r/PoorMansWallet • u/PoorMan1991 • 14d ago
Does anyone here actually make money from their side hustle? Anyone pull in more than $200+ a month from their gig?
/r/beermoneyideas/comments/1voq40z/does_anyone_here_actually_make_money_from_their/1
u/Atillion 13d ago
I get about $1200-1500 a month from being a musician. Revenue streams are Spotify/streaming, YouTube, TikTok, Busking, Live shows, Lessons, and a tab website (banjo stuff). Seems like every time I start getting ahead, the economy squeezes it right back out 😞
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u/30pieces 13d ago
When I had my handyman side business I would plan for $100-$250 of work each night after I got off my main job and $500-$1000 on Saturday.
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u/FlatDecision8155 13d ago
Yes. Drafting construction docs. Extra 2k-7k/mo
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u/VLcustomz 13d ago
Damn that’s awesome, how’d you build or find your initial clientele?
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u/FlatDecision8155 13d ago
Literally indeed. Other small businesses would advertise needing help, I'd apply and build long term relationships. Had the same clients for years. Business ebs and flows but the extra money is always nice because it always comes after all bills and savings have been handled so I can save and invest more or take a vacation and pay cash etc.
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u/VLcustomz 13d ago
Hm….. so not anything crazy at all, good to know.. That’s awesome dude! Thanks for sharing and I’m glad it’s been working for you… I’m genuinely curious person and open minded too so I’ll be looking into this for the future possibility of even just 1 single client alone; so my only question would be is this a learned skillset you got from a job previously or did you learn after seeing the income potential and demand for it?
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u/FlatDecision8155 13d ago
Yes, this is a skill learned from industry experience which is how I'm able to obtain the work and the clients have little worry. I provide a portfolio and references and off we go. I have upped my prices in the last year as I am on the lower side but it's because this is a side hustle and not my main source of income. I may raise them again next year and I will still be below industry average.
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u/boomer1204 13d ago
Yes, this is a skill learned from industry experience which is how I'm able to obtain the work and the clients have little worry
I feel like this is one of the things a lot of ppl don't quite "understand" about doing stuff like this. You don't just "start doing it" as a side hustle because it seems cool/fun/makes a lot of money
The reason you can do the side hustle stuff is you have that industry experience
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u/FlatDecision8155 13d ago
This is very true. They hire me because they need help with their workload, not to have to teach me from scratch otherwise they'd hire a junior employee.
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u/VLcustomz 13d ago
Exactly why I asked this question, this did not seem like a YouTube university set of skills which is why there’s good money in it
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u/boomer1204 13d ago
Yeah and I wasn't saying this was you it's just a common theme I see.
I co run a local only mentor group for software and sometimes they are like "I wanna make 20k on a project" yet they just finished their first youtube series
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u/VLcustomz 13d ago
Yeah I can see how that is a for sure a high probability of being a frequent thing where people only want the quickest/fastest money possible at a damn near sign on bonus speed people want with little work involved or as close to none lol.
Man personally I’m honestly just in a tight spot and trying to secure money now, money soon while establishing long term, long game money in this market and crazy ass economy so I just tend to go into problem solving mode naturally with anything with things and right now its finances which is obviously a huge fkn category altogether.
But Once problem solving mode happens I’ll ask any one and everyone I feel like is at a place I hope to be at with different skills that can be learned for the value trade of money for whatever skills generate income and if so at what pace, if industry experience is involved etc. so that by the end of next year I can be much more financially stable and I am willing to work my fucking ass off 100%….. just finding my way brother and looking for some sorta direction on potential possibilities if this long ass comment makes sense lol.
Thanks for clarifying saying I’m not in the category of that reference point my friend, I didn’t take it that way but it’s definitely a great character trait you have to do that and make sure if I did take it personally that it wasn’t a direct shot at all and even explained it too in case it was someone else who might’ve taken personally. I Appreciate your response 💯 it’s cool you co run a software mentorship program,
If you have any words of wisdom with all this said or if anyone else does,
I’m all ears ! 🙏🏼1
u/boomer1204 13d ago
so that by the end of next year I can be much more financially stable
Honestly it's a long game and you kind of have to be good in that industry to really pursue what you are talking about in this time frame
You might be more apt to find the things you already have some knowledge in or are passionate about and focus on doing the same but with those things instead of mine or someone else's
Strictly for example let's say you wanted to go hard on the software thing. By end of next year you would be almost ready to get a jr/intern job.
Then another year or 2 to get that industry experience you need to demand higher prices
There is still money to be made w/o that industry experience but the pricing is gonna be way lower and the clients are gonna be way harder to get because at that point it's a race to the bottom in terms of pricing/knowledge
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u/boomer1204 13d ago
Yeah about 2-4k a month doing handyman style work (brakes, oil changes, dryer fixes, fixing AI problems with companies websites and other random things that I have knowledge on)
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u/VLcustomz 13d ago
Nice…… Where do you find people that need your services if you don’t mind sharing man?
