More career brainstorming - side hustle/passive income when already working lots of hours?

First, I do like my current job and my employer. Like, at lot. Probably one of the two best jobs I've ever had. But I'm also away from home four days (soon to be five full days) per week and work 60+ hours/week every week even with the four-ish day week. So I like to keep this particular job for a few more years because it's a good company with a bunch of people I work with who I really appreciate working with.

That said, I'm not getting any younger, my retirement isn't on track thanks to a business failure with lawsuits that dragged out for a decade or so, plus the current job (consulting) has a pretty high burnout rate.  I'm pretty new to the job but it looks like I'm better at it than I expected, at least according to some of the clients. But I'm 15-20 years from retirement and I don't think I can do this particular job for the whole time, at least not without dialing it down a bit.

So, I'm looking for ideas that how I could over time reduce the dependency on my job, preferably without trading more hours for money, at least in the longer run. The problem is, well, I don't have much spare time and am currently in a state of constant semi-exhaustion (which rules out the "work until two in the morning on your own stuff, then get back up to go to work at 7am" approach). Plus, some of the spare time will have to be dedicated to recovery activities like practising guitar, working on the race car and hopefully, racing. So realistically, I probably have 4-6h/week that I can invest into whatever venture I take on.

What won't work for me:

• eBay, etsy and the like. I'm flying a lot, so I can't drag the stuff that's about to sell around the country with me all the time, and I can't necessarily post it in time to get good reviews, either. Plus, finding stuff takes time I don't have.
• Flipping cars/motorcycles - same thing. I've got a hard time selling the vehicles I want to get rid off right now, on account of not being home much. Increasing that isn't going to work.
• Rental properties etc - my wife's not interested in that at all, I'm not home enough for it, plus we expect to have to move to a different part of the country in the next 3-4 years.

What could work for me:

• Writing and similar activities - I'm doing a bit of blogging right now, but it's so niche that I don't get enough traffic to make it worth sticking ads on the blog. I'm planning to experiment a little with that to see if I can grow my audience, but it's taken me 7 years to get to an audience of 400-500 page views/day now, so I'm thinking about keeping this one simply as my professional diary and look for some other opportunity for the passive income part.
• Software development? Not sure about that though - the problem is the lack of available time. Maybe some mentoring/coaching, but even that is going to be a pain to fit into the available time. Plus I have to be very careful to avoid conflicts of interest.
• Yeah, that's where the big hole in the ideas is.

This isn't necessarily about making more money right now - if I wanted that, I'd get another job working in finance, making more money than I do now with a similar or higher risk of burnout. My thoughts are to build something that'll help me over time to reduce my reliance on my job (which is the current main source of our family income). My wife is currently re-training and it'll also take a little while until her self-employment income will play a role, especially as she's not done with the training yet.

I'd love to get some input from the hive on this as I think I'm not the only one facing this kind of issue.

I know that you said rental properties won't work for you, but it's the first thing that popped into my head as a viable passive income stream. It sounds like the only reasons that you seem uninterested are because you think you'd have to be present to care for them and handle any issues that come up, but that's not the case. Property managers can deal with all of that on your behalf and leave you free to travel for work or leisure. Tons of people own rentals several states away and are very successful at it.

Maybe another option, is becoming a "find it guy", where for a fee you locate a specific automobile in a dealers lot on the other side of the country etc. Your customer is then Free to fly and drive, or for an additional fee, you coordinate shipping for your customer. Your traveling consultant business could allow you to establish a vast network of potential customers as well as "eyes on the ground" who could be tasked with checking on local specifics if needed.

I did some writing in college and sold some pieces to a website and made a decent amount of dough (for a college student at least). Have you considered creating pieces and trying to sell them to magazines? I know some pay decent $ for contributions.

If you're already working 60+ hours per week, trying to take on even more work is gonna be tough - both on you as well as your family.  Any way you can trim that down to something closer to realistic first?

stuart in mn said:

If you're already working 60+ hours per week, trying to take on even more work is gonna be tough - both on you as well as your family.  Any way you can trim that down to something closer to realistic first?

