Side Hustle Exhibition

I am a big fan of proof of concept. We bloggers are great at talking about financial independence, investing, and side hustles. Our advice holds hollow, however, if we can’t metaphorically put our money where our mouth is. We owe it to the audience to not only preach about the best way to do things, but give real life examples. I have tried to do that in the past with my income reports. Everyone knows that I have a ridiculous love affair of side hustles. But I rarely take the time to enumerate my actual daily activities. Today’s side hustle exhibition will not be an attempt at braggadocious self-aggrandizement, but rather the kind of proof of concept I believe necessary to add weight to some of the arguments this blog makes.

As I have written before, side hustles come in three flavors.

Lazy Side Hustles

Lazy side hustles utilize skills and education already paid for by one’s main hustle. As a physician, the skills and training I have received over ten years of schooling naturally become low picking fruit in the side gig economy. These types of extras are not limited to medicine. Anyone one who has specialized knowledge accrued over years in their main W2 can monetize this mastery.

In the interest of full disclosure for this side hustle exhibition, I am currently engaged in many of these “lazy” activities. I am a consultant for a hospice and palliative care company, and help run five distinct hospice teams averaging a census of 300 patients total.

Recently, I have been hired by a nurse practitioner company to help supervise and provide education for a primary care practice. I am also a medical director of a nursing home.

My skill set and knowledge of internal medicine has made me a great candidate for medical expert witness work.

Fat Side Hustles

In some ways, these are my least favorite side hustles. Who wants to put money down for risky returns? Because of the risk profile, I am very careful before jumping into these ventures.

Real estate, by far, has had the highest cost of entrance of any side hustle. I fully own and rent four condos in the Chicagoland area. It cost me several hundred thousand dollars to enter the world of landlording but I feel that is a nice way to diversify by uncorrelating with the stock market. I cash flow mid six-figures yearly with the benefit of depreciation deferring my taxes.

A less successful but still important fat side hustle is book writing. I have written two self published books that provide a trickle of income every month. I spent about $5k to edit and produce the books and probably will do slightly better than breaking even.

Lean Side Hustles

Lean start up principles have revolutionized business building and revenue generation. At the time of this writing, it cost me a few hundred dollars to start this blog and I will probably clear about 7K this year. The majority of profits will go to blog related travel like CampFI and FinCon.

Public speaking is one of my newer ventures. Although I have given keynote speeches for medical conferences in the past, I am now signed up for a popular speakers bureau and have two events already lined up for the near future. Public speaking can be daunting but is also fun for a story-teller like me.

Past Side Hustles

For many years I owned and ran a website selling popular art work. I eventually dropped this gig when I started my own medical practice.

As a kid I bought and sold baseball cards through magazine ads.

Final Thoughts

When it comes to giving advice on the internet, words only mean so much. The audience deserves proof of concept. This side hustle exhibition was meant to describe some of the real life side gigs that I take part in.

I don’t only write about revenue generation opportunities, I try to practice what I preach.