Frugal Side Hustle: Summer Side Hustles for Teachers

Published Apr 2, 2024, 7:00 AM

You are not just a teacher, but an all-rounder, a jack of all trades. Teachers’ honorable work in the classroom should never be undermined and should be greatly compensated. In this episode, Jen and Jill highlight the discrepancies in income and expenses for teachers that unfortunately push them to find additional work and the popular side hustles teachers can take on during the summer.  

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Episode three ninety four Frugal Side Hustles Summer side Hustles for Teachers.

Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to save money, embrace simplicity, and live a life. Here your hosts Jen and Jill.

Welcome to Frugal Friends podcast. My name is Jen, my name is Jill, and this is our Summer side Hustles episode. We say it's for teachers, but it could really be for anyone.

Yeah, if you looking for a summer side hustle, doesn't matter what you know, but there are a lot I mean for the career path that has summers available. This is something that a lot of teachers need to consider, maybe want to consider for a financial goals. So we've got a lot of teachers that listen to the podcast. We've given us some ideas that we want to go through. We'll turn to the as we do. But first, this episode is brought to you by Miss Frizzle, one of the most top notch teachers to be able had the perfect combination of being completely unhinged while also still relatively capable of watching children. If this describes your teaching style or your parenting style, and you really just wish you had access to a magic school bus that, instead of taking you inside microscopic life, took you to exotic destinations that gave you cash to bring home. Then sign up for the Friend Letter. It's the next best thing to money in vacations because we're telling you about freebies, savingsags, and ways to spend better. It's our version of a magic school Bus. Like Miss Frizzle says, take chances, make mistakes, get messy, Fregal friendspodcast dot com, get the Friend Letter.

I do. I do like that saying. But what I like the best is at the end of the Magic school Bus books, they have like quote unquote letters to the editor pointing out all the inconsistencies in the field trip or in the science of it and being like, yep, we know.

Who cares. Yeah, I'm like, is this for entertainment?

Yeah?

I kind of like the podcast. Yeah.

Self realization, just knowing thyself is very important. So Frugal Side Hustles we love this series. We do it often, and we want to share business ideas that can be done as side hustles but could potentially grow to bigger things. And we're taking the same approach with this summer side hustle episode, but we have a lot of others. So episode three fifty six we talk about Airbnb rooms and co hosting. Episode three thirty eight we talk about self publishing fiction and nonfiction with Kay Williams, she's a really successful fiction author, self published. And episode three twenty bookkeeping with Kate Johnson. That's a really good one. You'll hear a little bit more about that one in this episode. I honestly think that is the perfect side hustle for teachers, especially if you like the if you're the math type teacher, or if you enjoy math more than the regular teacher. Bookkeeping is a fantastic side hustle that can be turned into a full time business should you ever want or need it too.

Yeah. Great, great, great side hustle episodes. But here we are. We're here for our teachers right now. And this first article comes from Education Week. It's titled Teachers, summer jobs can be fun, but that's not why they do it. I don't know that anybody ever said working another job after your main job is fun. Sometimes it is.

I mean it could be like we've both worked so many, so many side hustles like this could be the Side Hustle Sisters podcast. And I didn't necessarily do it for the fun, but I worked at a foster group home because it was so different from my regular job and it was something I was really passionate about. Yeah, I didn't necessarily need to do it, but like it gave me like access to a world that I wanted to learn more about, and it was a lot of fun.

