Author Topic: Increasing income flow -- do tell?  (Read 4690 times)

possumjaw

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Increasing income flow -- do tell?
« on: April 01, 2015, 08:09:50 AM »
Moved across the planet for a new job?  Negotiated a great raise?  Found a nice side industry?  Would love to hear other people's stories of increasing income. 

My mother is currently working on putting together some cottage industry stuff and getting into renting apartments, and I'm hoping to find similar avenues.  I'm more looking to find a full-time job which would give me a higher income, but other stuff helps too.  Just have been reading lots of small comments all over the boards about people's small triumphs and thought I'd make a specific thread concerning it.

medicaustik

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Re: Increasing income flow -- do tell?
« Reply #1 on: April 01, 2015, 11:44:26 AM »
Concert season is coming up, and I staff as a paramedic at my local concert venue.

Last year it netted me an additional $2k in income, and I only worked a handful of the concerts. This year I plan on doing as many as possible.

Not only do I get paid to practice medicine in an interesting environment, but I also get to watch a lot of the actual concert. It's great.

Also, with my paramedic background I became a CPR and First Aid instructor. Started a side business with my paramedic partner who is also an instructor. We've made just over $3,000 YTD, and have almost no expenses. I don't draw any money out of the business yet, but it's nice to know I could if I need to. Kind of an emergency backup to my emergency backup.

bmiles62

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Re: Increasing income flow -- do tell?
« Reply #2 on: April 01, 2015, 12:44:31 PM »
My wife and I are hosting two International students from China. They are High School age and go to a private school that is right next door to our Townhome. We are basically responsible for food and getting them to events and a few other incidentals.  We get paid $18,000 for 10 months and clear about 10,000 after expenses. We are being told that this $10,000 will be tax free since we can right off other expenses including the area of our house that is being used for them. We really like spending time with them and are looking forward to having them back next year. Kind of a win win all the way around. It can be restrictive for us to travel during the year but we both work at a high school and have off July and August by ourselves so we can make up for the travel then.

Gockie

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Re: Increasing income flow -- do tell?
« Reply #3 on: April 03, 2015, 05:37:03 AM »
I have a couple of side gigs:
1. Volleyball venue managing for a couple of local competitions. I'd be playing a lot of the time anyway, so this covers my playing costs and gives me extra money.
2. Volleyball refereeing. I reckon I could do more of this in retirement, a lot of school comps need refs who can referee in school hours.
3. AirBnB host in inner Sydney. I'm making close to double what I would get for my airbnb property as opposed to a normal rental. It's a great pay rate if you consider the number of hours I have to put into it.

possumjaw

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Re: Increasing income flow -- do tell?
« Reply #4 on: April 03, 2015, 05:11:35 PM »
That's super cool.  How many hours do you folks find yourselves working, if I may ask?

Gockie

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Re: Increasing income flow -- do tell?
« Reply #5 on: April 04, 2015, 06:36:09 AM »
That's super cool.  How many hours do you folks find yourselves working, if I may ask?

For me, not that many extra hours to be honest. :)

The volleyball venue managing adds about 3 hours of "work" a week (easy work)

The referreeing hardly adds any extra time (generally we'd be doing duty, which means referreeing/ helping out anyway by second reffing, calling lines or scoring) but since I'm qualified, I get paid to do it. :)

The airbnb job adds maybe up to 3 hours of work per week if I count the hours and time spent cleaning, correspondence, listing maintenance. I have a 6 night minimum stay to minimise the work I need to do for it. I can do a lot of the correspondence while relaxing at home or sitting on a bus., ditto for the volleyball venue managing work.
I update the results etc and communicate whatever while relaxing at home or I also do it while travelling to and from work on the bus. If I wasn't doing this I'd probably just be surfing facebook or doing nothing productive on the bus trip.

All very easy really. :)
« Last Edit: April 04, 2015, 06:38:57 AM by Gockie »

webguy

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Re: Increasing income flow -- do tell?
« Reply #6 on: April 04, 2015, 07:59:33 AM »
Here's how I almost 20x my income in 6 years:

Year 1 I started at $39,000 as a fulltime web designer. Worked my butt off and in..
Year 2 asked for a raise to $50,000.
Year 3 I applied for a contract position at another company for the equivalent of $85,000/year. After 2 months my old job offered me a promotion to come back, at $68,500 w/benefits. I took it as I much preferred that company.
Year 4 worked freelance on the side of my day job and made ~$100,000 in total for that year ($68.5k + $35k). Started working on building my own business.
Year 5 quit my day job and started my own software business, made $400,000 for the year.
Currently in year 6, projecting to make $700,000 this year.

2Birds1Stone

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Re: Increasing income flow -- do tell?
« Reply #7 on: April 04, 2015, 08:02:37 AM »
Started working in retail in 2010, moved up to full time in 2011, my own store in 2012, in december of 2014 I decided I wanted out and applied for a position doing business to business software sales. 1 phone screening and 6 interviews later I got the job. I just finished training. Went from making $8 an hour to potential 6 figure income in 5 years. I also continue to do some side work consulting, and helping a friend with the sales side for a brand he started 2 years ago.

possumjaw

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Re: Increasing income flow -- do tell?
« Reply #8 on: April 04, 2015, 12:37:57 PM »
Gockie, wow, that does sound like nada!  That's wonderful you get to do that with things you find rewarding.

Others,  ....goodness.  Quite a jump!  I am only making around 9.5$/hr. right now, which is great but for saving a stache, practically nothing.  I'm still saving a quarter to a third of my income, but it's just not much.  Unfortunately, I took the job I did for the steady/constant nature of the work a couple years ago for the sake of having an income at all, but now I am ready for a new trajectory.  There is opportunity for advancement in my org, (have been offered multi times), but it's all salaried positions which, given how much work you actually have to put in to do the jobs, run somewhere between 8-9$/hr., plus additional regular managerial stress, so a lateral move at best in my book. 

Thanks for the interesting ideas!