No one likes to think about recessions. They can range from unsettling to completely terrifying depending on your financial and job situation. But when you couple a economic worries with the current anxiety about COVID-19, things get a whole lot scarier. If you are still earning a paycheck, but are starting to realize that your personal economy isn’t as strong as you would like, read on for 6 things you can do to prepare your finances for COVID-19, even if everything else in your life seems out of control.
Check your monthly bills
One of the best and fastest ways to make yourself feel as if you have more control over things is to lower your monthly bills. I know what you are thinking: “Dude, we’re in a lockdown, I am NOT getting rid of Netflix to save $20 a month.” But what if you could lower your bills without getting rid of ANYTHING? A few years ago, I decided to check all of my monthly payments, even the ones I didn’t want to get rid of. It didn’t take more than a couple of hours, and I lowered my monthly bills by $50 without cancelling a single service. Add to that some of those “free trials” that I had forgotten to cancel before they started charging me, and I lowered my monthly bills by another $100 on services I didn’t even realize I was paying for!
Here’s the big thing. Even though it seems like a drag, you need to call EVERY service you pay for monthly. When I did this for the first time after my husband and I were married, I found out we were still subscribed to the DVD-by-mail service from Netflix. We loved Netflix, but hadn’t seen those DVDs in years. I found them, sent them back, and cancelled that part of the subscription. It only saved us $12/month. But when you add it up, we had probably spent over $100 for those 2 DVDs that we never. even. watched.
If going through your bills sounds like a great idea, but you don’t know where to start, I’ve totally got your back. I’ve created a Free 5 Day Found Money Challenge. It will take you step by step to help you find money you may not even realize you are spending, including word-for-word scripts to request special offers and lower your bills. What would it mean to you to pay $150 LESS per month for things you totally don’t even realize you are paying for? So click here if you are ready to find some money.
Create an emergency fund
Now that we’ve got you a little bit of room in the monthly budget, let’s move on to step 2. The most important thing that will help the average person weather a financial crisis is an emergency fund. However, an astonishing number of people don’t have any money in savings at all. So if you’re in that boat, you are not alone. Knowing you’re not the only one isn’t going to pay many bills, though, so let’s change that fast. If you’ve started lowering your bills with the 5 Day Found Money Challenge, you’re in a great place. Take the money you used to be spending, and start – or add to – your savings.
By opening a bank account at a totally separate bank
Maybe you have the best intentions to do this. Maybe you have even tried before and the money just seems to evaporate. If so, here is the step you’re missing. This money can’t be at your normal bank. You need to open a totally new account at a totally new bank.
“Why? Why would I do that?” you’re thinking. “That makes it such a hassle to get my money out.” Yes, folks. We have a winner. That is exactly the point. This is supposed to be where you KEEP money, emphasis on the KEEP. We don’t want it to be easy to get to. We want it to be possible to get to it, but definitely not easy.
Now that we’ve got that cleared up, here are the details. It can be a savings or a checking account, but it should be a FREE account. There are lots of no-frills accounts where you can just park money for free. As a matter of fact, a lot of banks will actually pay to to open an account, especially if you have some money to deposit when you open it. If you want to take the time to find a place where you can earn a couple hundred dollars for opening account, check out this link. Just be sure to read the fine print. And again, make sure that this new account isn’t costing you any of that hard earned money you just found.
Now figure out how much money you want to put aside each month, and set up an automatic transfer. This is the way my husband and I saved over $40,000 in a year. When I went back to teaching full time, I set up a separate account at a new bank. Then I had my ENTIRE paycheck deposited there. We never saw that money, so it didn’t get spent. And since we were used to living on his salary, we didn’t even notice. But that never would have happened if my paycheck had touched our joint account. It had to be separate.
How much should I save?
Honestly, as much as you can. Most experts recommend that a fully-funded emergency fund should be 3-6 months worth of expenses. If you’re starting from scratch it’s going to take quite a while to get there, so for now, get enough that you can sleep at night. Unless you have reason to believe you or your partner are going to lose your job, I would say no more than about 2 months expenses if you still have credit card debt.
