December 2, 2025 • 23 mins
We talk a lot about side hustles - because who doesn't want to earn a little cash? But this episode is about the side hustles to avoid - either because they’re very hard to make money from, or because they’re outright scams. Join Canna Campbell - a financial planner for 20 years - and Fear & Greed's Michael Thompson as they look at side hustle pitfalls, and answer a question from listener Holly about a side hustle for her small farm.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to How Do They Afford That? The podcast that
peaks into the financial lives of everyday Australians. I'm Michael Thompson.
I'm an author and the co host of the podcasts
Fear and Greed. As always, I'm with Canna Campbell, financial
planner and the founder of Sugar Maumer TV, the financial
literacy platform covering YouTube and podcast books, Instagram threads, TikTok, keynote,
speeches and more. Hello, Canna, good money.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
How are you?
Speaker 1 (00:24):
I am great and I'm looking forward to today because
we are talking about side hustles. We have talked a
lot about side hustles on this podcast. It's a frequent
topic on this show because who doesn't want to earn
a little extra cash?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Right?
Speaker 1 (00:41):
I don't think anybody would put themselves in that category
of not wanting to do that. Last year we covered
great ideas. Last year we did some summer side hustles.
Earlier this year we did a bunch of ways to
make money online as well digital side hustles. Today, I
would like to go in a slightly different direction. Today
(01:03):
it is about avoiding the pitfalls. We are going to
go through some side hustles to avoid either because they're
very hard to make money from. Perhaps in some cases
they outright scams as well. So I know this is
a little bit negative, isn't it. And you're normally a
very kind of positive person, right, So this is going
(01:25):
to be perhaps an uneasy approach for you.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
I think it's going to be refreshingly honest.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Oh, I like that You're going to hammer some scam
hustles here. Is there a temptation to rush into a
side hustle without actually checking if it's worth it? And
this is let's put scams to one side for a
sec potentially, but just about kind of is it actually
going to be worth your time to do this or
(01:52):
are you just going to do a heck of a
lot of work for not much gain.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Look if there is an allure of some extra income
or some quick and then you factor on top of
that fact that you're under a bit of financial pressure,
absolutely that you know there is a huge temptation, you know,
to jump on that, and it's very easy to get
caught up in the excitement and you know the opportunity
and you start leaving that rational thinking at the door.
(02:17):
But often you know it sounds too easy or too
good to be true? It usually is.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
What are the big red flags that a side hustle
perhaps might not pay off?
Speaker 2 (02:28):
There are lots so high upfront costs, you know, and
I often see this online where people have to buy
a starter kit that you've got to fund yourself. Oh yeah,
have you ever seen those? Well? No, okay, I'm glad, Okay,
all right. Another red flag is promises of fast, guaranteed income.
(02:50):
So you know, sometimes I see this, are you talking
about to get rich quick scheme? No, these are like
we have to buy and it's like they pitch it
as a side hustle, and it is almost they kind
of get well, they're trying to be they're selling it
like a get rich quick scheme. So I often see
these on what they call when they're wrapped around a
telegraph pole, the posters that says, you know, do you
(03:13):
want to earn an extra five thousand dollars a week
working from your phone?
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Look, I think they are guaranteed red flags, right.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
If they pitch them as a side hustle with people think, oh,
you know, I'm on the bus, I'm sitting in my
phone and mass we'll do this just be a bit
of a sight hustle, so you're thinking of it as
a side hustle.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
That's a good point, and those things you do see it,
and you also get kind of unsolicited text messages about
those oh yeah, all the time. But you see them
on the side of a telegraph pole offering a lot
of money, might be five hundred bucks a week or
two thousand dollars a week, and all you need to
do is have a phone and away you go.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
The other red flag is when you see when you
start sort of doing a bit of digging and there's
just a complete lack of transparency. If you always feel
a little bit confused, you know there's vague job descriptions,
or there's hidden fees, and you know there's no business details,
or you don't understand who you're actually potentially in business
with the side hustle or how it really works. And
then there's like pressure tactics where you know, people will say, well,
(04:15):
if you want to have this as your side hustle,
you've got to sign up today because there's only a
limited amount of spots that we're allowing people, you know,
to be a part of this side hustle opportunity. Then
no proof there's no evidence. You haven't actually seen anyone
necessarily succeeding at that side hustle. And of course we're
not talking about, you know, someone with a certain skill set.
(04:37):
We're talking about people who are trying something new, some
sort of new market and new skill. They're trying to
sort of, I guess, be on the next bitcoin for example,
because you know, we wear their side hustles, perhaps trading
crypto and then a complicated contracts where you carry all
the risk such as you know, having to buy these
(04:59):
starter kits, or having to buy a certain amount of stock,
or having to hold on to a certain amount of stock.
