One good thing about working in the arts is that I have a strong hustle mentality. I think that since nearly everyone told me life was going to be really difficult if I took this path, I’ve constantly had an eye out for how to strengthen my financial safety net while I pursue stage managing.

I’ve been really fortunate due to a combination of luck and hard work to be pretty successful in my main career, but no matter how you slice it, starting out is kind of rough. Paying off student debts, trying to pay rent in crazy rent inflated towns like NYC and San Francisco, building an emergency fund – all of that while working the positively ridiculous schedules we accept as the norm in the theater – well, it’s been a rare day when I only had one iron in the coals.

Here are some of the side hustles I’ve done that have worked well with my crazy stage managing schedules. 

Blogging

Of course this was going to be first, right?

As my sixth year blogging approaches, my income from this side hustle is approaching $40,000.

In many ways, it’s the most enjoyable side hustle I’ve had, but it is a far cry from easy money.

I blogged for two years without making anything.

I set myself up with a fairly insane three post a week schedule (if I were starting again, I’d do two). That means that every month, I come up with 12 or more posts that somehow connect with personal finance. That’s a minimum of 6,000 words a month on the topic. Usually it’s a lot more.

I love that it was pretty affordable to get started (less than $500 to set myself up for an initial three year commitment and you can start much cheaper if you don’t want to commit to that long of a time frame).

I picked a topic that I want to keep growing in. Since I have to write so much, I have to keep learning. I can only write so many times about buying too many candles and my unfortunate ModCloth obsession.

My favorite aspect is that I have total freedom. As much as I sometimes fret about not owning my own home and being a little stuck or behind in life, I do own my own tiny piece of internet property and it is mine. I pay my $15ish a month rent and do what I want (within reason). I could change my posting schedule. I could change the entire theme of the blog. I can do whatever I want.

Even to maintain it within the boundaries I’ve established, I’m still totally in control. I can binge write 30 posts over a week, schedule them in advance, and barely touch my blog for two months. While I’ve never gone that long, I have definitely worked ahead to weather times like tech weeks, vacations, and other times I didn’t want to have to think of work. I can write early in the morning, the middle of the night, or during meal breaks at work.

I can even grow at the rate I’m comfortable with. One thing I really, really love about blogging is the ability to scale up. I genuinely believe that if I wanted to put in the work, I could probably make full time income from brokeGIRLrich – I just don’t want to. The work/income ratio is exactly what I want it to be these days and that’s pretty awesome.

If you’re interested in learning more about starting a blog, check out my how to start a blog post here.

Substitute Teaching

I do not like substitute teaching, but I am grateful for the income it has provided sometimes. In New Jersey, you can get your substitute teaching license after you have 60 college credits. Thanks to some summer and AP courses in high school, I had 60 college credits after my first semester at college, and I started subbing the following semester.

There was something like $150 fee to pay to register, which I made back in about two days of subbing.

The best part about subbing was the flexibility to use it to fill in gaps in my regular work schedule. It also worked well with the occasional evening only gigs.

As time has progressed, I love even more that most of the systems are automated now and you don’t even have to talk to a human. Log onto the site, put in your availability, pick the classes you want to sub for, and show up at the school the next day.

If you really enjoy teaching and children, stick with the younger kids. You generally do actually teach when you’re covering elementary school classes. Sometimes this can make the day go faster.

If you’re cool with being more of a babysitter, cover high school classes. In most of those, you give the kids a worksheet and try to keep them from killing each other.

I do not suggest subbing for middle schoolers. They’re like Lord of the Flies. Good gracious.

If you want to learn more about substitute teaching, check out my post about substitute teaching here.

Freelance Writing

Freelance writing has gotten me through a few tight spots over the years. It can be a little tough getting started. I did my first set of posts writing for a little travel blog at $20 a post for a minimum of 500 words.

After working for a cruise line for 5 years though, I could knock out a 500 word post about a port city, or a famous stop in a port city, in about 30 minutes.

Over time, I managed to get my fee up to $100 per post, but it definitely did take awhile. And even when I could hit $100/post, most often I came in around $75/post.

Now, all of that money was really helpful at the time, but as I started to make more, freelance writing was one of the first things I stopped bothering with.

As most stage managers know, you’ve almost constantly got an eye out for the next gig. I find it one of the more tiresome aspects of the career. Freelance writing seemed very similar, there’s a constant searching aspect to it. Over the last few years of doing it sometimes, I’ve only had two semi-steady gigs that once I was in, they just kept sending me orders.