Yeah, I will. I think this article is just a helpful introduction. We're not going to spend a lot of time on it. I couldn't totally find the type of article I was looking for, so I'm just gonna weave in the things that I wanted to say that aren't in this article. But they do. Start off by describing rancher, Airbnb host dog, border governess to children of billionaires. I don't know how you find that, gig bartender, jewelry welder, minor league baseball, mas Scott sailing instructor, wedding videographer, just a sampling of the side hustles that some teachers take on during the summer months, and really describing that most teachers are doing this because they need the extra income. We'll talk about our poll a little bit later. But many of you teachers do have additional work side hustles, maybe throughout the year, maybe just for the summer. Very few of you are actually just taking the very needed rest and break, and a lot of that having to do with needing the extra money. We're not going to take a deep dive into teachers being underpaid, but where you want to see additional financial goals of paying down debt, maybe just for a season, what can be considered. So I appreciate that they highlighted some of the discrepancies with income and expenses for many teachers that unfortunately additional work is needed. And I think one of the things in light of this that I wanted to highlight before we got into all of the different ideas that you could be doing, is still taking inventory of what's going to be realistic that I think considerations are needed before you just jump on Okay, yeah, let me try that, Let me try that, let me try that, let me see what sticks. I think we need to be looking at mental, emotional, physical energy. That being with children all day, almost every day, for a solid span of months does take a toll on all of these aspects of our personhood. So considering what can I reasonably do? And what does my do my summer months look like? Do you have children in school who now are at home and you are primarily responsible for now because they're also not in school. These things we sometimes can think, oh, oh yeah, that sounds great, let me do it, and then it's not until we're in it that we realize, oh, no, I over committed myself, so really recognizing that, yeah, I could use the extra money, but what can I reasonably do? What do I have the energy, the mental capacity, emotional capacity for also what amount of supplemental income do I need? And that all of these questions can help us to narrow down what you might end up doing. Is it a thousand dollars, Is it a few thousand dollars that's going to help ste you in the direction of what you might say yes or no to how big of a bang for or how big of a buck for your energy are you going to need? And then something else that I think because Jen and I often talk about the difference between just like a side hustle or a side business, some of our side Hustle episodes are talking about entrepreneurship and starting your own side business I think that's also a consideration worth doing now, both now and in the future. What's going to help me now, but what also might help set me up in the future. Is it possible that I'm considering now that I don't want to be a teacher in this capacity for forever. You may want to consider starting a side business now that can grow. It's part of that like eighty twenty question. It's part of that like focusing question. Is there something that I can do now that will make the future easier or some of these jobs unnecessary? And if that's the case, not just considering dog walking, but considering starting your own online business might be for you. So these are just some of the things that I wanted to highlight before we just started throwing out these ideas of side hustles others have had really taking inventory for yourself of what are my capacities, what is the financial number that I'm looking to reach, and what do I want my fear to look like? And if there are things that I could be doing now with minimal amounts of time that could grow into something more that could really open up doors of possibility for me.

Yeah, I mean, well said, I think if you feel like you want to, you know, stay home with your kids, or you're just like I mean, honestly, like teaching is done for you. You're done with teaching, don't. I mean, as someone with children in public school, I don't I feel for you, and I don't envy you. And you have permission to get out, Like it's really hard in there. And so if this can give you the freedom you need to start small and just enjoy. We don't always need to do work that we are passionate about. Some like I think for ninety nine percent of us, work should just fuel the things that we're passionate about. And so if that's you, I mean, I think teachers who are really in it passionate about it. But if it's not you, then we hope that this series, especially this episode, will will give you some ideas to start that ball rolling.

Yeah, and both are in here. So if you do love what you do and you're just like I just need a little bit of extra income for minimal amounts of effort what's out there, then we got you. Okay, So let's get into the second part where we're actually talking about what are teachers doing in the summer. I gotta admit to you, Jen, I don't think that I totally knew how many teachers are working in the summer. My impression was, y'all are kicking back. This is your vacation time. You're just maybe cleaning your house, catching up on stuff, maybe doing a little bit of prep for the next school year, and that's that. But no half y'all are out there hustling.

Half of the teachers in our friend letter survey are doing some kind of summer job to make extra money. And so I'm going to talk about that. I'm going to talk about the results of the survey that we did, and then Jill is going to expound on a few more ideas in the next article. But so some of the things that our listeners and readers are already doing that who are teachers, And again, you don't have to be a teacher to do these, but they are best suited for them. So online tutoring, part time and weekend bookkeeping and customer service for a local grocery store. You can do bookkeeping and customer service for businesses virtually, and that is a great part time gig, especially for small businesses. And this reader says she does it part time during the year and then we'll take on more over the summer, essentially getting forty hours a week.

Again. We've got that book Keeping episode with Kate Johnson, episode three twenty. If this one's peaking your interest, go back to that one.