That's where you start going, hang on like this, this
isn't really a side hustle. This is something else.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
We're actually getting into quite a sinister place here, because
when I started thinking about this episode, part of me
was just thinking about side hustles where you are essentially
backing yourself to go and do something and maybe it's
I don't know, kind of making craft goods and selling
them at the markets or something, for instance. And the
(05:35):
risk there to me would be that you're going to
put a lot of time, a lot of effort, perhaps
need to buy a lot of things and pay for
a stall and you're not going to make any money
out of it potentially, right, and that would be the
risk with that. But what you're talking about is actually
quite sinister, that there are potentially people out there trying
(05:56):
to rip you off through these schemes and marketing them
as a side hustle.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
See, you're still almost talking like almost like a developing
a business you know you're selling, So I'm talking about
more of it as a as you used as a scheme.
So two very similar things. They're still full on the
under the banner of side hustles, and you're making some
extra money in your spare time.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Okay, have you got any horror stories like have you
seen this play out?
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Oh? Gosh, you know what, there's so many. I haven't personally,
but there are so many documentaries on these, more so
multi level marketing schemes, like some of the herb Life one,
some of the Essential Oils. There's one I believe about leggings,
which I'm dying to watch. So yes, I have seen it,
(06:47):
but not personally about you.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
No. Again, I suppose this gets down to this question
of an investment of your time and your money and
whether it pays off, and so it's less about getting
ripped off by an overarching kind of body and more
just about is this side hustle going to be worth
your investment? Right?
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Actually I do now that you say that. I've spoken
about this before. But Tom created these ice packs for
dogs and horses and it was a massive flop. I mean,
we're still we had ice packs coming out of very
ears to the point where, like I literally wanted to
burn them, and we got to the point where literally
we were just agreed it was disaster. And Tom Kittle
(07:32):
saying it's a sleeping giant. You wouldn't believe it. They
now sell he sells like a couple of thousand dollars
worth of ice packs.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
A week now he does.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
He's like something that sleeping giant.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Yeah, hey, so Tom does.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Yeah, this has been going on. We've been together what
I think nine years, and only in the last probably
eighteen months has it actually sudden like exploded. And that
is a side hustle.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
This was supposed to be an episode about warning people
side hustles. You have just said, you know what, no
matter how much this costs and how much this drains on,
you stick with it because this thing is guaranteed to
pay off.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
But it's just I mean, we've spoken about this before,
you know, when you were setting up a small business
on the side, and this is a bit different. You know,
it's another form of a business within a business. But
you know that initially was we thought it was an
absolute disaster and a huge waste of money.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Okay. At the complete other end of the scale, we
recently dabbled in like letterbox deliveries, pamphlet deliveries and you
see those kind of you get them in the mailbox
kind of saying hey, do you want to be a
delivery person in your area, And was in the school
holidays and we thought, you know what, this could be
fun to do with the kids. Yeah, and it could
(08:46):
be a good way to teach them kind of the
value of money. And so we said, kind of help
us with this, do this with us, and we will
put the money towards a trip to the movies. Right,
And so that was direct kind of work for a reward. Okay,
Oh my god. It was the longest, most drawn out
process because what you don't realize is you need to
(09:08):
compile all of the pamphlets into one, so you might
have like eight individual pamphlets, and so you're having to
stat and they're all up in these kind of stacks
of hundreds of them, and so you're they're kind of
going one, okay, that's one bundle. Then you've got to
do it four hundred times over again and again and
again and again and again. Then you've got boxes and
boxes of pamphlets then to take out. And so we
(09:30):
had to drive. We were doing it kind of in
our local area, but we still needed to get into
the car, drive a couple of streets over park there.
Use that as like a mobile operating base from which
to go, and so Sean and I were each going
with one child each and we went off in different directions.
We mapped it all out and we did it and
took us hours. And my god, it was hot. It
(09:50):
was about thirty degrees that day. And the kids were
very enthusiastic at the start and got progressively less enthusiastic
as it went on, and we did it. It took
a very long time. And you know what, we figured
out at the end that we were working for an
effective hourly rate of five dollars an hour all that,
(10:11):
and so it taught them, the kids a valuable lesson
about the value of money, and they got to go
to the movies and it taught us the valuable lesson
that we never want to do that again as long
as we live. And so it kind of goes to
that question of how do you figure out whether something
is going to be worth your time, worth your effort,
worth the hours that you're going to have to put
(10:33):
into it. If you are looking at kind of like
this side house, whether it's delivering pamphlets, whether it's kind
of starting a little business and selling things at the markets,
or I don't know, writing content online, creating a course,
how do you figure out if you're going to actually
make any money out of it? And it's probably an
impossible question.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Well, I think you need to do a bit of
a pilot. You know, have give yourself a deadline and say,
all right, I'm going to give this a go for
thirty days or ninety days, or I'll give myself a
whole year to give this his best shot. And you've
got to track not just you know, what you're putting
in for like investing money if you're having to buy
supplies and stock, but also the income that you've got
coming in. How much profit really you're making. But also
(11:17):
the time are you sacrificing every single weekend and working
until midnight every single night? You know, you worked out
that you guys were earning five dollars an hour. You
know you need to do exactly the same. And you know,
a good sort of point of comparison is is would
I do this as a full time job at that
hourly rate?
Speaker 1 (11:36):
Probably not, I don't think so. The benefit of that
was that there was kind of no lock in contract.