Why not as much as possible? That’s a great question. The bottom line is no one can predict the future. But if you have high interest credit card debt, you are paying HUGE amounts of money in interest alone. So you don’t want to be sitting on a ton of cash at the same time you are paying 25% interest on credit cards.
Finding the right balance
One way around this Catch-22 is to set a certain amount for a starter emergency fund, and then switch to paying off debt. When all debt is covered, then you switch back and finish up the emergency fund. For me, I would have a lot of trouble sleeping at night if I didn’t have at least one month’s worth of expenses saved up. So maybe the logical thing to do is to focus on saving a one-month emergency fund, then paying off one credit card, then saving another month, and so on.
If you have read my series on Dave Ramsey’s Baby Steps, you’ll realize that this is contradicting his advice to save only $1000 and then pay off ALL debt before finishing the emergency fund. But there is a reason I don’t like that advice at this exact point in time. There is so much uncertainty right now. Nobody can predict what the next week will bring, much less the next month or even the next 2 months. In times of uncertainty, cash is king.
For example, what if someone in your family gets sick and racks up huge medical bills? Cash gives you options. So let’s get some options, in the bank, OK?
Pay off debt
OK, so you have decided to get an emergency fund saved up. And you’ve chosen an amount to start with, one that’s enough to let you sleep at night, but not take 6 months to save up. Now it’s time to kick the debt pay off into high gear. For this, definitely start with your smallest debt. Why? Because every debt that you pay off is one less payment you’ll have if you get laid off. Even a reduction of $50/month in minimum payments can reduce the stress and make the emergency fund go a little further.
So this is what you do. Make minimum payments on everything but your smallest debt, and pound that sucker. Pay it off as quickly as you possibly can. Put every extra penny toward paying off that first debt. When the littlest debt is paid off, take that minimum payment, add it to the payment on the 2nd littlest, and pound that one.
Once you’ve paid off a few debts, you might want to re-assess. Does your job seem stable, or is there trouble on the horizon? If it seems stable, you might want to stay the course. But if there is talk of a RIF at work, or if your partner’s job seems shaky, you might want to increase the emergency fund a little more before you pay off any more debt.
Create a side hustle – or two
It sounds crazy to do when you can’t leave your house, but there are always ways to make money if you keep your eyes open. They range from a few extra bucks to over $2000 a month. Some will pay off right away and others will take time to ramp up.
For a little extra money, try doing surveys online. If you want to make some serious cash think about what skills you already have and how you can make money with those. If you’d like to get the real scoop on VIPKID, you can check out my interview with a friend of mine here. She’s been doing VIPKID for almost a year and it really works for her. Another friend has built a successful indexing business and earns a full-time income from it. You can read more about that one in this blog post.
The best thing about a side hustle is that this it goes hand in hand with the others and will help them to go a lot faster if you do it right. Ay extra money you make gives you more money to put toward your emergency fund or your debt. The important thing here is not to spend much money setting it up. Times like these bring scammers out of the woodwork, so if somebody wants you to pay for the chance to make money, do some serious research before plunking down any of your money.
There is one SUPER important thing to remember here, though. Any money you make from a side hustle might not have taxes withheld, especially if it is a small business you start on your own. Make sure to put about 25% of that money back so Uncle Sam doesn’t surprise you with a big tax bill next April.
Update your skills
If you feel like your job isn’t as secure as you’d like it to be, getting a few new skills under your belt might be just as important as income. Focus on skills that would make you more valuable in your current job or more marketable if you needed to go job hunting. Computer skills are always a good bet, but if you are almost proficient in a foreign language, that might be a good choice, too.
Again, spending an arm and a leg isn’t a good choice. But you can get an absolute TON of learning for free online. Check out this list of the 10 best sites for FREE learning. Or this one for specific IT courses.