We have a reader who does summer school. That's a really good one that a lot of people said they did. We've got Instacart shopper and Amazon Flex shopper. I have a friend Kevin who trans like his transportation is exclusively e bike and he will just deliver like all kinds of He's a former lawyer and now he just does like Uber eats, grub hub like stuff on like small things, not even small things, like he just takes this. He'll he'll move his two kids on his e bike, you know, like he we have to have him on the show, honestly, but yeah, you could do. There's so many options for this. We have a reader who cleans houses during the summer, and we have someone who worked at Walmart during the summers and kids thought it was so cool to see me outside of school. This one I love. I run musicals in the summer through a local community theater, basically making my music job an all year round experience. We have one reader whose granddaughter is a high school teacher and she walks dogs and babysits while people are away.

I love the.

Dog walking thing. I have a friend who does this, and it's so easy to just go check on dogs, to bring them to the park, take them for walks like it's and then you get like a consistent, you know, groove going with some dogs. It's a really good side hustles, she says, sometimes including the like pet sitting. It'll include like just watering their plants, you know, bringing the mail in.

That's the thing we will consider holiday jobs. You know that stores are hiring more around the holidays to keep up with the level of customer that they have. But also we can think what do most people do in the summer, and how can I shift around that People go on vacation, So what happens to the dogs they leave behind, the houses they leave behind? What a dogs? Airbnb bookings potentially could increase in certain areas if you live in one of those destination spots, could you pick up some cleaning even for some airbnbs just for the summer. I think there's so many things that Okay, what are the trends of the seasons, and how can I take advantage weddings? I can't. Don't even get me started on the wedding industry. But there certainly is a lot to be said for what you could intersect with that doesn't have to follow you throughout the rest of the year unless you want it to.

Yeah.

Oh, day of coordinators for weddings. Man, you're not involved in any of the planning like up leading up to the day. You just show up on the day and you're coordinating everything that has already been planned. Yeah, what a great like one day job. Another great one day job. This reader says she's a poll worker because schools are closed, so she can so she can always be there because the schools are closed.

That day, like voting polls.

Yeah, and it's two hundred and fifty dollars that she'll make it one day.

Yeah.

She also owns a tutoring business year round. She's a lifeguard, works summer school, teaches swim lessons, dog sitting. It is very telling that those of you who work side houses, you're not just working one that you're doing multiple. One reader says her husband, who's a teacher, does curriculum planning over the summers. That's a really good one. I think if you wanted to like sell curriculum. I know my friend who's a teacher, and I'm always saying, like, you love making science curriculums, and everybody else says they hate them, Like you can sell your curriculums to other teachers, and she's like, there's too many there's too many people and teachers pay teacher. If you are just putting yourself, yes, there are a ton of people on Teachers pay teachers.

Yes it is.

It's the Etsy for teachers. But just because there's a bunch of people in there doesn't mean you can't also be on it. If you've already made custom curriculum, why not put it up there and when someone asks you about it, you send them the link.

Yep, why not you've already created it. Someone else wants it. Listen, there's a ton of podcasts out there. Here we are, we're still showing up two days a week. It doesn't matter. You can barely convince me out of thinking that there's not enough space for everybody.

There's enough space for everyone to.

Be able to do what they want to do. Because you represent a specific Niche. No one else is providing exactly the way that you're providing it, So try it. Why not? Okay, I want to talk about this article which comes from the Ways to Wealth. It's called ten side hustles for teachers. It's not specifically summertime, although a lot of them can just be done in the summertime. Or you could put lots of energy and effort into it for the summer and then allow it to kind of keep bringing in revenue throughout the year. However you want to slice and dice this thing. I thought that there were some actual, really good ideas. The first few I'm just going to kind of combine into one. Their number one, two, and five are pretty similar, so selling principles, lesson plans. I think maybe even a course was number five, all along the same lines. This kind of digital resources that you can create and sell, which is exactly what Jen, you just said. I just want to reiterate this that maybe it is a lesson plan. You've come up with a really cool way to teach this concept in science. Great, put it, put it out there, put it on teachers, pay teachers, put it on Etsy, put it put it out there, create your own website. However deep you want to go into this sell principles. That's also something that can just be done on Amazon. Just any type of thing that can be utilized by other teachers, potentially even parents, I'm about to get there, but even homeschool families. So I can't speak for this. I don't know how many homeschool homeschooling parents go on teachers pay teachers, but there could be a whole other niche of how to resource homeschooling families with some of the things that you know. Because you are a professional teacher who's gone through the schooling and have taught many, many children, and you've got all sorts of tips and tricks up your sleeves, you are a resource. If no one's ever told you you are a resource, you are a resource. There's so much that you have in your repertoire that you could be selling online. The summertime could be the time to really put a lot of energy gent effort into it and then let those puppies sell for the rest of the year.

