Читать книгу Side Hustles For Dummies - Alan R. Simon - Страница 20

The signals are crystal clear: Your job is in jeopardy!

Maybe the overall national economy hasn’t been that great for the past six months and seems to be slipping into recession. Or maybe the economy is just fine, but your employer made a couple of serious missteps and profits are way, way down — and rumors of layoffs are swirling through the office.

Whatever the reason, you can read the writing on the wall: Losing your job may be in your near-term future — and even though you’ve been a top-notch performer, there’s nothing you can do about it.

Or is there?

A side hustle can help you “play defense” and cushion the blow of being laid off, should that unfortunate turn of events actually come to pass. If you’re already doing something on the side, great! You can ratchet up your efforts and try to earn even more money from your side hustle than you already are. Driving 10 or 15 hours a week for Uber? Ramp that up to 20 or 25 hours, if you can make the schedule work with your full-time job. And then if you wind up getting laid off, you can immediately start driving 40 or 50 hours a week to help make up for the loss of your full-time salary.

Or maybe you’ve already maxed out the number of hours or level of effort you can put into your current side hustle, but you can add another side hustle if your schedule has — unfortunately — been “freed up.”

If you were fortunate enough to receive a severance package when you lost your job, and if you’re also receiving unemployment insurance payments, great! But don’t procrastinate with your side hustles! Sure, you may need to take a week or two to process your job loss, but get back on that proverbial side-hustle horse as soon as possible!

At the first inkling of a possible job loss, if you don’t already have a side hustle underway, take a long, hard look at some ideas that you think you could make work. Because the last thing you want is to not only lose your job, but to be totally powerless when it comes to your own financial fate.