Choose and implement 1 new frugal habit
One of the things that trips a lot of us up when we want to reduce spending is feeling like we have to rein it all in at once. We rush in, slash like crazy, and then give it up after a week and a half because it’s just too overwhelming.
Let’s not do that, K? Instead, pick one item, JUST ONE in which you could make some cuts. Then create a plan. If you have been engaging in a lot of – um retail therapy – cutting that out would be a huge one. Maybe you’re ordering take out, but have plenty of time to cook now that you’re at home more. How about learning just 2 new recipes? Or if you’re already comfortable in the kitchen, maybe try your hand at freezer meals so you can avoid expensive take out when this is all over.
Again, don’t try to do it all. Choose one thing. Just one. And do it until it becomes easy.
Again, I’m sure you have a LOT more ways you could cut expenses, but pace yourself. This ain’t no sprint. It’s a marathon, Honey! Give yourself time to really solidify one frugal habit before you rush into another one. My suggestion would be to aim for no more than one new money-saving habit every 2-4 weeks. You want it to become so routine that it doesn’t takes almost no willpower at all to continue it. That way, when you add another habit, the first one doesn’t fall to the side.
Have you ever noticed that when you start looking at new cars, or maybe buy one, it seems as if that you notice that same make and model everywhere. Suddenly the roads and parking lots are filled with Camries, or Volvo station wagons, or Odysseys. You just can’t believe how many there are. There were never that many of them before, were there?
Actually, there were. This is explained by something psychologists call “selective attention.” It basically means that your brain filters out the majority of stimuli so it can focus on what is important. Once you’ve chosen a specific model of car, or you have recently bought one, that becomes “important” and your brain takes notice of it.
So what does that have to do with transitioning out of teaching or starting your own business? The possibilities for making money on the side – or creating a business to support you and your family – are limited by only one thing : your mind. As you start focusing more on moneymaking ideas, you will train your brain to see them, and train your brain to look at your skills from a new perspective. Things that you never would have considered before will make you think, “I wonder if…” And that ‘s a great thing, because people have made successful businesses by using an amazing range of skills and ideas. Let me give you a few examples that I never would have thought of, but that have been built into successful businesses.
Karate Kids
Olivia Roney was putting herself through college when the karate school she worked for bounced a couple of her paychecks. Since she was paying her own way, she knew she had to fix the situation – and FAST. So she started contacting daycares and preschools and offering to teach on-site enrichment classes. She found one, and grew from there. Today, Couching Tigers is offering karate classes in almost 100 locations in Indiana, as well as licensing its curriculum. Her programs now include character development and have touched the lives of thousands of children. What’s more, her eyes light up when she talks about her company.
How you can make this side job work
So you don’t know karate and you don’t like preschoolers? How could this idea work for you? I don’t know karate, either, but for about 4 years, I taught Spanish and French to both adults and preschoolers as a side job/micro-business. Preschools were definitely my biggest and most reliable locations, but I also taught adults at wineries and after-school caregivers as a professional development option.
Is there something you love to teach that others would pay you for? Art? Soccer? Computer skills? Knitting? Vegan cooking? Couponing? (No joke, a lady in my hometown was advertising couponing classes and a lot of people seemed interested.) How about pet training?
The point is that if you have a skill that others want to learn and you can find a way to share it, you can earn great money per hour AND have fun at the same time. Cause let me tell you, teaching French at wineries to people who actually WANT to learn it?!? That is a French-teacher dream come true. For more ideas on locations, check out the blog post I wrote for The Comprehensible Classroom or for Fluency Matters. And if you want details on my Spanish classes, here are some posts on switching to preschoolers from older kids, pricing (part 1, part 2 and part 3), and tips for getting started.
Teaching French at a Winery
This is one I have done personally, and you want to talk crazy AWESOME! This is it. I’ve taught French for over 15 years in high school, but teaching French to adults who actually want to learn it at a winery and having them pay you? Trust me, it doesn’t get much better than that!
