Author Topic: Side Hustle Starts Today  (Read 6887 times)

WillPen

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Side Hustle Starts Today
« on: April 19, 2014, 08:44:17 AM »
This is a little bit of a brag. It's not significant but I think it's a smart move on my part.

I start a small side hustle today. I'm mowing my neighbor's yard for $30 a week. He's a doctor who spends a majority of his time on the road and visiting his fiance in another city. My thinking is it will take me 45 minutes a week to do his after mine is finished. That will be $120 a month in extra cash. My attitude is I want to try to maximize income and minimize expenses wherever I can. Since my wife and I got married a year ago, those little changes have resulted in an extra $500-$600 a month to add to our stache.

To me this extra cash off sets our electric and water bill.. Or pays for our insurance bills.. Or our cell phone bills.. However you look at it.


kudy

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Re: Side Hustle Starts Today
« Reply #1 on: April 19, 2014, 11:39:07 AM »
Awesome! Any other wealthy & time bankrupt neighbors you could add to the weekly plan? In my neighborhood, I have competition from a group of kids who offer this service, and I imagine they'd undercut my pricing if I tried to compete.

NewStachian

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Re: Side Hustle Starts Today
« Reply #2 on: April 19, 2014, 11:54:25 AM »
Very awesome! If you're dedicated to this being for investments, consider automatically bumping up your monthly automatic allotment to your investments. Every time I get a small raise, I immediately up my allotments so it forces me to put that money to savings and not let my budget balloon. This can be stressful for some and invigorating for others. Watching my savings rate auto-calculation go up each time I do this is awesome.

WillPen

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Re: Side Hustle Starts Today
« Reply #3 on: April 19, 2014, 12:24:32 PM »
I live in a neighborhood that has quite a few older couples and divorcees. The houses have pretty small yards and most folks don't want to deal with them.

I'm 34 and my wife and I make decent money. I don't know how I feel about filling up my weekends with doing yard work for people, but I could certainly think about it. This opportunity was just another piece of low hanging fruit in executing my maximize-income/minimize-expenses everywhere strategy. Maybe there will be others??

As for our investments, all cash in excess of our "emergency fund" gets swept into our Vanguard account each month. Even though it won't be noticeable, this money will probably end up there. Right now I'm working on our 2014 Roth contributions.

Nords

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Re: Side Hustle Starts Today
« Reply #4 on: April 19, 2014, 11:19:50 PM »
I'm mowing my neighbor's yard for $30 a week.
Congratulations on the extra income, but holy crap-- how much does the grass grow in a week?!?

I think my spouse mows our lawn 3-4x/year.  (She chose that particular marital division of labor.)  We weedwhack our back slope maybe 3-4x/year, too.  I don't think we'd even get anything out of the grass-catcher if we mowed more often than monthly. 

zataks

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Re: Side Hustle Starts Today
« Reply #5 on: April 20, 2014, 02:05:19 AM »
Awesome! Any other wealthy & time bankrupt neighbors you could add to the weekly plan? In my neighborhood, I have competition from a group of kids who offer this service, and I imagine they'd undercut my pricing if I tried to compete.

Sounds like it's about time to teach them kids about the ol' free market!  And then reap the benefits when the knock it down cut your grass for kind words and a good reference.

ch12

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Re: Side Hustle Starts Today
« Reply #6 on: April 20, 2014, 11:28:47 AM »
I live in a neighborhood that has quite a few older couples and divorcees. The houses have pretty small yards and most folks don't want to deal with them.

I'm 34 and my wife and I make decent money. I don't know how I feel about filling up my weekends with doing yard work for people, but I could certainly think about it. This opportunity was just another piece of low hanging fruit in executing my maximize-income/minimize-expenses everywhere strategy. Maybe there will be others??

As for our investments, all cash in excess of our "emergency fund" gets swept into our Vanguard account each month. Even though it won't be noticeable, this money will probably end up there. Right now I'm working on our 2014 Roth contributions.

Saving an extra $600/month yields $103,800 more in your 'stache over 10 years.

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/04/15/getting-started-3-eliminate-short-termitis-the-bankruptcy-disease/

Bravo! Mustachianism is about maximizing happiness. If it would be onerous to take on more yard work, then don't.

Whenever I get a raise or some increase in income, I put the before and after numbers through networthify to see how much it speeds me up. I'd recommend it, because it's very motivational.

http://networthify.com/calculator/earlyretirement?income=50000&initialBalance=0&expenses=20000&annualPct=5&withdrawalRate=4

ChrisLansing

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Re: Side Hustle Starts Today
« Reply #7 on: April 20, 2014, 02:45:51 PM »
I like ch12s way of looking at it.   It's more than 100K after 10 years.   That's a lot of money fore a fairly small investment of time.   

greaper007

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Re: Side Hustle Starts Today
« Reply #8 on: April 20, 2014, 03:36:46 PM »
That's awesome.    Have you considered taking on a couple more and upgrading your equipment?    A neighbor of mine had commercial quality lawn equipment  that allowed him to cut yards about twice as fast as a residential mower.    He cut about 6 old people's lawns every week for about what you charge.   

Some back of the envelope calculations tell me it would only be about the summer to pay that stuff off and you'd be making some exponentially larger profit.   Then again, $30 a week isn't bad.     

frugalnacho

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Re: Side Hustle Starts Today
« Reply #9 on: April 22, 2014, 11:49:55 AM »
I'm mowing my neighbor's yard for $30 a week.
Congratulations on the extra income, but holy crap-- how much does the grass grow in a week?!?

I think my spouse mows our lawn 3-4x/year.  (She chose that particular marital division of labor.)  We weedwhack our back slope maybe 3-4x/year, too.  I don't think we'd even get anything out of the grass-catcher if we mowed more often than monthly.

Here in the detroit, michigan area we have to mow the lawn every week during the summer.   15+ hours of sunlight per day, warm weather, and some water and that shit grows like a weed. 

MrFancypants

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Re: Side Hustle Starts Today
« Reply #10 on: April 22, 2014, 11:53:09 AM »
Nice.  I did this as a kid growing up and made something like $10 an hour as a nine year old with a lawnmower and trimmer.

mbl

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Re: Side Hustle Starts Today
« Reply #11 on: April 22, 2014, 12:18:59 PM »
Out here those that have goats let 'em loose on any area that they want "trimmed".
It's a riot.  And, the droppings are used for other stuff. 

Leisured

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Re: Side Hustle Starts Today
« Reply #12 on: April 24, 2014, 05:27:52 AM »
And with a push mower, you get paid to exercise.

citrine

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Re: Side Hustle Starts Today
« Reply #13 on: April 24, 2014, 09:37:52 AM »
Good for you :)  I love side hustles! 

southern granny

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Re: Side Hustle Starts Today
« Reply #14 on: April 28, 2014, 07:44:07 PM »
I'm mowing my neighbor's yard for $30 a week.
Congratulations on the extra income, but holy crap-- how much does the grass grow in a week?!?

I think my spouse mows our lawn 3-4x/year.  (She chose that particular marital division of labor.)  We weedwhack our back slope maybe 3-4x/year, too.  I don't think we'd even get anything out of the grass-catcher if we mowed more often than monthly.

I'm in Kentucky, If we went that long without mowing the city would send a crew over to do it and send me a bill for $120.  Mowing here is once a week every week from April to October.

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!