06: Side Hustle: How To Get Paid Doing What You Love

We're actually gonna talk about one of the three key secrets that I offer when we talk about how to get financially free and filling the prosperity gap that you have and to do that today I've got with me, Daniela Flores , Daniella , how are you? Good. How are you doing? I am doing really good. I'm very excited for today's show. We've had kind of a process between you and I to get this show put together and so I appreciate you .

You're holding in here because I do think that the information that you have is so critical to those who are watching and listening to our show. Yes. Thank you for having me back on. I'm so sorry about that . The last kind of hiccups we've encountered, there are technical difficulties and etc . No, that's just part of technology as part of the process. Uh , very happy to be spending some more time together. So there's two big things that I want to talk about.

There's two things that we're going to try to cover today. One, as you've paid off a mountain of debt, you and your spouse, you've paid off a mountain of debt and [inaudible] you are a serial side hustler, I guess for lack of a better word. You have websites when you talk about how people can make extra money and you yourself have used that. So let's start by just sharing a little bit about yourself, kind of the journey that's got you to this point in your life. Yeah, absolutely.

I started side hustling when I was probably in high school when I used to take the old clothes and shoes to the stores for extra money. I used to [inaudible] painting for extra money as well and I used to be more of a painter, no illustrator . And then later into my adult life that kind of transformed into actually my spouse and I resell online.

So we shot resell guitars, designer handbags, kind of a collectible items like certain monopolies, like game of Thrones , monopoly, Fordson, Fonkoze , that kind of weird stuff. And then I opened up my side , I like to dabble.com kind of around side hustling as well as, and it's helping people get out of debt and then the different journeys they are in their side hustle. You know, some people will start [inaudible] doing stuff , side cash . Then eventually they find something they want to do.

Like I said , they're a full time job or I have like a stable full time job. They wanna kind of open their own business for self employment. So if you go back to those early days when you first started that first business, was that something that parents had kind of encouraged you to do? What was the inspiration to say, look, I want to make extra money and this is a great way to do it.

I had kind of a spending problem in high school when I, yeah , I started working actually probably the age of 14 [inaudible] when I got my own car and had, you know , started paying my own bills kind of when I was 60 with car insurance, some car payments, my cell phone bill. I remember this when I worked at a movie theater and I got paid. I would spend the entire paycheck that weekend. So my set tussling actually came from kind of a Texas city of spending too much [inaudible] overcompensating.

No. Like I could be using this to benefit myself rather than trying to play that up all the time. That's super cool. That happened that way. So you ended up with a substantial amount of debt as well. I mean there's obviously people got way more that than you have, but you made a commitment to get focused on it to start paying it off.

Can you talk a little bit about that journey one, how you got to the debt that you had and then number two, that process of getting out of it, the commitment that you had to make. Yeah, so [inaudible] I had, I had my thousand dollars student loan, which I pay off the may this year . I also had some hospital bills due to an accident I had back in 2014 my wife had some credit card bills as well. The thing with my student debt was it was so difficult at the time.

I actually gotten laid off from [inaudible] my first job out of college and I was trying to pay back my loan and the lung company had recommended for me to go into forbearance, which was, you know , not the thing to do, but I still did it.

And then that interest occurred in the background without me knowing, cause I 12 educate myself on what was going on with our barons because there's consolidation where you get yourself into trouble with higher interest rates, but if it's lower interest rates better or I could have looked at maybe if I qualified for refinance or maybe forgiveness, but I didn't , I wasn't, are they presented with those options until later on when I was actually in a better situation and I was like, Oh I can

finally pay off my loans. So that was the beginning of this year and I finally paid off the student loans. My wife and I had paid off before that, the lower amounts, which was my hospital bills and the credit card debt, which wasn't that much. And then , um , we're still working on that auto loan. So what role is your spouse played in this? What's that relationship been like? Or have you both been on the same page and working together on this? What are your attitudes as you approach it?

