Written by: Adele Mineau | Commercial and Agricultural Account Manager | Ailsa Craig & Parkhill branches
Side hustles have become a popular way of supplementing income from a full or part time job, and they’re only getting more common during the Covid-19 pandemic.
A good side hustle should be scalable, flexible, and well paying. Income can be used to pay-off debt, or put away more into savings, while doing something you love.
Some popular side hustle ideas are: tutoring or teaching a skill, renting out a property through Airbnb, selling arts or crafts, and podcasting or blogging.
When beginning your new business it’s best to think of it as its’ own entity:
Open a separate bank account that makes tracking the income and expenses easy for tax time.
Be sure to have a schedule. Are you going to devote an hour a day to your business, every Saturday, or is it seasonal?
Have a business plan with short-term and long-term goals with a timeline. How many students do you want to teach a day, how many crafts need to be for sale each month, how many days per week are you renting out the cottage?
Don’t spend money the buyer won’t see, only spend money where it improves the quality of your product or efficiency. Think about if you need supplies before you order them or can sell the extra items a new system would allow you to produce.
Keep administration and infrastructure simple. Can you get by with a spreadsheet and an invoice template?
Let Mainstreet know what kind of side hustle you are starting. We are interested in your ideas and can provide advice on how to begin, how to manage day to day, and how to grow.
Book a meeting with an advisor today to get started.