And you, I mean, you could also sell digital products that help teachers become better teachers if they're if you have a strength in the classroom, that other teachers are seeking your advice, or someone has said, oh, go talk to so and so. She's really good at that, or she's got a system for that. Then you can create something that can be sold to teachers at a wider audience, and it can be given away for free to the teachers around you get some testimonials. Again, make a website. You may not sell anything right away, but you sell nothing without a buy button. So putting it out there and just like getting it there so when somebody does ask you about something, you have a place to direct them to.

Yeah, I am really excited about this. Next one I can't say I've ever heard of this. Number seven is being a homeschool consultant. Here's a staggering statistic. Between twenty twenty and twenty twenty two, the number of homeschool children in America nearly doubled, So from two point three million to four point three million. The number of people homeschooling is insanity. A lot of that having to do with the pandemic obviously, and then people just continuing on. People homeschool for a variety of reasons. But homeschool families need your teacher assistance. So Homeschool consultants can help with anything from creating a homeschool schedule, helping to choose curriculum, helping to adjust curriculum to a family's needs, because usually a family that's homeschooling has multiple aged children in different grades, with different learning styles. That's for many people one of the reasons that day homeschool so that they can give a very individualized approach to their student. And who better to consult than a teacher who works with twenty kids on a daily basis, Like, you know how to work with different types of kids and learning styles. So you could even help parents coach on Yeah you know how to parent this kid, but do you know how to teach this child? And so figuring out a homeschooling style, how to homeschool multiple ag we don't even know how to parent right, Yeah, that's so true. How to incorporate hands on learning instruction, How to homeschool high school students homeschooling children with various learning difficulties, finding resources or working with a struggling reader, Maybe even offering some of the teaching after school hours if you want to do this throughout the year, like a version of tutoring, possibly but maybe even handling the entire subject.

Yeah, become a specialized tutor only for homeschool students, and you then only work during the day in the summer, I don't have to you know, work afternoons or nights after kids are out of school, and eventually, if you wanted to be doing you know, throughout the year, leaving your teaching job, then you're only working the days that you know homeschool kids are at school.

With a number of homeschool families, this tells me you could start as simply as finding a mom group on Facebook that's local to you and putting it out there that this is something that you're offering. This is also making me think of not on this list, but how many moms I've talked to who bemoan the summer with their kids, and just like, what am I going to do? We function so well on rhythm and routine and the summer just throws it all out of whack. What about preparing plans for just families they're not even homeschool family they're becoming homeschool families essentially in the summertime. But preparing loose schedules and potential fun learning activities that people could be doing through the summer. I can't think of a single mom that I know who wouldn't pay at least twenty bucks for that. Just like, yeah, give me the resources. What can I do on a day to day basis? What are some ideas for activities?

There?

You go, I think it's brilliant.

Yeah, and this could grow into something like we have friends that now are part of a hybrid homeschool where they send their kid to this private school two or three days a week and then they homeschool them the other two or three days. So getting involved, like finding one of those hybrid homeschools and maybe getting involved there, not necessarily starting your own, but like figuring out how to get involved. So lots of options for homeschooling.