We didn't have to do it again and again and
again and again. We were able to do a test,
we'll do a little kind of pilot of that, and
realized after kind of two weeks, you know what, it's
probably not for us.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
And did you have great satisfaction going I quit? We quit?
Speaker 1 (11:58):
I think Shan did. Yes. She was like, I'm sending
them a very aggressive message. I'm like, okay, good luck,
that's cool. Yeah, yes, she's she doesn't hold back anyway. Hi, Shan,
I hope you're listening. We're going to take a very
quick break. I'm going to send an apology message to
my wife and we'll come back in a second. We've
(12:19):
got a great listener. Email that I want to address
today as well, which is all about side hustles. But
I know that this has been very negative about things
not to do. This is actually going to be about
some things to do because this listener wants some advice
on some potential ideas, and I think we could probably
help them out.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Oh I like this of this.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Okay, we'll take a quick break back in a moment.
Can We are talking about side hustles, and we have
been talking about things to avoid basically, how to avoid
some of those pitfalls of side hustles, perhaps because they
are very hard to make money from, perhaps because they
are in fact kind of how to rip you off
(12:58):
if they are part of a larger organization. Are there
any side hustles that look really flexible on the surface
but will end up costing you more than you earn
kind of petrol and fees and stress and things like that.
And I see kind of a lot of the delivery
drivers and things. That is something that you can actually
measure out though, can't you You can calculate exactly how
much you're going to earn and make an educated decision.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Yes, absolutely so with those gig gaps, like you know,
delivery or you know ride share, you can run your
numbers before you commit, so and you know exactly how
much you're going to get paid, so you're making an
educated decision before you actually commit. And also with a
lot of those you know, ride shairs and Amazon delivery partners,
(13:41):
you can choose when you want to work. So you
might think, well, I've got a type month of bills
coming in, I'll just do a solid month of you know,
side hustles. But then you know, there's things like drop
shipping and online reselling now that can work, and I
have seen it work, but it also requires a lot
of time, a lot of upfront investment into your website
and having some skills around marketing. It's you know, there's
(14:05):
a lot of trial and error, and if you don't
have any experience in drop shipping, it can go against you.
And obviously it's also quite saturated as well. Another one
that people always ask me is survey sites. You know,
where you get paid to do a survey and they'll
pay you like five dollars per survey, but they don't
tell you it's going to take you an hour to
(14:25):
do that survey, and it's actually a really boring survey
and you know really fairly. You know that can actually
you can almost be caught out and most ripped off,
I find by doing those surveys because you're committed to
doing it, and then you find yourself like three quarters
of the way going, oh my goodness, this is torture.
And then you discover you know, you're only getting a
small amount of money for that, or it's a voucher.
(14:46):
Sometimes they pay you. And of course, then as we
discuss the multi level marketing schemes.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
How important is it and you mentioned kind of when
you don't have any knowledge of drop shipping or anything
like that, how important is it to align a side
hustle with your own interests or your own kind of hobbies.
I suppose you're probably setting yourself up for a greater
chance of success because it's something that you actually want
to do.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Right exactly, it's crucial, you know, when you're doing a
side hustle, it's something you love, something you're passionate about,
something that you see is not just about making money
but also improving your own skill set. It's not a
chore to get out of bed at five am and
work on it, and you know, doesn't feel like a
sacrifice when you're not going out on the weekend to
see your friends and family. Because you're working on your
(15:29):
side hustle, you're a lot more motivated and therefore you're
more likely to succeed with that side hustle. And so
you know, I would ask myself, you know, would I
even do this if I wasn't getting paid at first?
And some people say, you know what, I'm happy to
do this and make no money for three months because
I'm so excited about This is something I'm really passionate about,
(15:49):
and I see it an intangible value that comes to
me beyond actually making money, because I'll be able to
get better at using my camera, I'm going to get
better at creating content, or I'm going to get better
at the particular arts and crafts, you know. So that's
a great sign. You know, you're going in with nothing
to lose in so much to gain an abundant mindset.
So yes, you've got to really love this, And you know,
(16:11):
side hustles are supposed to be fun, supposed to be,
you know, something you look forward to and repull the
wonderful benefits. It's not punishing yourself or torturing yourself and
doing something that makes you feel miserable.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Yeah. Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense
because that way, if you're enjoying it, then the money
can just be a benefit that comes.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Along from it, exactly, a bonus. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Okay, you've kind of given us a bit of a
checklist there for spotting a good side hustle that it
is something that you enjoy. Are there any other things?
I know I'm going to put you under pressure because
we are running out of time. Do you reckon you
could do this in say thirty seconds or less, because
I really want to get to the listener questions.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
I'm talking I'll do it all right. So a low
startup cost, so minimal financial risk. You know, you're not
having to sink a whole part of money. It's making
it scalable, you know, knowing that you can actually grow
this over time, particularly as your own skills and experience increase.
