How to Make Your Side Hustle Your Full-Time Job with Vanessa Joy
I have two businesses, working in both online education and as a wedding event photographer, and I love my work—it’s definitely a dream job for me. I also make fantastic money from it: more than six figures from each side of the business is my net yearly pay, after expenses.
Compare that to the day job I used to work, earning $42,000 a year as a Spanish teacher. I’ve been able to do more of what I love and make much more money doing it. I won’t lie though: it took time—more time than you might think.
I want to share the strategy you can use to take your side hustle and grow it enough to quit your day job. If you follow these steps, you’ll be prepared for the challenges of self-employment so that you can also reap the rewards of owning your own business (or two!). Here are the steps to take.
Step 1. Don’t Just Quit! Work Both At First
I won’t lie, you’ll probably be working nights and weekends during this stage, but that’s the “side” part of having a side hustle. What is so valuable about keeping the security of the day job while you work your side hustle is that you get to test out your skills in the marketplace, but you aren’t taking on as much risk as those who just quit their jobs and start from scratch.
Your side hustle will teach you a ton of things about what doesn’t work and what does work, but the goal is to start growing your income in that side hustle until it is enough to replace all your income from your day job.
Many people are tempted to get the money from their side work and fold it into the monthly budget, but if you are serious about making the leap to full-time, don’t do it! Keep your expenses as close to the same as possible, using your day income. Put all the side hustle money aside. When they are roughly equal, you switch: start living off the side hustle money and put your whole day job paycheck into savings.