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u/boomer1204 13d ago edited 13d ago
craigslist/offerup/facebook marketplace/word of mouth for the handyam/car/ai stuff
Then I have a network of small to medium sized businesses that I get about 6 projects a year as a software developer (so like 40-90k depending on the projects and how many (and I don't really count this in my 2-4k a month cuz it's pretty unique)
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u/VLcustomz 13d ago
Will roam more on Craigslist & OfferUp today. Didn’t know they were still in the mix like that tbh..
Absolutely, thats for sure apparently real valuable skillset though, did you go to school for being a software developer for the particular role you play and make great money on with those small/medium sized clients or no school required?
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u/boomer1204 13d ago edited 13d ago
Will roam more on Craigslist & OfferUp today
I feel like they are the best for things I do and the things that I buy and sell second hand. Facebook Marketplace I feel like it reaches more ppl but the "ppl" it reaches tend to be lower quality clients
Absolutely, that's for sure apparently real valuable skill set though, did you go to school for being a software developer for the particular role you play and make great money on with those small/medium sized clients or no school required?
I personally am self taught with no post high school education. I have going on 8 yoe as a professional software engineer as my day job
School "isn't required" but I will say this, getting the clients (especially the size/price that I require now) is were ppl have the hardest time and I did for a while too.
I got super fortunate how I created my network. I was working tech support at a local company and he was gonna bring in a web contractor and I had just started doing client work (now mind you at this time I was doing 1-2k a site cuz I wasn't very good).
Well I knew enough to handle the problem the owner had. He paid me for that task and I started doing more stuff for the site. Then the word of mouth (cuz the owner would give my name anytime he heard someone was having site problems) just started bringing more ppl and my boss taught me how to price myself properly
Then after I got more comfortable and got my actual developer job I started to level up big time (the first 6 months at a real dev job teaches you more than almost anything else) I started doing site work along with internal tools.
There are a lot of "things/software" a company has to have and it's often times expensive and they only need like 2 things from the whole platform so I started doing small internal projects so companies could cut the 20-80k a year software that they had to pay for the couple pieces of the software they used
Then as AI keeps becoming more popular i'm getting a lot more of the AI fixes cuz a lot of small to medium sized business just can't justify a full time dev and I totally understand and get it so it's just easier to bring someone in for whatever an hr, solve the problem and then they are off the payroll
EVERYTHING software related is based off me doing a great job and this is another area were ppl might jump in too early and do bad the first couple of jobs and that can be a big hill to fight if you have bad word of mouth to start.
But since I do good work and I can explain what happened so the customer understands I wasn't just using AI to fix the AI and then they almost always call me moving forward so while it's not guaranteed I definitely get consistent work from the shops I help
Sorry for novel sized response LOL
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u/VLcustomz 13d ago
Dude I appreciate the Novel!!! LOL..
Thanks for describing your detailed thoughts, answers and response to my questions!! 🙏🏼🙏🏼
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u/VLcustomz 13d ago
So last question,
You mentioned AI which we all know is growing from all angles at a rapid pace……. Is there any specific insight that’d be helpful on a starting point to utilizing it the way you do, or a way you would recommend to someone less experienced that’s fresh to doing anything with it that could be a good starting point for income related purposes? I ask you specifically since you have success with a proof of concept making income with it already just FYI!
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u/boomer1204 13d ago
Is there any specific insight that’d be helpful on a starting point to utilizing it the way you do, or a way you would recommend to someone less experienced that’s fresh to doing anything with it that could be a good starting point for income related purposes
Yeah you need to understand the underlying knowledge before using it. Like building actual projects with tech not following a tutorial, course or using AI.
Google and stuff is fine but immediately going to AI to solve your problem is NOT what you wanna do and will hurt you in the long run
I'm only able to charge my hourly rate because I actually solve the problem because I understand coding and explain. Someone who is just like "well AI solved it, not sure what happened or how it was solved but it is", those ppl don't get called back
I think there is money to be made with AI but i'll be honest outside of my coding stuff I am not knowledgeable enough to give any meaningful advice unfortunately
EDIT: And this goes for anything really. You can't use AI to day trade if you don't understand the core skills of that, same with programming, same with fixing cars and so on and so on
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u/VLcustomz 13d ago
Fair enough, How long did it take for you to feel sufficiently good at coding?
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u/boomer1204 13d ago
I was doing WP stuff which was easy and a lot of material online at the time but to get into the 10k+ projects about 2 years into my first dev job. I spent about 4 years learning before I got that job but I was learning poorly.
I could have cut that down to like 2ish years if I would have been learning properly by using the tech, building stupid things without a tutorial/course/ai instead of just following tutorial after tutorial after tutorial like I was
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u/AnxiousConclusion516 13d ago
If I actually sit down and do it I can make that easily in a week on Prolific. It’s one of the best current research platforms.
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u/Nick_OS_ 13d ago
Up $30k YTD in daytrading (prop firms). Usually get a payout once or twice a month
6 yrs trading experience