“But I don’t speak French,” you say. Well, the same winery where I taught French offered a ton of other fun stuff to get customers in during off-peak times. Tuesday? Henna tattoos. Wednesday? 10-minute chair massages. Another night it was tarot card readings. Each of us partnered with the winery to provide our service. The winery generously swiped payments through their system, and then cut a check. We had no overhead and the winery had an ever-changing line-up of attractions with no up-front cost. They just passed through the payments to us.
How you can make this side job work
Get creative. Do you have a trendy or unusual skill? Find a winery that offers fun activities, and see if they are interested in offering yours. You’re probably not going to be raking in the cash at first, but as you develop a clientele and they tell their friends, your numbers grow and it can be really lucrative.
Will Caricature for Cash $$$
When I heard of a woman who has created a side business around drawing caricatures, I knew I had to check it out. She was frustrated by her $8/hr job working for an amusement park as a caricature artist, so she decided to strike out on her own. Now she charges between $150 and $300/hr. drawing caricatures at weddings, corporate events, and other venues where people are looking for a unique and fun party favor.
After doing a little research, I found out there is actually a centralized web site where caricature artists can advertize. Who knew? You can check it out here. If you think you might be interested in being a caricature artist (or caricaturist, as they are actually called), face-painter, balloon animal creator, clown or other type of party entertainer, you can read the story of how Jeremy Drysdale started the Phoenix Caricature Company here.
How you can make this side job work
The point here is taking a common skill and niching it down. Maybe there are a ton of caterers in your town, but you just focus on selling your amazing frozen cookie dough. Maybe you do only vegan or gluten-free foods. Sometimes niching down and focusing on one tiny segment of the market actually sets you apart.
Cinderella Carriages and Horse-Drawn Wagons
A friend of mine since childhood (yep, we actually went to the junior prom together back the day!) supplements his yearly income to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars a year by building horse-drawn wagons and carriages. He makes both really practical people movers for country-themed resort areas and fancy “Cinderella” carriages. He also offers carriage rides at weddings and other special events. He has welding and woodworking skills and has always had horses, so what started as a novel idea has become a large portion of their family’s income. Because of this extra income, his wife (who is a big part of the business) has been able to stay at home with their kids for the past several years. You can check out boylebuiltwagons.com for some inspiration.
How you can make this side job work
And this is the example of super niching down. As far as I know, Tony Boyle is one of the only people in the US who makes custom people movers. There were times he wasn’t getting a ton of orders, but he didn’t give up or offer to make other items. He just stuck with what he washing and trusted that he would built a following. last I heard, he had as much work as he wanted and even some names on his waiting list.
The last word
So there is a good chance that you don’t feel like welding and hammering together a wagon is part of your skill set. And you might not be someone that others would willingly pay for their art. (Lord knows I’m not!) It’s even conceivable that the idea of teaching karate to 3 year-olds makes you break out in hives. So why did I even mention these ideas if they will work for only a small fraction of people?
Well, there are two reasons. The first one goes back to the very first few paragraphs of the post. Hearing about the ways other people have created a side job – even with unusual skills – trains our brains to start thinking in that way. What could I do with my skill set, that I would really love doing, and would also make me some crazy awesome extra money?
The second reason is it shows us how to niche down. There are a ton of welders and woodworkers out there. But how many of them weld Cinderella carriages and horse-drawn wagons. Artists? A ton! But people who will come to your wedding reception, give your guests a truly one-of-a-kind favor, and have them asking, “Do you remember so-and-so’s wedding where we got those hilarious caricatures?’ for the next 20 years? Not too many of those! Tons of karate teachers, too. But ones who will come to your kids’ preschool so you don’t have to drive across town? Um, I think you get the picture, right.
Here are the two takeaways: get creative, and niche down. Oh, and one more thing: don’t dismiss ideas too quickly. Who would have known that horse-drawn wagons could be a viable home-based business? What’s your crazy awesome talent?
The times are hard in the teaching world right now. It seems like everybody is just piling on: parents, politicians, and worst of all, payroll deductions. A lot of teachers I talk to love their profession, but just don’t feel like they can handle 10 or 15 more years (sometimes more like even 10 or 15 more MINUTES – ahem – I’m looking at you, Friday before Spring break!!!!).