Not really, unfortunately. In fact, I expect it to go up some for at least the next few months. Now the train, err, light at the end of the tunnel is that those hours include travel time, so unlike a regular job, I don't have 60+ hours plus a commute.

STM317 said:

I know that you said rental properties won't work for you, but it's the first thing that popped into my head as a viable passive income stream. It sounds like the only reasons that you seem uninterested are because you think you'd have to be present to care for them and handle any issues that come up, but that's not the case. Property managers can deal with all of that on your behalf and leave you free to travel for work or leisure. Tons of people own rentals several states away and are very successful at it.

I actually do have some experience doing remote landlording - it was a mixed bag, but worked out OK. However, getting another property does require getting my wife on board, and she's not too keen on the whole becoming a landlord thing.

Maybe another option, is becoming a "find it guy", where for a fee you locate a specific automobile in a dealers lot on the other side of the country etc. Your customer is then Free to fly and drive, or for an additional fee, you coordinate shipping for your customer. Your traveling consultant business could allow you to establish a vast network of potential customers as well as "eyes on the ground" who could be tasked with checking on local specifics if needed.

I kinda like that idea. Certainly merits more thought - at the moment, I'm pretty much going to the same large city every week but that might change next year.

I know people who live very comfortably just owning a few multi unit rental houses in college towns.  The rent they nail students for is enough to pay a property management company to maintain them.  

I have one rental, my cousin lives in it.  She’s behind several months because her kids are wrapping up college.  Nobody else would put up with it and she would have been kicked out if she wasn’t family.  

You mention that there is some retirement funds but not enough.  Of what there is, are you managing the heck out of those funds?  I'm not recommending that you become a day trader but it sounds like you have the "research time" available which could be done on flights, etc.  

Mutual funds are convenient because the fund managers makes the trade decisions for you.  Maybe take a more indepth and inclusive approach to where, how, why these funds go yourself.  

If you are getting 400-500 pageviews/day on your blog, can you leverage the skills learned there to start a new one/contribute to another one?  Perhaps one with a larger pool of readers or a subject you enjoy more (i.e. so it feels less like work)?

Alternatively, can you work more to earn more?  I know that isn't necessarily what you want to do, but it is one of the easiest ways to build an investment portfolio that will pay you well in the long run.  An extra 5hr/week at $50/hr is an extra $12k/year invested (more if you still have room in some sort of tax advantaged investment), and that compounds into something big pretty damn fast.  

In reply to John Welsh :

The retirement funds are worked pretty hard to get the best risk/reward - one of the advantages of having worked in that space for ~15 years before quitting the financial industry. That said, even going for a slightly higher risk than the rather aggressive investments I have can't really make up for the fact that I'm at about 20-25% of where I should be at given our age. I'm OK with that - no point in crying over spilt milk - and we did make the conscious decision to not put our lives on hold completely, but knowing I'd have to work longer than I most likely would want to.

ProDarwin said:

If you are getting 400-500 pageviews/day on your blog, can you leverage the skills learned there to start a new one/contribute to another one?  Perhaps one with a larger pool of readers or a subject you enjoy more (i.e. so it feels less like work)?

I'm seriously considering starting one that is more optimized for topics that'll draw a specialist (but slightly bigger) audience than my current ramblings and will generate more page views in the longer run.

For now I've kinda used my blog as a business card type of endeavour as a lot of the work I've done in the past is highly proprietary so it's hard to demonstrate my skills by pointing people at "I did that".

Alternatively, can you work more to earn more?  I know that isn't necessarily what you want to do, but it is one of the easiest ways to build an investment portfolio that will pay you well in the long run.  An extra 5hr/week at $50/hr is an extra $12k/year invested (more if you still have room in some sort of tax advantaged investment), and that compounds into something big pretty damn fast.  

The issue is that I'm salaried, so if I work more at work, all I get for is another pat on the back and even more tired. Actually, there's a good chance my manager would stop me from doing that regularly and tell me to take some time to rest and recover instead.

My thinking was to try to come up with something that would potentially not generate an immediate financial return, but over time would produce a similar or better financial return than trying to work more hours at my day job to be paid for the additional hours.

