COVID| 2020 Year of the Side Hustle

Need to make more money? “COVID-19 Won’t Force me to Give up my Standard of Living“

Trying to find a way to make more money? It’s safe to say that majority of South Africans have taken some kind of financial knock this year, whether it’s a salary reduction or losing your job altogether. For many, the 2020 lockdown has not been kind and it’s most definitely not doing the South African economy any favours.

Too many businesses have had to close their doors leaving millions jobless, we have to buckle down and weather this storm the best way we can.

We are seeing many people talking and writing about cutting your expenses and yes that very well may be your short-term solution. Doing your financial analysis will always help and it will show you areas where you will be able to improve on your spending but is this the long-term solution?

Cutting out everything you love, your “luxurious spending”, will that make you happy, and is it worth minimizing your standard of living? Certainly not. The answer is simply that there will always be a way to make money, there will always be an opportunity no matter what the economic climate is. Instead of cutting out things you love, earn more income. We will discuss some easy ways of making a quick buck a bit later. The theory of not giving up everything you love bur rather making more money came from the book “The Magic of Getting What You Want” by David J. Schwartz

If you aren’t really enjoying the journey what is it all for?

Reduce costs yes, let’s do that but let’s not stop spending money altogether. This only harms your standard of living, hurting your mindset, and has negative long-lasting effects on the economy.

Reducing your expenses is short term

Cutting down on your expenses will always help you straight away and it’s certainly a way to minimize the impact of COVID-19. Let’s look at where to start and what we can do to reduce our household spending:

1. Sit down and create a new budget then compare it to the old budget
2. Analyze the last 3 months bank statements and check where we can make smarter decisions like not buying groceries every night from the 7/11 but by doing a weekly shop and buying fruit in bulk
3. During your analysis look at how your savings and emergency fund can be spent over the next 3-6 months in the most effective way
4. Set up a financial date night with your partner: opening up honest communication is the key here
5. Get rid of multiple bank accounts that are just sitting there, this will reduce bank costs and charges
6. Contact your bank: many banks have plans in place for consumers that are struggling and may be able to assist you to make it through the next couple of months
7. Use loyalty programs everywhere! Businesses are encouraging you to use their loyalty cards and points so now is the time to sign up for that Pick n Pay card you always say you are going to get. This is a great way to save money
8. Start planning for the festive season, this time of year puts many people in debt so decide what you want to get now and buy small things when they are on sale or start a DIY project for gifts or buy a gift a month with your loyalty points you have accumulated, bang boom Christmas gifts done
9. 10. Download specials apps like fomo : This app shows you which specials are nearest to you and lets you search for restaurants or events by price or location. We suggest you download the app asap and check out how much you can be saving. No more compromising on your lifestyle: https://fomosa.co.za/
10. Compare your car insurance with alternative quotes, in no way do we encourage you to cancel your car or household insurance but there may be better quotes out there:

Making More Money: don’t overthink it

Like I have mentioned previously there will always be ways to make more money you just have to open your mind up to new possibilities. You may think selling a pair of shoes is beneath you… STOP THINKING ANY JOB IS BENEATH YOU!

We are never “too good” for any job and doing one thing small leads to profit for the next thing.

Let’s give you an example: I recently sold a pair of Nike running shoes on the Facebook marketplace. I wasn’t wearing these shoes anymore and they were in good condition but 9 months old. I originally paid R800 for them because I went to the factory shop last year and bought them on a Black Friday special. I sold them in 5 hours for R400. How?

I put them on the Facebook marketplace, had lots of interest but it didn’t take long until the lady showed up at my apartment block, gave me the cash I gave her the shoes. She needed them for work and I wasn’t wearing them anymore, you see how that works.

There are many ways to make more money, some short term some long term so let’s look at a few:

• Move your savings into a Money Market account to earn interest, you can pull the money out within 24 hours. This interest is usually about 5% annualized. Nedbank has a money market called Just Invest, there are also many other banks that have Money Markets
• Transcribe: you can make money by listening to audio files and typing them out. Here’s a good website to use and they pay in dollars: https://scribie.com/
• Do freelance copywriting, there are many websites that you can use for this, see our article on How to Start Freelancing
• Sell anything and I mean anything on the Facebook marketplace or Gumtree (be careful of scammers on Gumtree) that you aren’t using anymore. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure right
• Buy and sell: look for good deals online, in the store, at Cash Converters, heck at your neighbor’s house and sell sell sell. We can do wonderful things with social media these days
• There are even people on Facebook that buy bags of secondhand clothes and they resell it. Do that!
• Find an online auction and bid on lots of small electronics or kitchen appliances, this is cheaper than you think. Resell this on the marketplace. Try Aucor, they even have an app that you can use to bid
• Find a trend: buy the material, find someone to sew you a simple tracksuit and sell sell sell (often on Facebook you can buy ready-made items and resell)
• Find a lack of supply product: for example, people are spending more and more time on their computers, and the prices of blue light lenses at optometrists are ridiculous. Find a supplier (you can even do this using Facebook) buy a few in bulk and sell them, simple enough
• Go the factory shops, buy a pair of Nikes sell them on Facebook, make a profit, and do it over and over again. You will be surprised at how much you can make

These are just a couple of ways to side hustle. A side hustle could help you make it through a tough time or can provide you with enough profit to start something you want to do long-term. Watch GaryVee talk about hustling, it will inspire you, I promise:

We think you will be interested in our article: Best and Worst Insurance Companies of 2020