Making sure it's flexible. You know, there are certain times
of the year where we have other commitments and we
(17:10):
have to you know, maybe not put the side hustle
on hold, but perhaps scale down or press pause temporarily,
you know, making sure it's aligned, as we've said, and
making it a legitimate structure, so you understand the model
behind your side hustle or is it going to be
evolving into a business. Is it going to be profitable
if you've got the right legal framework in place, And
(17:31):
then you know, looking at whether it's transferable skills. You know,
can you use these skills for other areas of your life?
You know what other intangible values are going to come
from it? And the best side hustles don't just make money,
you know, they actually make you smarter, They make you
more skilled, more entrepreneurial, more independent.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Okay, that was slightly longer than i'd.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Sorry, I got a little bit carriederwat.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
That's fine. That's fine. I've been known to waffle on occasion.
Not today, obviously. Is it time for our listener question? Yes,
because I love this. This has come from Holly and
so Holly sent a message via Instagram. She went along
to my Instagram Michael Thompson author, just in case you
want to do the same thing, And she says, and
her name is Holly, and she says, my husband and
(18:20):
I own over seven acres of land out in the
country and the process of building our dream off grid
home on it. So it's a great little kind of setup, right,
and this is in a regional Victoria okay, And she says,
as we're getting close to finishing the build and moving in,
we're trying to figure out what we can do with
the land to actually make some money. She says, I
(18:41):
know not everyone has acreage, but perhaps some of your
listeners have decent sized blocks and might be thinking the
same thing. There's a great question. So one idea that
we've tossed around is growing saffron, right, which is cool.
It's very kind of high value saffron is it's interesting,
but she said, but we're wondering what other creative or
realistic ways there might be to generate income or build
(19:04):
wealth from the land besides just essentially straightforward farming of
the land, which I think is really interesting. She has
suggested that maybe a miniature donkey farm might be a
good idea. It feels like that's a passion project that
she's trying to convince her husband to get on board with.
So juries out on the donkey farm. But we'll take
(19:24):
that under consideration. What do you think, Kenna?
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Okay, So there's so much I mean farming saffron that
years of experience and knowledge, and you know, being farming
is such a it's so fragile. You know, the elements
control so much of your success, and you know, I
mean you're jumping into something that potentially requires a huge
(19:49):
amount of knowledge and experience, and you don't even know
if you have the right land. I mean, the soil
cauality may be not appropriate for saffron. So I see
a lot of dangers with that. One I that came
to me is doing adjustment, where you basically rent the
land out to local farmers. So they will put their
(20:10):
cattle on typically sheep or cows, and they'll come in
and graze on the on the land. So it's a
great way of obviously managing the land and you get
to collect some money and there's nothing physically involved. It
almost becomes a passive income source because obviously with saffron
you've got to be I imagine would veractive farm. So
(20:31):
that is one idea. The other idea I had was
and again I have no idea where this land is,
but is renting it out for events. So somebody I
know rents out a paddock that happens to have a
beautiful view, and they rented out for people to get
married on old events.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
I also went to an expert to ask this question.
I went to my brother in law, Pat, who seems
to know everything about farms and about making money and things.
Was like, okay, you know what, Pat, what do you reckon?
And he said that the key question here is water.
What access does the property have to water? Is it seasonal,
is it damn seasonal, creek, et cetera. Seven acres, he says,
(21:12):
is a good market garden size, right, so it's big
enough to grow a decent amount of a high value vegetable,
for instance, garlic. Okay, there's an interesting one. How's that
for a tip? Or you could use the land to
grow cut flowers for local florests, or use the space
for storage of some kind, for instance caravan storage where
people will actually just pay you to park their caravans,
(21:34):
not to stay in them, but they just need somewhere
to park it where it's potentially going to maybe be
under a shed, for instance, and you just collect the
rent essentially on it every single week. And alternatively, eco tourism,
particularly kind of out in the country. You can go
with say tiny houses, those the very small kind of
cottages and lamping and build it up as almost an
(21:57):
Airbnb or weddings as you said, but even just a
site for wedding photography, right, have some old machinery or
something that that provides a like a vintage tractor for instance,
that provides kind of a setting for wedding photography, and
people will will come and pay for that.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Commercials, film and television.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Absolutely, yeah, registration. Yeah, you put your property on the
list of potential shooting locations for TV commercials or TV
shows or even film. So there's a few ideas there.
How about us go.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
I'm actually really proud of us.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
We are an ideas factory. I mean, obviously I got
a lot of help there from Pat, but I mean
most of it kind of came from me. I don't
think I can say that with any credibility. I don't
think you get anyway. Look, we talked a lot about
side hustles, some things to avoid, the things that you
should be looking for. We've answered at Holly's question. I
hope we've answered Holly's question. And if you do end
(22:51):
up doing any of those, holy, then please just let
us let us know and we will be after what Yeah, fifteen,
you know a lot of negotiating there for you, Holly,
all right, if you've got your own question, then send
it on through Jump onto Instagram and send us a message.
Is that the best place to get hold of you too, Cannah?
Speaker 2 (23:07):
Yes, absolutely. It's sugar Ma My TV on Instagram or
Canna Campbell.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Official and you can hear me every day on Fear
and Greed daily business news that you can use and remember.