So that's an interesting question because as most partnerships are, a lot of people aren't on the same page. And in the beginning we [inaudible] or I mean when we first got together we weren't, both of us weren't that , that responsible with money. We tend to just it as it came and then we kinda got educated on it together. You know, we always ask each other before we try to make these big decisions just rather than go and running doing it. And yeah, we just kind of discussed as much as we can.

Communications very important and we're still working on that. Yeah, it's definitely a lifetime process. I mean that's one of the things that we talk about all the time, but the cool thing is as you are working together, and even if there are differences to begin with is the more that you can work together on these topics , you're seeing it yourself. The more you're working together on your finance, the sooner or later you start getting all of that stuff figured out, it starts coming together.

And over time you get to a point is like, man, I can't believe how much I paid off. If you're looking at this 32,000 how long has it been now? How long has it you guys to get to this point? Um , so actually when we started chipping away that 32,000 we didn't really start until two years ago from may. I remember it was two years in may paid off 32,000 I was probably a little higher now because once you check that out alone, we haven't tried to pay more on that every month.

Didn't really start until I actually started my blog and when I started my blog I started reading up more on things cause as I was formulated articles and pieces , the more research I kind of fell into and then the more other bloggers I found in other resources like podcasts and then actually got my own button gear kind of with my own debt to like to get it done faster. Even though you know, for a lot of people that's not, that's not and an option B , be able to do it that quickly.

But I mean we're very fortunate to be able to. Yeah, but it is amazing though, how quickly it can happen. I think many people look at these big financial assets that they get into this financial mess and they think it's gonna take me 10 20 years to get out of it. Oftentimes that's not the case and at a lot of it comes back to things that you're saying. One of them is educating yourself and getting your mind right.

Saying, look, I need to get myself to where I understand this in a way and once we understand it, we start making better decisions. And then too , as you look at it, it's like, okay, now then we need to start working together and making some commitments. And part of that's been with your blog and with putting , you know, likes to dabble out there. Talk a little bit about what you're accomplishing there. You'd mentioned before that some of it's financial education, but a lot of it's side hustle.

Are you helping people come up with ideas for side hustling or just trying to get them motivated on what they can accomplish when they do site house ? The side hustle part of it is talking about different side hustle ideas. I also interview other entrepreneurs and their own stories like kind of how they started with side hustles, you know, and that how that kind of like opened the gateway to entrepreneurship than other people .

Um , or still side hustling, never wanting to leave their full time job. They just do it because um , I actually interviewed a pastor last week and he does a couple of different side hustles in bronze , two websites on the side of being a youth pastor, which I thought was really interesting and he never plans to leave his full time job because he believes it's his mission, not just the resources too . Okay . Just talking side hustle will make extra money reach financial freedom.

But the financial freedom part is important because you have to have the tools, resources and kind of that your self education to get there. How do you , how are you gonna save your money invested plan for the future with your retirement and healthcare and just those kinds of, it's kind of points as difficult things that people are having trouble with every day and assess their financial situation. You know they have the debt, they don't know what to do.

Some people I know so my readers are even like facing bankruptcy cause they have so much debt and it's really hard to kind of address those issues when I'm trying to talk about entrepreneurship at the same time because on the , in their minds like that's nowhere near where they are. That's one of the big issues that many people do have to overcome and have to look at when they're in this situation.

Especially when you're talking side hustle, if you get the wrong one, obviously it could require substantial amounts of money to get going. And I think that's one of the cool things about a lot of what you've done is you've taken situations where it's like, Hey I can get these and start making money with very little outlay in the beginning so I can instantly start getting money if by just putting some time and some effort and taking some of the products you already have.

Would you agree with that? Yes, I absolutely agree with that. I mean cause I first started signing this thing with the little quick ways to make extra money and then you don't think you'll be able to apply those [inaudible] extra money to my financial situation and then figuring out, I was like, Oh I have this blog, I can monetize this and you know I could create something out of it really a lot to my readers where I have a full time job and it is hard to kind of do all this on the side.