Okay, I'm not done being excited about the ideas in this article. Number eight on the list is become an adjunct professor. So what I'm learning from all your teachers out here is that many of you you have gone on to get your master's degree. There's incentives for it with payscale, there's some push for it. You do not need a PhD to be a professor. You can have a You do need to have a master's degree though, So if that's you, if you're a teacher with a master's degree, considering an adjunct professor role is a fantastic idea. This is actually something I personally do as a side hustle, and I can attest to specifically in the summer, a lot of universities are looking for adjunct professors because their regular faculty their employee staff, wants off for the summer. Like it's like a traditional teaching role. They're closed for the summer, but there's not closed, but a lot of the regular university schedule kind of slows down for the summertime, but there's still some classes that are going through the summer and they want to give their faculty off, so they will try and fill in the gaps with adjunct professors. There's absolutely some thing you can do throughout the year, but it is specifically can be a summertime gig. And I will add that because of the pandemic and just life in general, there are so many more online programs, so this is something that you could even do remotely. That is specifically what I do. I'm an adjunct in the summer for a master's program online and it really doesn't require a ton of live synchronous time from me. It is still your grading of papers, being available to students minimally throughout the week, but an excellent gig if you meet those different requirements. I would say you don't get paid a ton, but as I've calculated out at the standard, you're getting paid about thirty five to fifty dollars an hour for what the work actually is. That's not bad. Potentially could be more of it, more hourly than what you're getting paid at your regular teaching job. And finally, this idea really does excite me as well. Number nine is being a special lecturer.

I like this idea. I have thought about this one.

Okay, so you are already a teacher. You know how to lecture, You know how to get a crowd to listen to you a crowd of children, much less a crowd of adults. There are so many different fields that would want guest lecturers, and a variety of subject matters. Of course, you do have to be an expert in said field, but if you're a teacher, you're an expert on something. Guarantee you. Some of the ideas that they list are art exhibits, different art installations might want a guest lecturer to talk about that installation or maybe even what that artwork is related to hold hold your faces and yourselves. As I'm about to say this next thing. Cruise ships. Cruise ships might want lecturers depending on what the cruise is for. Maybe the cruise ship has its own type of like installation that they want a lecturer for, or maybe there's conferences happening on cruise ships that you could be a special lecturer for. Charity and fundraiser events, community education events, museums, public library classes. Not all of them are going to pay a ton. You might be talking at minimum forty dollars for maybe an hour guest lecture spot, but you could be talking all the way up into you know, maybe the low thousands, depending on if you're a guest lecturer on a cruise ship. There's this is wild.

I will I will say this could work into the high thousands to tens of thousands, because what you can do here, as like a guest lecturer, whether it's paid or not, is you can build a portfolio to where you are getting to speak at these conferences. So many teachers will have their you know, their one conference they go to every summer, right, you could be speaking, You could be a keynote speaker at those teacher conferences every year. So if you can, you know, create a keynote talk that would be of interest to teacher organizations un then this lower level stuff can work into really like, these organizations are paying tens of thousands of dollars for high level keynote speakers, and they're not looking for like CEOs and you know, Steve Jobs type people, you know, Like they're looking like a music teacher conference is looking for a teacher to give some kind of motivational or inspirational educational talk to other music teachers who also teach high schoolers or middle schoolers or elementary.

School teachers, you know.

So that's just something that this can work into. And there's a lot of conferences over the summer making it a perfect opportunity.

I think that's beautiful. But I also think you don't have to pigeonhole yourself just because you're a teacher. You have to talk to teachers. I think you can use your teaching skill. Let's say you are a teacher. You've got all of that resource and knowledge of how to teach something, and you just happen to be an avid gardener and you want to go give a guest lecture at your local nursery or your garden group, and they want to pay you. Anything starts somewhere, and each speaking gig can build upon itself. But you also don't have to feel as though teaching is the only thing you're able to do. You have a skill set that has a variety of different outlets you can find. What are the other things you're interested in? Which does loop back to that first question that I asked about mental emotional, physical capacity. Sometimes when we're exhausted in one area, it doesn't mean that all we need to do is sleep. Sometimes it does sometimes that's the best way to refresh ourselves, but we can also find rest and refreshment and just doing something different, exercising a different aspect of who we are. So you might be exhausted with teaching children all day and you want the summer to rest, but you need money. Okay, how can you utilize the plethora of skill sets that you have that isn't exactly the same as what you did during the school year. Utilize your skill set, but find a different outlet for it that can make you money that excites you, that is enjoyable. Yep, you know what does really excite me, and I always find enjoyable that.

