Supplementing Your Day Job After College
That first job out of college can be a little bit of a shock. You might have looked at the salary you were offered and been excited, thinking you’d never made anywhere near that much money in your life. However, the harsh reality of how much you have left after paying your rent or mortgage, making car payments and covering the cost of food and utilities can be sobering. Add health insurance and retirement savings on top of that and you may be wondering exactly where that money went. It’s not a bad idea to look for ways to diversity and supplement your income.
Active or Passive?
The difference in the two is how much work you do to earn it. Active covers the usual income producing activities you think of, doing a job in exchange for payment. Passive involves doing little or nothing. However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t any work up front. Some might earn a passive income from a website they have set up. Even if they do not do much to maintain the website presently, they probably spent some time building it up and getting audience. Passive income can also come from investing, but even this can require some know-how at the start.
Real Estate Investment
Residential real estate can be an excellent way to build wealth. This has been the case for decades, driven by ever-increasing property value and a consistent population of renters. However, if you’re fresh out of college, it may be anywhere from a stretch to impossible for you to purchase your own home, let alone buy investment properties. One option for you might be to invest in rental home shares as you would in stock. This is a much lower cost investment than buying a house or apartment, but it still allows you to make money. You can review a guide on historical real estate returns to help you decide if this is the right choice for you.
Part-Time or Gig Work
You can consult a career coach as a student, but after graduation you are basically on your own to discover ways to make money. Part-time work is a time-honored way to boost your income, and you may want to consider it as a possibility if you can find something that suits your schedule. It’s a good idea to choose something that is very different from your day job in order to reduce burnout. If you work in an office, a couple of evenings per week of retail might feel like a welcome change. However, increasingly, people are looking more to gig than part-time work to supplement their income because it gives them more control.
While gig work can pay as much or more than part-time work, the autonomy it offers means that some people prefer it even if they earn less doing it. One advantage of gig work is that essentially, you can work when you feel like it or when you have the time. The different types of jobs you can do vary widely and may include driving, teaching English, web design, programming, writing and even odd jobs such as cutting grass or walking someone’s dog.