If you think that there might be someone interested in
a side hustle and they are perhaps looking at things
that you might think could be a little bit shady,
send them a link to this episode. There's a few
good warning signs in there. Help us spread the word
about how to they afford that. Thank you for your company,
(23:31):
Join us again next week.
Welcome to How Do They Afford That? The podcast that
peaks into the financial lives of everyday Australians. I'm Michael Thompson.
I'm an author and the co host of the podcasts
Fear and Greed. As always, I'm with Canna Campbell, financial
planner and the founder of Sugar Maumer TV, the financial
literacy platform covering YouTube and podcast books, Instagram threads, TikTok, keynote,
speeches and more. Hello, Canna, good money.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
How are you?
Speaker 1 (00:24):
I am great and I'm looking forward to today because
we are talking about side hustles. We have talked a
lot about side hustles on this podcast. It's a frequent
topic on this show because who doesn't want to earn
a little extra cash?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Right?
Speaker 1 (00:41):
I don't think anybody would put themselves in that category
of not wanting to do that. Last year we covered
great ideas. Last year we did some summer side hustles.
Earlier this year we did a bunch of ways to
make money online as well digital side hustles. Today, I
would like to go in a slightly different direction. Today
(01:03):
it is about avoiding the pitfalls. We are going to
go through some side hustles to avoid either because they're
very hard to make money from. Perhaps in some cases
they outright scams as well. So I know this is
a little bit negative, isn't it. And you're normally a
very kind of positive person, right, So this is going
(01:25):
to be perhaps an uneasy approach for you.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
I think it's going to be refreshingly honest.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Oh, I like that You're going to hammer some scam
hustles here. Is there a temptation to rush into a
side hustle without actually checking if it's worth it? And
this is let's put scams to one side for a
sec potentially, but just about kind of is it actually
going to be worth your time to do this or
(01:52):
are you just going to do a heck of a
lot of work for not much gain.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Look if there is an allure of some extra income
or some quick and then you factor on top of
that fact that you're under a bit of financial pressure,
absolutely that you know there is a huge temptation, you know,
to jump on that, and it's very easy to get
caught up in the excitement and you know the opportunity
and you start leaving that rational thinking at the door.
(02:17):
But often you know it sounds too easy or too
good to be true? It usually is.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
What are the big red flags that a side hustle
perhaps might not pay off?
Speaker 2 (02:28):
There are lots so high upfront costs, you know, and
I often see this online where people have to buy
a starter kit that you've got to fund yourself. Oh yeah,
have you ever seen those? Well? No, okay, I'm glad, Okay,
all right. Another red flag is promises of fast, guaranteed income.
(02:50):
So you know, sometimes I see this, are you talking
about to get rich quick scheme? No, these are like
we have to buy and it's like they pitch it
as a side hustle, and it is almost they kind
of get well, they're trying to be they're selling it
like a get rich quick scheme. So I often see
these on what they call when they're wrapped around a
telegraph pole, the posters that says, you know, do you
(03:13):
want to earn an extra five thousand dollars a week
working from your phone?
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Look, I think they are guaranteed red flags, right.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
If they pitch them as a side hustle with people think, oh,
you know, I'm on the bus, I'm sitting in my
phone and mass we'll do this just be a bit
of a sight hustle, so you're thinking of it as
a side hustle.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
That's a good point, and those things you do see it,
and you also get kind of unsolicited text messages about
those oh yeah, all the time. But you see them
on the side of a telegraph pole offering a lot
of money, might be five hundred bucks a week or
two thousand dollars a week, and all you need to
do is have a phone and away you go.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
The other red flag is when you see when you
start sort of doing a bit of digging and there's
just a complete lack of transparency. If you always feel
a little bit confused, you know there's vague job descriptions,
or there's hidden fees, and you know there's no business details,
or you don't understand who you're actually potentially in business
with the side hustle or how it really works. And
then there's like pressure tactics where you know, people will say, well,
(04:15):
if you want to have this as your side hustle,
you've got to sign up today because there's only a
limited amount of spots that we're allowing people, you know,
to be a part of this side hustle opportunity. Then
no proof there's no evidence. You haven't actually seen anyone
necessarily succeeding at that side hustle. And of course we're
not talking about, you know, someone with a certain skill set.
(04:37):
We're talking about people who are trying something new, some
sort of new market and new skill. They're trying to
sort of, I guess, be on the next bitcoin for example,
because you know, we wear their side hustles, perhaps trading
crypto and then a complicated contracts where you carry all
the risk such as you know, having to buy these
(04:59):
starter kits, or having to buy a certain amount of stock,
or having to hold on to a certain amount of stock.
That's where you start going, hang on like this, this
isn't really a side hustle. This is something else.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
We're actually getting into quite a sinister place here, because
when I started thinking about this episode, part of me
was just thinking about side hustles where you are essentially
backing yourself to go and do something and maybe it's
I don't know, kind of making craft goods and selling
them at the markets or something, for instance. And the
(05:35):
risk there to me would be that you're going to
put a lot of time, a lot of effort, perhaps
need to buy a lot of things and pay for
a stall and you're not going to make any money
out of it potentially, right, and that would be the
risk with that. But what you're talking about is actually
quite sinister, that there are potentially people out there trying
(05:56):
to rip you off through these schemes and marketing them
as a side hustle.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
See, you're still almost talking like almost like a developing
a business you know you're selling, So I'm talking about
more of it as a as you used as a scheme.