I think all teachers should be calling in with and letting us know, like any time of year, but especially the summer, the bill of the week.

That's right, it's time for the best minute of your entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name is William. Maybe you paid off your mortgage, maybe your car died and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore. Duck bills, Buffalo bills, Bill Clinton, this is the bill of the week.

Hi, Jenna Jill, This is Christine from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. I wanted to tell you about my bill of the week I'm super excited about. I have a twenty eighteen Toyota Wrap four. I had a headlight go out, so I called the dealership. They wanted about sixty dollars to go ahead and change the lightbulb, and then I called a local garage, thinking it would be cheaper, and it was astounding. They wanted three hundred dollars to change the light bulb in my car. So then I went on YouTube and I started watching videos about how to change the light bulb in my car, make a model. And then when we came home, I went to the store and I bought my light bulb. We came home and my husband and I held the flashlight, went in there, changed the light bulb for thirty one dollars and it took us less than five minutes. Thank you. Love the podcast.

Oh, Christine, I love a YouTube fixing story. I love it.

Oh makes me so happy. That's what we're talking about. Christine. You knew you had options. You knew you didn't have to fork over three hundred bucks for someone else to do a five minute job that you yourself could easily do with the power of the internet and your go get an attitude. You're gritty, problem solving nature. Yes, yes, changing out. I mean I gotta say I have not done it, but I have seen it done and it is easy. And actually most any store that has an autopart section, including Walmart, usually has a guide that will tell you the exact bulb to purchase for your car. You just look it up in the in the guide, find the bulb, get it. Yeah, then you watch the YouTube video. You do it yourself for thirty one dollars. In less than five minutes, you saved yourself two hundred and seventy dollars. Well done, Christine, And now you won't get pulled over and get a ticket for having a headlined out If you all listening, have a bill about just sticking it to the man, find in your own pathway forward. Just be out here being a trailblazer and saving money. Or your name is Bill, and you you've not done any of this, You've never changed a headlight before, but you are Bill because that's your name. Visit Provocal Friends podcast dot com slash Bill. I'll leave us here, Bill, And now it's time for the light being.

Around, all right, for today's vulnerability lightning round. What's your fondest memory of a summer side hustle that you've ever done. Oh so I've I don't know if I've ever done one strictly summer, but man, I've done quite a few side hustles. I think my fondest, Well, my fondest is for sure the Foster the group. I mean, I loved that place. I loved it there. I got to build like great relationships and I got to be like a I mean, I was the young youngest person working with these kids. Like I was the only person under the age of sixty, right, I mean the staff in the office were my age, but like the moms and other respite were all just like you know, older retired women.

Yeah.

So it was really cool to build relationships and just be able to like get on a different level with the kids.

Yeah, that was that.

Was really great. I did that for about three years.

Whoa man, This is really unlocking some memories. I have made money doing so many things, not all can be shared on the page. Not all of it was sustainable amounts of money, but I've gotten paid to do nearly everything that's legal. Honestly, this is probably my favorite side ushle. It became my main hustle. This was a side hustle for me. Yeah, for a very long time. That has eclipsed the rest of it has become a main hustle. Like yeah, by surprise, yeah, suppress, supress.

Nobody anticipated that a podcast would become a main It's nothing that we would recommend.

Not me. Yeah, for sure. There was a time that I babysat a child, a friend's child, in exchange for food. That might be the most unique that I didn't actually get paid for that, but I was just like, food is my main problem. I don't even have time to make food, nor do I even know where to start. But I will watch your baby, and you love cooking, so you make me food. That happened for a while. I did enjoy that. That was nice. I'm always looking for ways to pay someone else to make me food, even though I am getting better at it. I'd love to outsource that.

I probably won't make you food, but you can hold my baby.

I'll do that, but i'd love it if you made me food. I will try.

I'm always also looking for people to.

Make any food I have. I'm remembering now too. I got paid like commissioned art. I like made different charcoal drawings for people that they paid me for. I have flipped furniture for money beyond all the other side of a couple talk about. Yeah, flipped our vs. Sold plants on the side of their own bar, Attended at weddings, DJed weddings.