What about turning that blog into a Youtube channel or a podcast?  Perhaps YouTube as a distribution channel might be able to extend your reach a bit, and then you can use the Youtube platform for ads.

Honestly with that much work and the time spent in the air.................are you just trying to work yourself into an early grave?

Sounds like you already have a handle on your current investment options, so no room there.

Have you considered how you might decrease expenses rather than increase income?

You could purchase a blog that already has some earning power and maintain that to skip the building part.

Instead of racing your small open wheel car (I forget what it is), maybe you could run a LeMons on (Chump) Champcar team and sell seats.  I'm not sure what the market is, but I ran some numbers a few years ago, and it seemed like as long as the tows were not too far there was some money to be made.

pushrod36 said:

Instead of racing your small open wheel car (I forget what it is), maybe you could run a LeMons on (Chump) Champcar team and sell seats.  I'm not sure what the market is, but I ran some numbers a few years ago, and it seemed like as long as the tows were not too far there was some money to be made.

 

I have to believe this is *way* more than a 4-6hr a week gig.  I've only built/run a lemons car once, but the time commitment was incredible.

If you are wanting to handle something that hands off, I might be able to help. I will shoot you an e-mail. 

ProDarwin said:

pushrod36 said:

Instead of racing your small open wheel car (I forget what it is), maybe you could run a LeMons on (Chump) Champcar team and sell seats.  I'm not sure what the market is, but I ran some numbers a few years ago, and it seemed like as long as the tows were not too far there was some money to be made.

 

I have to believe this is *way* more than a 4-6hr a week gig.  I've only built/run a lemons car once, but the time commitment was incredible.

I agree with you.  My thinking is that he's already spending the time on his own car, so it is not such a stretch.  

szeis4cookie said:

What about turning that blog into a Youtube channel or a podcast?  Perhaps YouTube as a distribution channel might be able to extend your reach a bit, and then you can use the Youtube platform for ads.

I've been thinking about that, although I do have a face for radio (and a voice for silent movies..).

z31maniac said:

Honestly with that much work and the time spent in the air.................are you just trying to work yourself into an early grave?

Well, that would fix the retirement funds issue, wouldn't it?

More seriously, within my specialisations, it's very hard to find work that isn't in the 55-60h/week range (and in that case, plus commuting time). The other issue is that we're a bit stuck location wise atm until my wife finishes her additional training - pretty much all of the jobs I could do and be paid reasonably well for, I'd have to travel or move.

pushrod36 said:

Sounds like you already have a handle on your current investment options, so no room there.

Have you considered how you might decrease expenses rather than increase income?

I'd like ot think that we don't live that extravagant a lifestyle in the first place. Yes, there is a little meat left to cut, but I've been trying to keep expenses fairly low to the income (once you ended up paying for a bunch of lawyers etc for over a decade and finally finish that, you end up living on noticeably less than you make). Yes, I do tend to indulge in vehicles but I try at least to be smart about it (plus I'm trying to sell a few) and don't throw too much money down the drain.

The idea here was more to put a floor under my income so I can eventually dial the work part down a bit - say, if I want to go part-time or take a sabbatical for a few months.

You could purchase a blog that already has some earning power and maintain that to skip the building part.

I hear you, although I do like the building part .

Instead of racing your small open wheel car (I forget what it is), maybe you could run a LeMons on (Chump) Champcar team and sell seats.  I'm not sure what the market is, but I ran some numbers a few years ago, and it seemed like as long as the tows were not too far there was some money to be made.

I think that would be very much worth considering, but the issue here is that I'm not home during the week. If I was, I could potentially work on the car, but there isn't enough time on the weekend to do something like this properly after working on the honey-do list and playing with the cats. My neighbour actually has a LeMons team with a couple of friends of his, and I can see how much effort they put into a well prepped car.

Oh, and the tows are a minimum 6-8h round trip on a good day to the closest tracks (Sonoma and Thunderhill).

That said, I was toying with the idea of building on the coaching/instructing I do. Listening to Ross Bentley's podcast I keep hearing how rare good coaches are, and I have some experience in that area (I'm one half of the chief driving instructor duo of my local SCCA region), plus some of my work skills cross over. Not quite sure how exactly I can make that work when a lot of the track days around here are on week days, unfortunately.