Like it is really hard to side hustle and like , can I map your future this way? Yeah , there's a lot of waking up earlier going to bed later and it's just, it gets difficult. Especially when you have your loved ones in , they're like, Hey, I feel like I haven't talked to you in three days. What would you recommend to people that are going down that journey to stay committed? I mean, it's easy to get started I think with many things.

People all the time, they have great ideas, they get excited and then like you say, reality hits and it becomes a little more time consuming than maybe they expected . Maybe the money doesn't come in quite as fast as they, Oh, what is it that helps keep people motivated down that process so that they don't give up and just go back to their old ways and suffering the death , the thread . That's a really good question because I , uh , suffer with that a lot.

Um, it's really hard to, you know, fight burnout when you're working a lot. Um, I like to think of it as, you know, you're not trying to, don't look at it as, Oh I'm trying to get all this done in six months. I , you know , I want this success in the short amount of time and everything will be perfect. Like it's not that way. Like my roadmap is, I've been doing this for two and a half years.

I'm still working my full time job finally registering as an LLC this year, which is , you know, I've finally getting around to this.

If people look at it kind of at a longer well right broader view where it's like maybe roadmap is like three to five years and you won't get so burnt out so easily and when it quit so early does he , you can be able to look at it or like you know, step by step, take it day by day, not like, Oh I have to get this done in six months and free from [inaudible] full time job.

And those things cause I mean your full time job does give you a lot of security and you might want to keep that for a little bit longer. Like one of the other key things too is making sure you're doing something that you really like. I think unfortunately many times just look at the money side of it and say, Oh I can go make money at this, but I really hate doing it. And if we can get in a situation where we're doing something we like, it's pretty easy to keep going every day.

If you're in a business that you enjoy doing, yeah, may take a little bit longer, but you enjoy the process, you enjoy what you're doing, that it makes it pretty easy to keep coming back. Yes. Writing and blogging. That's kind of like, I've always liked artistic expression and drawing. It's a writing kind of like an extension of that. My vection never saw myself riding until I started my blog and now I love it. I love it so much.

It's like [inaudible] don't feel like I'm really working that much when I'm staying up late. You know? Getting a post together. Oh , just doing extra things on the site. Like how you feel when you're going to a job doesn't really, you know, you really see yourself there in 10 years. Like in the future there. Do you see yourself like doing something you really enjoy when you don't feel exhausted as you probably should be. [inaudible]

that's good, but don't, you know, don't fall into all these side hustles where you know , you're trying to drive for door dash all the time or collect scooters or you know, sign side houses , all these different gigs and you're going to get really burnt out if you're not, you know , kind of thinking about the future with what you want to do with that , then yeah, you definitely have to have a plan. You've gotta be able to have , be committed to what it is that you're doing.

I mean, the cool thing is is there's so many ways now where you can get money again. You talk about driving, doing things in that area. I mean, it's amazing now how easy it is compared to my generation. Yeah . When I was a kid and even in my early twenties it was much harder. The internet wasn't as big as it is obviously now. I know there was period of time we didn't have the internet.

So you're looking at it and it's like there's so many things that are out there and there's so many companies that are trying to make it easier for people to be able to earn money immediately. Oh yeah. And I think I want a rich prac . I said earlier like driving for door dash and little gig like side gigs like that are really helpful, I guess.

You know, if you aren't able to find a full time job that's stable enough or you hate your job that much, that it crushes your soul to go in there every day . [inaudible] it's great with the gig [inaudible] gig economy now that you can put your job today and tomorrow you could probably go drive for door dash is still cover your expenses while you figure out what you really want to do. And I think that's, that's pretty amazing.

So, I mean, and that respect, those kinds of things like DoorDash , Instacart, those are all great things. Wrecks the money. And Rover is actually one of the, I've actually done myself and these are all great ways to kind of like get your self in the door of you know , self-employment. And so do you guys have a lot of options and likes to dabble? I mean, are you at , is there a lot of ideas that people are gonna look at or , and if not, how do people come up with the ideas?