Day of coordinator, Yeah yeah, day of coordination. Yeah yeah. I mean, you've definitely done more side hustles than I.

Have, and I am more poor than you are.

So o fake your no, no, no, I don't I mean, ours just came from a few lucky side hustles. The Airbnb out of our house that was really good, that was very lucrative as compared to the time it took to actually work the quote unquote side hustle that worked out really well for us, and selling T shirts that just lucked out. I got really lucky with the algorithm until somebody like maliciously took me down, and then it just wasn't fun anymore. It just got so vicious, like the merch by Amazon like world got very vicious, very automated, and I just like couldn't keep up. I was just like doing it for funzies, but that also became very lucrative for a short amount of time. So and we use since those were both before we had kids, we just invested all of that.

Yeah, So I mean that.

Was the secret. So, like, if you're looking to do a side hustle just to maybe catch up with retirement, there you go, like just do something for funsies, yeah, and put the extra towards retirement.

Yeah, that's what we did.

We didn't I wasn't passionate about airbnb. Yeah, I still do it, but I'm not passionate and there you go. You don't have to commit to it for a lifetime. Yeah, you can do any one of these things, make some money off of it, learn from it and move on yeap. Like me, I hardly made any money, but I got a lot of skill set. You got a lot of skills. Thank you so much for listening. Many of you know that we have a newsletter. If you don't, we have a newsletter. It's called the Friend Letter. It goes out three times a week where we send out freebies, saving tips, life hacks to help you save money, all kinds of things. And we want to give a shout out to this friend for replying to us with this sweet email. It's from Laurel and she says love, love you gals. Jen, you helped me by scoring the Starbucks mug at a local thrift shop for six dollars and she sent us a picture when she says this Starbucks mug instead of thirty six dollars new at the store in January, I saved seventy five dollars because I use this mug at home instead of drive through. Never thought it would work for me famous last words, but it did. Thanks for all you do. Ladies. Also because of your inspiration, we started saving for this sweet girl that we got last fall. It was a cute picture of her doggie. We even have an emergency fund for her. And this was in February. So she says, happy Valentine's from a former shopaholic who's now on a budget, still likes to shop, just very particular now in a good way.

Take care. Oh my word. Ps. No, she didn't get the coffee, though she did try.

It was a picture of the dog with the coffee. It was very cute. Thank you.

That's so kind, And what an amazing encouragement for us and celebratory realization for you that this is truly what we are hoping to do for ourselves. Encourage you all towards is just getting control of impulse spending and spending more intentionally and finding yourself with some of the margin to put towards the things that you really value and enjoy. It's beautiful. Well, don thanks for listening. If you want to be inspired, like this Frugal friendspodcast dot com get the friend letter. You can just get more from us.

See you next time.

Bye.

Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Sirianna.

Okay Jen Yes speaking of trying different side hustles. You know me, I'm always looking for ways to make more money. I'm always just looking for money on the ground. You know you are, which Eric, this is not what I plan on telling you, but I'm about to found He just got a button down shirt, I want to say from the thrift store, but possibly not. But it had a little pocket in it. We were having lunch the other day and he just like reaches in this pocket pulls out a five dollar bill. Hey, He's like, I haven't washed the shirt yet, it's my first time wearing it. There's just a five dollar bill in the shirt pocket. Oh good day, A good sunday. I love that finding a five dollar Yeah, that was that was beautiful. But instead of Airbnb, I try peer Space. Did I tell you about that?

Well, you told me. You post it on peer space.

I posted on peer tel.

Tell the people about peer space.