On the plus side though, it’s super mobile and the times when you write are very flexible.

If you’re interested in learning more about freelance writing, check out this guest post from my pal Jesse about how he’s done so well with it.

eBay

I like to declutter things. No one else in my house does. Because of this, if I clean it out of the basement, attic, or my room, I’m generally free to sell it.

I’ve made some decent money off eBay over the last 10 years, and sometimes from some really unexpected items like the $100 on a pig collection, which was just a ton of pig paraphernalia that everyone in my family got me during the junior high and high school years once it got out that I thought pigs were cute. Or the owl shaped coin bank I picked up at Poundland when I lived in England for 1 pound that I sold after moving back to the U.S. for $60.

As my family and friends learned I was often listing things on eBay, they would also offer up stuff I was welcome to sell, as long as I got it out of their house, and some of those offers included pretty big wins too.

If you want to learn some more eBay hacks, check out this post on how I’ve made money selling on eBay.

Transcribing

Transcribing was wildly boring, but another good way to make some semi-reliable income. Working about 8 hours a day, I could usually make about $75.

Not an awesome amount of money, but steady and reliable and it made a big difference during the winter and spring of unemployment in 2017.

I signed up with Rev and totally blew off studying for the test you have to pass to do subtitles for video. After I failed that, I spent a little while studying their requirements and passed the test for audio transcribing easily. So – study their formatting guides.

I had some particularly good luck with a theology professor who needed their lectures transcribed. I have theology degrees, so a lot of the terminology that tripped up other transcribers didn’t cause me any issues and they were even able to request me going forward. So that was nice. Most of the time though, I listened to hours of boring meetings or meetings between people with really thick accents, which is particularly frustrating.

On the plus side, I got faster with practice and speed is how you make money with transcribing.

Occasionally I would get to transcribe something I found interesting.

If you are multi-lingual, Rev also has a translation department where you can make money translating for them.

If you want to learn more about making money transcribing, check out my post about it here.

User Testing

User Testing has never lead to big bucks, but if there’s a splurge I’m having trouble justifying, User Testing has my back.

With User Testing, you review websites for 15-30 minutes and make $10. The work is inconsistent, because sometimes you qualify to do the review and sometimes you don’t, but if I leave the site running in the background and check in it when I hear the ding that alerts you to a new opportunity, I can usually make abut $100 a month, if I want to.

I also find the work easy and kind of fun.

If you want to read more about how to get started with User Testing, check out my post about it here.

Mystery Shopping

Mystery shopping is a funny beast. Until recently, it wasn’t really worth a lot of my time. If it was a food shop that saved me buying a meal or literally right on my way to or from work, it was fine, otherwise the hassle was more than it was worth.

That being said Barfly and A Closer Look both do full restaurant shops in nice places that are actually worth it. The first shop or two took me a while longer than I’d like to learn their systems and submission methods, but from there on, I’m definitely happy with what I get in exchange for my time. It’s full meals with like $100 reimbursements or a round or two of fancy cocktails at a nice bar.

As a side hustle, it definitely doesn’t bring in much, but it can knock down your food budget while still allowing you to go eat at some nice restaurants.

If you want to learn more about how to become a mystery shopper, check out my post on it here. 

Product Demonstrator

Product demonstrating isn’t a lot of fun, but it is an easy way to bring in a little extra cash. I used the app Pinata to match up with a company and spent a few weeks going to Whole Foods and setting up demo tables for a granola company at one point.

The script was easy to learn and the work was not particularly taxing. And it was good granola.

You can find product demonstrator gigs using that app or by checking Craigslist. They’re very flexible and usually pay at least minimum wage per hour.

If you want to learn more about product demonstrating/being a brand ambassador, check out my review of Pinata here.

Voice Over Work

One of my more recent forays has been into voice work. It’s very easy and kind of fun, though the work is pretty inconsistent. I find gigs on Craigslist and then call in at the set time.

It’s usually reality-based work for radio stations, so you call in and are given a character and told what your character’s key traits are and why you’re on the radio show that morning and then you just listen to the producers prompts and play out a story for them.

The pay is $40 for about 30 minutes of work and it can be done from anywhere with a cell phone connection.

What side hustles have worked for you?