So two very similar things. They're still full on the
under the banner of side hustles, and you're making some
extra money in your spare time.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Okay, have you got any horror stories like have you
seen this play out?
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Oh? Gosh, you know what, there's so many. I haven't personally,
but there are so many documentaries on these, more so
multi level marketing schemes, like some of the herb Life one,
some of the Essential Oils. There's one I believe about leggings,
which I'm dying to watch. So yes, I have seen it,
(06:47):
but not personally about you.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
No. Again, I suppose this gets down to this question
of an investment of your time and your money and
whether it pays off, and so it's less about getting
ripped off by an overarching kind of body and more
just about is this side hustle going to be worth
your investment? Right?
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Actually I do now that you say that. I've spoken
about this before. But Tom created these ice packs for
dogs and horses and it was a massive flop. I mean,
we're still we had ice packs coming out of very
ears to the point where, like I literally wanted to
burn them, and we got to the point where literally
we were just agreed it was disaster. And Tom Kittle
(07:32):
saying it's a sleeping giant. You wouldn't believe it. They
now sell he sells like a couple of thousand dollars
worth of ice packs.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
A week now he does.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
He's like something that sleeping giant.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Yeah, hey, so Tom does.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Yeah, this has been going on. We've been together what
I think nine years, and only in the last probably
eighteen months has it actually sudden like exploded. And that
is a side hustle.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
This was supposed to be an episode about warning people
side hustles. You have just said, you know what, no
matter how much this costs and how much this drains on,
you stick with it because this thing is guaranteed to
pay off.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
But it's just I mean, we've spoken about this before,
you know, when you were setting up a small business
on the side, and this is a bit different. You know,
it's another form of a business within a business. But
you know that initially was we thought it was an
absolute disaster and a huge waste of money.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Okay. At the complete other end of the scale, we
recently dabbled in like letterbox deliveries, pamphlet deliveries and you
see those kind of you get them in the mailbox
kind of saying hey, do you want to be a
delivery person in your area, And was in the school
holidays and we thought, you know what, this could be
fun to do with the kids. Yeah, and it could
(08:46):
be a good way to teach them kind of the
value of money. And so we said, kind of help
us with this, do this with us, and we will
put the money towards a trip to the movies. Right,
And so that was direct kind of work for a reward. Okay,
Oh my god. It was the longest, most drawn out
process because what you don't realize is you need to
(09:08):
compile all of the pamphlets into one, so you might
have like eight individual pamphlets, and so you're having to
stat and they're all up in these kind of stacks
of hundreds of them, and so you're they're kind of
going one, okay, that's one bundle. Then you've got to
do it four hundred times over again and again and
again and again and again. Then you've got boxes and
boxes of pamphlets then to take out. And so we
(09:30):
had to drive. We were doing it kind of in
our local area, but we still needed to get into
the car, drive a couple of streets over park there.
Use that as like a mobile operating base from which
to go, and so Sean and I were each going
with one child each and we went off in different directions.
We mapped it all out and we did it and
took us hours. And my god, it was hot. It
(09:50):
was about thirty degrees that day. And the kids were
very enthusiastic at the start and got progressively less enthusiastic
as it went on, and we did it. It took
a very long time. And you know what, we figured
out at the end that we were working for an
effective hourly rate of five dollars an hour all that,
(10:11):
and so it taught them, the kids a valuable lesson
about the value of money, and they got to go
to the movies and it taught us the valuable lesson
that we never want to do that again as long
as we live. And so it kind of goes to
that question of how do you figure out whether something
is going to be worth your time, worth your effort,
worth the hours that you're going to have to put
(10:33):
into it. If you are looking at kind of like
this side house, whether it's delivering pamphlets, whether it's kind
of starting a little business and selling things at the markets,
or I don't know, writing content online, creating a course,
how do you figure out if you're going to actually
make any money out of it? And it's probably an
impossible question.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Well, I think you need to do a bit of
a pilot. You know, have give yourself a deadline and say,
all right, I'm going to give this a go for
thirty days or ninety days, or I'll give myself a
whole year to give this his best shot. And you've
got to track not just you know, what you're putting
in for like investing money if you're having to buy
supplies and stock, but also the income that you've got
coming in. How much profit really you're making. But also
(11:17):
the time are you sacrificing every single weekend and working
until midnight every single night? You know, you worked out
that you guys were earning five dollars an hour. You
know you need to do exactly the same. And you know,
a good sort of point of comparison is is would
I do this as a full time job at that
hourly rate?
Speaker 1 (11:36):
Probably not, I don't think so. The benefit of that
was that there was kind of no lock in contract.
We didn't have to do it again and again and
again and again. We were able to do a test,
we'll do a little kind of pilot of that, and
realized after kind of two weeks, you know what, it's
probably not for us.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
And did you have great satisfaction going I quit? We quit?