You're a coder by background, aren't you? 

Are you still doing that as a "consultant?" Or? 

I'm guessing the whatever consultant gig is paying more than coding.........or is it? Would things like being able to work from home, work less, and more easily pick up side gigs end up being better in the money/work/life balance arena?

I'm also on the "have you tried to reduce expenses" thing as well.

pushrod36 said:

 

Instead of racing your small open wheel car (I forget what it is), maybe you could run a LeMons on (Chump) Champcar team and sell seats.  I'm not sure what the market is, but I ran some numbers a few years ago, and it seemed like as long as the tows were not too far there was some money to be made.

 

Having been on both sides of a Lemons car (builder / owner vs arrive and drive) it is way cheaper to arrive and drive than to build your own. A&d seats are sold to offset costs not so much to make money. That said it would probably end up cheaper than racing an open wheeled race car in series racing but I don't know that for sure. 

z31maniac said:

You're a coder by background, aren't you? 

Are you still doing that as a "consultant?" Or? 

In a sense I am - I help my employer's clients make better use of our backend product, which involves both mentoring coders and operations people. So it's more meta than the usual code mercenary type role. I've done the latter in the past also as a means to reduce my working hours to a more normal level, but the difference in rate for doing that vs being an employee is so small it's almost negligible these days.

I'm guessing the whatever consultant gig is paying more than coding.........or is it? Would things like being able to work from home, work less, and more easily pick up side gigs end up being better in the money/work/life balance arena?

It does pay more than the usual remote development jobs outside of finance, and there are pretty much no remote dev jobs in finance - for those (that might pay more for crazier hours) I'd have to move to NYC, Chicago or Boston, with a massive jump in cost of living. Most of the regular remote jobs a) look for a different skill set and b) tend to pay 20-30% less than I earn now.

I'm also on the "have you tried to reduce expenses" thing as well.

Actually my current job works well for that, given that the regular living expenses during the week are expensable as long as I keep it reasonable. IOW, work pays for almost every living expense during the week other than the odd karting excursion.

If you can find something that pays well and requires little to no time/effort please let me know! 

Sounds kinda like you're tapped out time wise for anything else, rental properties can make sense but you have to be able to buy them right (ie, cheaply) to have them cash flow,particularly if you're using a manager...

docwyte said:

If you can find something that pays well and requires little to no time/effort please let me know! 

Sounds kinda like you're tapped out time wise for anything else, rental properties can make sense but you have to be able to buy them right (ie, cheaply) to have them cash flow,particularly if you're using a manager...

And even then, unless you get particularly lucky and/or are able to rent out individual rooms to college students, it is unlikely to be much better than his other passive investments. 

Yup, unless the area gets hot and the properties appreciate considerably...

mtn said:

docwyte said:

If you can find something that pays well and requires little to no time/effort please let me know! 

Sounds kinda like you're tapped out time wise for anything else, rental properties can make sense but you have to be able to buy them right (ie, cheaply) to have them cash flow,particularly if you're using a manager...

And even then, unless you get particularly lucky and/or are able to rent out individual rooms to college students, it is unlikely to be much better than his other passive investments. 

Plus the other passive investments don't tend to call at 4am while the bathtub is floating out of the house and they can't reach the property manager...

docwyte said:

Yup, unless the area gets hot and the properties appreciate considerably...

I suspect that a lot of property markets are tapped out re appreciation, given the amounts of money that flowed into them over the last 5+ years. And I really wouldn't have the bandwidth or money to take on a property in need of work.

Patrick said:

I know people who live very comfortably just owning a few multi unit rental houses in college towns.  The rent they nail students for is enough to pay a property management company to maintain them.  

I have one rental, my cousin lives in it.  She’s behind several months because her kids are wrapping up college.  Nobody else would put up with it and she would have been kicked out if she wasn’t family.  

I just started rentals last year, learning from my old boss who has quite a few rentals in addition to the auto shop. Rule number one always emphasized was: don't rent to friends and family. 

Not saying you shouldn't have, Patrick, but to anyone starting out, don't do it.