Two incomes. Never a deposit.

That was the sum for years and it never came out any different. Rent went up. The car died, then the car that replaced it died. Tax bills, food, family who needed helping, and a body that kept sending me invoices I hadn’t budgeted for.

Something always ate the savings. There was ALWAYS something.

By the end of it I was five figures into credit card debt, and some of that debt was rent. Between jobs, I paid for a roof with a credit card.

Even the washing machine was rented.

I want you to sit with that one for a second, because I did, for years.

January 2022

I wrote down goals like everybody does in January. Mine was one line. Get out of debt.

I knew roughly how long that would take and it wasn’t a nice number. I also knew our combined wages weren’t going to do it, so I needed something coming in on the side.

At the time I was trying to make it on Twitch (it’s a live streaming platform for gamers, not the facial muscle spasm, just fyi).

And I hated it. Not the streaming, the asking. Every time I went live I was inviting strangers to subscribe, to tip, to keep me afloat. It felt like standing in a doorway with a hat out.

So I taught myself to write instead

Because there was one thing about a blog I couldn’t stop thinking about. Nobody has to pay to read it. The ads pay. The reader gets in free.

So I learned SEO from scratch. Then copywriting, which is not the same thing as blog writing. Then how to build a website, work with brands, use a spreadsheet, file self-employed taxes and do my own bookkeeping.

All of it around a full-time job, on evenings I’d rather have spent watching The Traitors.

Look, the time would pass anyway right? Might as well teach myself some new skills. It took eleven months before that blog made ad money.

Eleven months. Nobody tells you that bit.

Four years on, that one blog makes over $2000 a month. Two million people have visited my blog. Not one of them had to toss a coin in a hat first.

What I actually bought with it

The debt is gone. (The student loan is still hanging about, but whose isn’t.)

We saved a deposit. We bought a house. In my forties, after twenty-odd years of renting. For anyone born in the 80’s reading this, I want you to know it’s not too late to buy the house. I was scared I wouldn’t even be offered a mortgage at my age!

My husband tells anyone who’ll stand still that it was all because of my side hustle.

And now I own the washing machine too.

But it’s not about me is it?

You’re not here for my life story. You’re here because rent’s due, or the car’s making that noise again, and you’d like a second income that doesn’t involve asking anybody for money.

That’s what this whole site is. Every guide on it is free, because the ads pay for it, not you.

There are hundreds, if not thousands of side hustles you can start both online and off that fit around your day job. But I want you to start with just one, if you’re up for it?

Start a blog. It takes about twenty minutes, it costs less than you think, and I’ve written down every step.