Okay. So peer space is an opportunity for you to list your space online for people to rent for like more an hourly or day rate, so no one's sleeping over. It's different from Airbnb in that way, but people could rent it for business meetings or maybe even like photography or videography shoots or some sort of event, maybe like a small business gathering, or if you want to extend your hours later into the night and let people host parties at your house, you could do that. So really excited about it because you can actually make more money off of peer space what people will pay hourly than you can sometimes on an overnight at your place, and then you don't have to like give people a bed, although people probably aren't booking as regularly, so there is bit of a trade off, but a little bit more bang for your buck at that point, or vice versa as the recipient of it. But I was excited about this idea, and so I put our space up on it. Now, I did just have a recent interaction that does not vote well for me. I had turned on instant booking. It was encouraged to do that when we first signed up for it, like let people instantly book it and they're more likely to book it, and I'm like, yeah, that sounds good. I'll just make sure that the calendar's up to date. Well. Fast forward to now, I've had a few inquiries about it, not people instantly booking, just kind of messaging me to see if the space is going to be a good fit for them, So I haven't totally thought about the fact that instant booking is on. So this one woman reaches out to me. She's like, hey, I'm thinking about hosting my fortieth birthday party at your place from four to seven pm, three hours for fortieth birthday party. And I was like, hey, how exciting. You know, let me get a little bit more information from you and we can kind of see if this can work, Like, are you planning on staying here? Are you planning on setting up and tearing down and having your party in this three hour time span? And she was like, well, I was planning. I was hoping for like a thirty minute grace period to set up. And then I said, well, are you planning on bringing your own food or because I do have an option where I could like get it catered for them, not me providing the food, but like collecting and curating the food. And she said, no, we'll bring her own food. So I'm like, okay, that's decent. And then literally after a few minutes of thinking about it. It was within a couple of days. I was not feeling well and knew that i'd have a lot of cleaning to do, and it just like wasn't going to be worth it, just the timing. I'm like, she wants a thirty minute grace period ahead of time fortieth birthday party. They do say they're to be drinking, They're not going to be out of here by seven pm. There's no way. I just don't feel comfortable about this. So I wrote back and said, unfortunately listed out all these reasons, I don't think I'm gonna be able to give you what you deserve for your fortieth birthday party. Literally, as I send that message, she books it. She's not even waiting for my response to all these different clarification pieces, she just books it, so that I gave it another like forty minutes to see if she saw my message and if she would cancel. So I'm like, I don't want to be the one to cancel, but I did. I canceled. I was the one to cancel. And now I'm getting all these messages from peer space being like, this is your first one, so you're fine, but if you ever do it again, there's gonna be fines fees, and they even said, yeah, if there are any costs incurred by the guest or peer Space. As a result of this cancelation, we'll be reaching out to you to pay those and now I feel bullied and scared.

Yeah, because they want to. It has to be a good end result for the user. Airbnb does the same thing because there were a lot I mean, there have been horror stories, right, but if you turn I mean, it's just like a there. Yeah, they're not going to charge you after the first time, obviously, but it is something that people take very seriously.

Yeah, I'm still on it. I'm still excited about the possibilities of it. I just turned off instant booking for now into like I mean, and maybe that'll mean people aren't going to be well.

Something you can do with keeping instant Booking on is that you can make minimum parameters and you can set really clear guidelines like renting is a four hour minimum. There is no grace period for set up and tear down everything you have to pay you just you be very clear in the description. Yeah, and that way when you turn instant Booking on and keep all your communication on the platform, so there's no way they're going to charge you for anything, because they'll see forty minutes after booking that it was canceled, So there's you.

Know, yeah, I mean within two hours of her initial request, I told her it wasn't gonna work, so like the yeah.

Yeah, so, but being very clear, like in our Airbnb listing, like we're very clear this is an apartment. This is an apartment. It is attached to a primary residence, and it's on a quiet street. But you're not getting a single family home. You know, you just make it really clear what you're getting into so they know they have no room to complain or you know, try to skirt like like push the edge of the allow you know, allotment.

Yeah, there's just a learning curve. I think with all of these things, like even the side hustles that we're just talking about, Like some of them sound really cool and could be lucrative, but there's still always going to be like a learning curve and potential failure along the way.

I think a really good lesson to learn in stuff like this is that you have to protect yourself first. Don't be like, oh, I'll do anything, like I'll cook for these people, I'll cater this, Like, protect yourself first, under promise and potentially over deliver or under promise and just adequately, moderately deliver. You know, like this is when you are promising too much when you're a business owner, you will quickly burn yourself out. But when you stay in your lane, only work in your capacity, then you have the capacity to over deliver in some instance when it feels.

You go that is good. Cool, good word.

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