Speaker 1 (11:58):
I think Shan did. Yes. She was like, I'm sending
them a very aggressive message. I'm like, okay, good luck,
that's cool. Yeah, yes, she's she doesn't hold back anyway. Hi, Shan,
I hope you're listening. We're going to take a very
quick break. I'm going to send an apology message to
my wife and we'll come back in a second. We've
(12:19):
got a great listener. Email that I want to address
today as well, which is all about side hustles. But
I know that this has been very negative about things
not to do. This is actually going to be about
some things to do because this listener wants some advice
on some potential ideas, and I think we could probably
help them out.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Oh I like this of this.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Okay, we'll take a quick break back in a moment.
Can We are talking about side hustles, and we have
been talking about things to avoid basically, how to avoid
some of those pitfalls of side hustles, perhaps because they
are very hard to make money from, perhaps because they
are in fact kind of how to rip you off
(12:58):
if they are part of a larger organization. Are there
any side hustles that look really flexible on the surface
but will end up costing you more than you earn
kind of petrol and fees and stress and things like that.
And I see kind of a lot of the delivery
drivers and things. That is something that you can actually
measure out though, can't you You can calculate exactly how
much you're going to earn and make an educated decision.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Yes, absolutely so with those gig gaps, like you know,
delivery or you know ride share, you can run your
numbers before you commit, so and you know exactly how
much you're going to get paid, so you're making an
educated decision before you actually commit. And also with a
lot of those you know, ride shairs and Amazon delivery partners,
(13:41):
you can choose when you want to work. So you
might think, well, I've got a type month of bills
coming in, I'll just do a solid month of you know,
side hustles. But then you know, there's things like drop
shipping and online reselling now that can work, and I
have seen it work, but it also requires a lot
of time, a lot of upfront investment into your website
and having some skills around marketing. It's you know, there's
(14:05):
a lot of trial and error, and if you don't
have any experience in drop shipping, it can go against you.
And obviously it's also quite saturated as well. Another one
that people always ask me is survey sites. You know,
where you get paid to do a survey and they'll
pay you like five dollars per survey, but they don't
tell you it's going to take you an hour to
(14:25):
do that survey, and it's actually a really boring survey
and you know really fairly. You know that can actually
you can almost be caught out and most ripped off,
I find by doing those surveys because you're committed to
doing it, and then you find yourself like three quarters
of the way going, oh my goodness, this is torture.
And then you discover you know, you're only getting a
small amount of money for that, or it's a voucher.
(14:46):
Sometimes they pay you. And of course, then as we
discuss the multi level marketing schemes.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
How important is it and you mentioned kind of when
you don't have any knowledge of drop shipping or anything
like that, how important is it to align a side
hustle with your own interests or your own kind of hobbies.
I suppose you're probably setting yourself up for a greater
chance of success because it's something that you actually want
to do.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Right exactly, it's crucial, you know, when you're doing a
side hustle, it's something you love, something you're passionate about,
something that you see is not just about making money
but also improving your own skill set. It's not a
chore to get out of bed at five am and
work on it, and you know, doesn't feel like a
sacrifice when you're not going out on the weekend to
see your friends and family. Because you're working on your
(15:29):
side hustle, you're a lot more motivated and therefore you're
more likely to succeed with that side hustle. And so
you know, I would ask myself, you know, would I
even do this if I wasn't getting paid at first?
And some people say, you know what, I'm happy to
do this and make no money for three months because
I'm so excited about This is something I'm really passionate about,
(15:49):
and I see it an intangible value that comes to
me beyond actually making money, because I'll be able to
get better at using my camera, I'm going to get
better at creating content, or I'm going to get better
at the particular arts and crafts, you know. So that's
a great sign. You know, you're going in with nothing
to lose in so much to gain an abundant mindset.
So yes, you've got to really love this, And you know,
(16:11):
side hustles are supposed to be fun, supposed to be,
you know, something you look forward to and repull the
wonderful benefits. It's not punishing yourself or torturing yourself and
doing something that makes you feel miserable.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Yeah. Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense
because that way, if you're enjoying it, then the money
can just be a benefit that comes.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Along from it, exactly, a bonus. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Okay, you've kind of given us a bit of a
checklist there for spotting a good side hustle that it
is something that you enjoy. Are there any other things?
I know I'm going to put you under pressure because
we are running out of time. Do you reckon you
could do this in say thirty seconds or less, because
I really want to get to the listener questions.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
I'm talking I'll do it all right. So a low
startup cost, so minimal financial risk. You know, you're not
having to sink a whole part of money. It's making
it scalable, you know, knowing that you can actually grow
this over time, particularly as your own skills and experience increase.
Making sure it's flexible. You know, there are certain times
of the year where we have other commitments and we
(17:10):
have to you know, maybe not put the side hustle
on hold, but perhaps scale down or press pause temporarily,
you know, making sure it's aligned, as we've said, and
making it a legitimate structure, so you understand the model
behind your side hustle or is it going to be
evolving into a business. Is it going to be profitable
if you've got the right legal framework in place, And
(17:31):
then you know, looking at whether it's transferable skills. You know,
can you use these skills for other areas of your life?
