QOTD #8: What do you do to supplement your income?

What do you do to supplement your income?

Some households have 2+ wage earners with full time jobs to make ends meet, others can squeek by with one job. Seems that inflation has gotten to the point where a family can't have any extra spending money unless they at least do a little something on the side to supplement their income. What do you do to bring in a little extra cash flow?

 

Seeing the money pic in the OP reminded me of when I was in my twenties and at my then boyfriend's urging entered an 'amateur nite' at a strip club and won $100 which then turned into a lucrative full time gig for the next three years as I danced the circuit in the plains/midwest.

It was mostly under the table (under the G-string) cash money and I had, when I 'retired,' literally a shoebox full of big bills, which I didn't dare put in the bank.

Ah, the underground economy. It paid for graduate school, but that was a hard life. I don't regret it, but I don't think I could do that now at age 38.

Since I moved to Nebraska I've worked a a couple of interesting part time jobs trying to learn about how certain industries work. I worked for a sporting goods chain and am now working for a local collection agency where I get paid $10/hour plus a commission on what my 'book' brings in.

My main work is as an investor. Like Warren Buffett, but without the billions. I live modestly in order to leave my investments intact. I try not to be too much of a grinch, but when we went out for a 'pretty good OK' dinner a couple of weeks ago the $90 dinner was like selling (or not buying) a share of Union Pacific stock.

 

This is again a bit of a trick question. I don't make any effort to bring in extra cash right now. I focus on minimizing expenses and living well below our means so I don't feel guilty about spending copious amounts of time with my girls.

As a family, our extra cash comes from investments. I want to be like Lindy described with investing, but so far my husband has managed all of our investments. He does an excellent job, when he has time to think about our portfolio. Recently he has been too swamped at work and we are being overly cautious with our savings. We would like to get to the point where we have enough invested to retire early and live off investments. At the moment we are focusing on paying off our home, though. Not having a mortgage payment would go a long way toward making that a possibility.

 

I don't have the energy to keep up with a side gig at the moment. I have a second job already on the books, but no time to put into it. And that's okay. We have to manage our income at the moment to avoid going up into the next tax bracket. It should be okay this year, but we don't have as many deductions as I'd like to lower our AGI.

 

I don't do anything for this. I do have some non-retirement investments that I manage myself, but I count that more as a savings account than secondary income. I've tried to think of some passive ways to generate some side income, but most of them end up being less than passive in the long run, which I'm not interested in. I have a buddy or two who own some rental properties on the side, and they hate it and are looking to move them (at a loss) because of all the hassle. I had considered trying to do something like that, but most of the anecdotal experiences I've heard are negative for my area/price range.

 

I do PT remote gigs...best one I've had so far was an app I built for the NOAA. (plus being an SME for their International Group)

Plus, I have my own business...consultant gigs, advising...and leveraging my inventions.

Lastly, I do Agent/Mgmt work for various people in several verticals that need IT and Business assistance.
Websites, advertising, marketing, etc...

 

I don't invest for income, I invest for long term growth. I research constantly but only look at how my portfolio is doing every couple of months, unless something calls attention to itself. That takes discipline. I would venture a guess that more harm is done to an investment portfolio by being overly attentive (which leads to a desire to do something) than by ignoring it most of the time. Read Benjamin Graham's book.

I'm also going to pay off the mortgage before the end of the year. It's a guaranteed return of 3.625%

I tried doing some 'shadow' trading with options and lost my shirt. I'm glad it wasn't real money. I just don't understand futures well enough to be comfortable.

But you only pay the higher rate at the margin, not your entire AGI. Nobody likes taxes, but there's no point in forgoing $10k in income to save $2.5k in taxes.

 

Well, yeah, but nothing we get from a second gig is going to be worth 10k, and we're essentially doubling our income this year over previous years, so I'm waiting to see how it plays out at tax time, since some of my income doesn't have federal withholding on it (one of the strange things with substitute teaching).