My Side Hustles at a Glance
Side hustles by the numbers
Side hustles can be a good job to earn extra income. Picking the right side gig and being consistent is the key. Three years ago, I started building my side hustles with Teachers Pay Teachers (TpT). Once I reached about 65 products in my store, I stopped creating products.
The following side hustle was my most daunting work to date. I wrote math workbooks starting in 2021 and marketed them until early 2022. To date, my Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) on Amazon is the most successful of all my side hustles. The front-end work was the most intense, but I did the least with the marketing of the three.
Finally, Medium and freelance writing were my last side hustles. For the past year, I spent about 99% of my time writing on Medium. However, Medium was the least financially productive of the three; it is, however, the most therapeutic; for that, I’m thankful because writing helped me refocus on my teaching career.
Side hustles
- Teachers Pay Teachers
a. Total = $117.53
2. Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) on Amazon
b. Total = $711.94
3. Medium
c. Total = $167.38
d. Grand Total = $996.67
By the numbers
As you can see, b) KDP was my most financially productive side hustle. Freelance writing has different skills than writing and solving math problems and creating mathematics workbooks.
Both are time-consuming, but one requires me to focus more on accuracy while I can get away with an extra adverb or adjective in my writing. In the long term, freelance writing is more manageable than writing mathematics workbooks. I won’t be able to write one or two mathematics workbooks per year to earn side hustle money in the long term.
Final Thoughts
I always liked solving mathematics problems, but I enjoy writing essays, freelance writing, and writing on Medium and Substack more than creating KDP mathematics workbooks or Teachers Pay Teachers products.
I want to increase my side hustle income to where I can pay some bills. Medium doesn’t pay the bills, but it’s fun writing on Medium. It helps me get through the week of teaching in the classroom.
Side hustles are great distractions to my teaching career. What better than to get paid to do it also?