What's the best thing they can do to try to come up with something that they can do to help them side hustle? Yeah, so we actually have a lot of resources on the site for side hustle ideas using your phone if you just, you know, looking for different apps, side hustle ideas as ways to side hustle. Actually trying to start your own business like a consulting business or design or freelance business. Maybe working with brands and bloggers as like a copywriter. I talked about different interests.

So like getting paid to read books. You can get paid to be a voice over narrator. Do you actually get paid to read these unfinished manuscripts? And there's like different kind of like just depending on your interests. We talk about different hobbies. I talk about passive income ideas cause I , I'm really trying to build up our passive income streams now.

So you know in the future I don't [inaudible] so dependent on like that active income cause that passive income really does [inaudible] compound over time as well. As soon as you get to the site actually the first thing you'll see is a optin for side hustle ideas. It's just a quick little list and it's resources as well to get started.

You know we added to the email list and all that stuff for so we don't spam you but this guy, the first thing you see when you use the site it's like here's the ideas and the resources and let's talk about it. Well and the cool thing is is how many sites that are out there for different skilled people. I mean now , even in the CPA industry now there is a site that one of my friends is doing where CPAs that want additional business can go and people can contract with them.

I know we use oDesk and some of the other big sites ourselves to get people to do computer stuff for us. I know CRS doing other using other websites, but be aware that there are a number of sites out there that if you have a skill, like if you're a copywriter, if you want to do videoing, if you want to do photography, that you can go onto these sites many times and be able to sign yourself up as a provider of those services.

Yes, we're going to take a fee to advertise your services, but they can be a great way to , to start getting money into the door immediately. But yeah, those, I love those kinds of sites like Fiverr and Upwork. I know a lot of freelancers use those sites. Even developers, designers and illustrators, logos. I know somebody actually illustrates illustrations for books. [inaudible] favor, you know, they okay . Contract out their services.

I actually [inaudible] most of my website is maintained through [inaudible] a, I have a resource on Upwork and he's really helpful is the best developer. I found that besides myself cause it's kind of want to do in my day job. I don't really have the time to kind of dig into my site like that and he's been a godsend. So I love those kind of sites.

Yeah. The cool thing about it too, on both sides, if you need the services in your business, if you're just getting started, it's a great place to get the services. If you don't , uh , you can provide the services. I mean there's both sides of it and we use it all the time just cause it's, we have a quick project and very similar situations , see our Stu busy doing our videos, doing our articles, whatever it may be. And it's like, Hey, we need help this week on editing this video.

So I'll pop it out there. Somebody else, we'll put it together for us and [inaudible] get it done, but don't have to worry about that longterm commitment of making sure they're getting paid every week. Yeah. Great. When you find a great resource on one of those sites and you're a repeat client and you're also supporting kind of their costs . Yeah, I know how that is. Absolutely. So what's the plan for you longterm?

I mean if you'd look at it five years from now for yourself, do you see yourself staying with a job in side hustling? Do you want to build a business to where all you're doing a side hustling? Where , where do you look at? Um , actually I had recently just written a piece for business insider for the same thing about how in five years both of my wife and I want to be completely independent from our corporate jobs, meaning know running art.

Our side business now is like full time and I actually just had a conversation with my wife about how I really want to go part time at the end of this year. I'm trying to hold out for my end of year bonus, but I want to go part time so I can have more time to dedicate to, I like to dabble, get it to more of a stable point. Right. Can make the switch.

I am hesitant to, you know, make that full switch right now I've read places before where if you make half of your current income at your job along with the six months emergency fund stashed away, that would be probably a good point to switch and I'm almost there, but I just [inaudible] the big question of health care and the other extra benefits we get through my wife full time employed as well and we can no switch over the health care to that. Right . I just can't pull the plug right now.

