but honestly it's not to me and basically all the time I am awake I'm making money one way or another. I feel productive so I don't feel the burden of long days of work.
             It all depends on how much time and effort you're willing to put into it. Find something you love to do and make it profitable. This way the time of the jobs won't feel as cumbersome and you wont asked yourself, “Why did I take on this stupid job?”. If you have a side job tell about it in the comments!

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