You know what other intangible values are going to come
from it? And the best side hustles don't just make money,
you know, they actually make you smarter, They make you
more skilled, more entrepreneurial, more independent.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Okay, that was slightly longer than i'd.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Sorry, I got a little bit carriederwat.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
That's fine. That's fine. I've been known to waffle on occasion.
Not today, obviously. Is it time for our listener question? Yes,
because I love this. This has come from Holly and
so Holly sent a message via Instagram. She went along
to my Instagram Michael Thompson author, just in case you
want to do the same thing, And she says, and
her name is Holly, and she says, my husband and
(18:20):
I own over seven acres of land out in the
country and the process of building our dream off grid
home on it. So it's a great little kind of setup, right,
and this is in a regional Victoria okay, And she says,
as we're getting close to finishing the build and moving in,
we're trying to figure out what we can do with
the land to actually make some money. She says, I
(18:41):
know not everyone has acreage, but perhaps some of your
listeners have decent sized blocks and might be thinking the
same thing. There's a great question. So one idea that
we've tossed around is growing saffron, right, which is cool.
It's very kind of high value saffron is it's interesting,
but she said, but we're wondering what other creative or
realistic ways there might be to generate income or build
(19:04):
wealth from the land besides just essentially straightforward farming of
the land, which I think is really interesting. She has
suggested that maybe a miniature donkey farm might be a
good idea. It feels like that's a passion project that
she's trying to convince her husband to get on board with.
So juries out on the donkey farm. But we'll take
(19:24):
that under consideration. What do you think, Kenna?
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Okay, So there's so much I mean farming saffron that
years of experience and knowledge, and you know, being farming
is such a it's so fragile. You know, the elements
control so much of your success, and you know, I
mean you're jumping into something that potentially requires a huge
(19:49):
amount of knowledge and experience, and you don't even know
if you have the right land. I mean, the soil
cauality may be not appropriate for saffron. So I see
a lot of dangers with that. One I that came
to me is doing adjustment, where you basically rent the
land out to local farmers. So they will put their
(20:10):
cattle on typically sheep or cows, and they'll come in
and graze on the on the land. So it's a
great way of obviously managing the land and you get
to collect some money and there's nothing physically involved. It
almost becomes a passive income source because obviously with saffron
you've got to be I imagine would veractive farm. So
(20:31):
that is one idea. The other idea I had was
and again I have no idea where this land is,
but is renting it out for events. So somebody I
know rents out a paddock that happens to have a
beautiful view, and they rented out for people to get
married on old events.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
I also went to an expert to ask this question.
I went to my brother in law, Pat, who seems
to know everything about farms and about making money and things.
Was like, okay, you know what, Pat, what do you reckon?
And he said that the key question here is water.
What access does the property have to water? Is it seasonal,
is it damn seasonal, creek, et cetera. Seven acres, he says,
(21:12):
is a good market garden size, right, so it's big
enough to grow a decent amount of a high value vegetable,
for instance, garlic. Okay, there's an interesting one. How's that
for a tip? Or you could use the land to
grow cut flowers for local florests, or use the space
for storage of some kind, for instance caravan storage where
people will actually just pay you to park their caravans,
(21:34):
not to stay in them, but they just need somewhere
to park it where it's potentially going to maybe be
under a shed, for instance, and you just collect the
rent essentially on it every single week. And alternatively, eco tourism,
particularly kind of out in the country. You can go
with say tiny houses, those the very small kind of
cottages and lamping and build it up as almost an
(21:57):
Airbnb or weddings as you said, but even just a
site for wedding photography, right, have some old machinery or
something that that provides a like a vintage tractor for instance,
that provides kind of a setting for wedding photography, and
people will will come and pay for that.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Commercials, film and television.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Absolutely, yeah, registration. Yeah, you put your property on the
list of potential shooting locations for TV commercials or TV
shows or even film. So there's a few ideas there.
How about us go.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
I'm actually really proud of us.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
We are an ideas factory. I mean, obviously I got
a lot of help there from Pat, but I mean
most of it kind of came from me. I don't
think I can say that with any credibility. I don't
think you get anyway. Look, we talked a lot about
side hustles, some things to avoid, the things that you
should be looking for. We've answered at Holly's question. I
hope we've answered Holly's question. And if you do end
(22:51):
up doing any of those, holy, then please just let
us let us know and we will be after what Yeah, fifteen,
you know a lot of negotiating there for you, Holly,
all right, if you've got your own question, then send
it on through Jump onto Instagram and send us a message.
Is that the best place to get hold of you too, Cannah?
Speaker 2 (23:07):
Yes, absolutely. It's sugar Ma My TV on Instagram or
Canna Campbell.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Official and you can hear me every day on Fear
and Greed daily business news that you can use and remember.
If you think that there might be someone interested in
a side hustle and they are perhaps looking at things
that you might think could be a little bit shady,
send them a link to this episode. There's a few
good warning signs in there. Help us spread the word
about how to they afford that. Thank you for your company,
(23:31):
Join us again next week.
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