STRATEGY CAN HELP OPTIMIZE GIG-ECONOMY JOBS
Kevin Ha quit his day job by crafting app-based gigs to work with lifestyle
Side hustles can change your life. Just ask Kevin Ha.
Last year, the income from Ha’s side hustles hit a point where the 33-year-old was able to quit his day job. He now replicates his working salary — more than $5,000 per month — working nights and weekends, while spending most days with his newborn.
“Now I work when I want and I do the things that I want to do,” says the Minneapolis lawyer, who blogs at Financialpanther.com. “I still have to work for money. But I work much more on my own terms.”
Notably, about half of Ha’s monthly income comes from gigeconomy apps that are widely available and do not require special skills. Unlike many other professionals who flock to highly paid consulting and teaching applications, Ha’s main side hustles involve delivery, surveys and room rentals. Since the pandemic began, the bulk of his app-based income comes from food delivery platforms such as Doordash, Grubhub and Uber Eats. Delivery apps like these have gone gangbusters since coronavirus-triggered business closures swept the country, Ha notes. That’s good for him because he temporarily dropped a formerly lucrative side hustle — renting out a spare bedroom through Airbnb — because he didn’t want to take any health risks with his new baby. Under more normal circumstances, the room rentals brought in about $1,000 a month.
However, the key to Ha’s success is not the apps he uses. It’s how he uses them. By being strategic about how he manages his side hustles, he earns far more per hour than most independent contractors. He typically takes home between $30 and $40 per hour, he says. That’s about twice the average hourly pay estimated for delivery drivers at Sidehusl.com.
Ha has nine tips for using a side hustle to change your life.
1. Consider it a passion play
It starts with a little introspection. After all, you’ve got only 24 hours in a day, and 16 of those hours are likely to be used for sleep and your day job. That leaves just eight hours for everything else, including family, meals and entertainment.
Ha wants his app-based side hustles to involve activities he’d be doing with his free time — things such as riding his bicycle or walking his dog. That drew him to apps that let him make deliveries on his bike and to dog-walking and dog
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