I really want to, I really want to, but I have to get my ducks like completely in a row because I don't want , you know, there's that fear of failure, which of course I always preach . You shouldn't, you know, I guess coming from a place of fear, right ? I feel just more comfortable first go into the part time and then fully [inaudible] what should happen before the next five years.

You bring up a couple of very good points though as you talk about Danielle and number one is making sure that you're wise in your planning. Whatever it is that you're doing, and I think that's one thing that oftentimes what happens is people get excited and they jumped ship and out of emotion rather than logically thinking through and going, wait a second, I've got health insurance.

Maybe I've got reimbursed cost from a cell phone or car or something that I'm getting that I'm going to lose all of those. I need to be able to replace those and they're not taking those into consideration or they're not considering the time. You know, the second big issue that you have is if you do something like you're doing where you're trying to build a following, it's the same thing that we do on our end. Those type of businesses are going to take you time.

We can see these people out there that have a million followers and think it happened overnight, but it doesn't. It's something that's going to take you time to do and you need to make sure you've got time to put into it so you can stay consistent and allow that to happen. Oh yeah, absolutely. It is not an overnight thing. It's so funny how many people think that like, Oh, I wish compare it to each other. Like, Oh , you have 100,000 followers. It's like, well, you just started .

You'll get there. It's just , you know. Yeah. You just gotta pace yourself. Take it day by day plan. Yeah. That's one of the biggest misconceptions of business that I think most people have is that it happens overnight. We see all these successful business owners in . Yeah. There's a few that has, but for 99% of the people, it's hard work. It's a lot of years of staying consistent. People ask me all the time, how do you get rich? Well, for me it took 10 years. Well , I'm a CPA.

That's where I made most of my money was by being able to be a great CPA. I had to go to five years of school. I had to take two years until I got my license, and then it took me about three years to really get good at what I was doing. Once I gained all that education. Yeah . Hopefully it doesn't take others that long and you doing what you're doing and building up a following. Those things happen much quicker. But it does take consistency and it is going to take time to do that. Oh absolutely.

And a lot of self investment, like you know, investing in yourself. So for that education, you know the resources for you to Excel doing a lot this year and it's paid off immensely. You know, I was kind of hesitant at first like, Oh I want to spend this money that I'm making, I want to , Oh save it, invest it. I like it , investing it back into the business and said SEO , grow it that way .

I , I feel like I've grown so much more the more, I guess money I've actually put into it and we have a lot to learn and to be able to educate yourself, whether it's their books, podcasts, I mean a lot of it you can get for free now. But I know myself, I travel all the time and my favorite thing is to grab a book or the and read on a new topic and it's great for me because it expands my mind, gives me new ideas, things that I can do on my own business, but also share with other people.

So we've gotten to the end of the show. We're at a point where we need to end this, so why don't you let people know how they can get ahold of you, how they can follow you and have they wanted side hustle, how they can get the information they need so they can get these things going to help them improve their financial lives. You can find me at, I like to dabble.com or on Instagram. My handle is I like to devil blog. All one word on Twitter.

Twitter and Facebook are just, I like to dabble as the handle for those pages and yeah, when you go to Ireland , devil.com a sign in on the opt in the first often you see and you'll get a bunch of nice fun emails from me every week to help you on your side hustle journey. Thank you so much for being on the show.

It's been very great to talk about this topic again, one of our biggest ways of getting financially free is having people increase their income, whether it's through a side hustle through or whether it's improving their job skills so they can get paid more. It's a great way to change your financial life without having to go backwards, which many times and financial literacy courses and financial planning many times they want people to go backwards instead of really go forward.

They want them to lower their lifestyle and it's all about doing these things. So thank you very much for being on the show. I really appreciate you being with us today. Thank you for having me. So my name's Dave hall. You have been listening to the prosperity gap. This is a show where we help take you from where you have been financially to the financial life that you should be.

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