So they dream of finding a side hustle that could give them money for some extras, or maybe someday even replace their teaching income. But every time they think they have found something, it turns out to be a scam or earns a whopping $1.50 per hour.
There is an option out there that no one seems to know about. And I wouldn’t know about it if it weren’t for my friend Meridith Murray, who turned it into her full-time(ish) job. It isn’t a get-rich scheme. It’s an actual side job that can replace a teacher’s salary with work and minimal investment, AND it doesn’t involve sales!
Here’s the best-kept work from home secret of 2020: Indexing. An indexer does exactly what it sounds like – create the index at the back of non-fiction books. While most publishers have in-house editors and proofreaders, indexing is a function they often prefer to contract out to reliable freelancers.
Pros and Cons
Indexing has a ton of upsides, like good income potential, flexibility, and the ability to work from home. But it is a real job, and it requires hard work, a willingness to learn, and it doesn’t produce income on the first day. So let’s look at the pros and cons one by one to help you decide whether indexing might be your ticket to one again being the master of your own life.
Pro #1: Flexible location
Because the books indexers work on are sent via computer, you can work from anywhere there is reliable internet. Home: check. Starbucks: check. Tahiti: DOUBLE CHECK!
Pro #2: Flexible hours
Even though indexing usually has a firm deadline (and sometimes a short one, at that), the time you work on the project is up to you. Whether you’re a night owl or do your best work at 4AM before the family is stirring, there’s no problem for an indexer. As a teacher, you can also accept fewer jobs during the school year and more projects during the summer months.
Pro #3: #willreadforincome
Yes, you got that right. You get paid for reading books. OK, there is more to it than that, but reading books is definitely part of the job description. What’s more, you get to read and learn about topics from adoption to children’s book publishing to cookbooks to who knows what else, all while getting paid for it. If you are a book addict, it doesn’t get much better than that. Of course, since only non-fiction books have an index, you’re not going to be reading a page-turner novel, but once you have a steady stream of clients, you can actually choose which jobs to accept and which ones not to. A number of indexers are known for a specific type of work, often one that they really enjoy learning about.
The other side of the coin
“OK, sounds good,” you say, “but nothing is perfect.” True, that. This is a legitimate, long-term work at home option. And that means it’s going to take some commitment and investment before you see the money starts rolling in.
Of course, as with any legitimate work-at-home business, you will need to set up record keeping systems and have a quiet, distraction-free work environment. In other words, don’t plan on doing indexing while watching your kids out of the corner of your eye. That could be dangerous both for the kids and for the index.
Investment of money
Indexing is a side income that does require some up front investment and a little business acumen. First, you’ll need to learn to index by taking a class, which usually runs about $750 and can be done online in a self-paced course. Once you’re trained you’ll need to purchase indexing software, which varies in price from $225 to almost $600.
Investment of time
Besides the initial investment of money, you also have to allow time for your indexing business to take off. At first, you are not going to get many jobs because you are not well known and have no client base established. The jobs might trickle in pretty slowly, so don’t quit your teaching job after you’ve completed one project.
Unpredictability
Also, even though indexing is flexible, it is also somewhat unpredictable. The index of a book can’t be started until every other detail of the text itself is finalized, so if there is an unexpected delay, you might receive a project 1-2 weeks later than projected – quite a problem if you were counting on finishing it before a family vacation or if you have another big project that comes in at the same time.
And just like the timing, the income can’t always be relied on like a teacher paycheck can. There may be times when it seems like there aren’t any jobs coming your way, and others when you can’t accept all the jobs you’d really like to do. So if you are someone who spends money the minute she has it, indexing as a primary income could cause some pretty serious stress.
Paperwork
Unlike in teaching, you don’t have an employer who will be withholding your taxes, Medicare, or social security, you will need to educate yourself on how to set aside funds and avoid a big, nasty surprise come tax time – AND have the discipline to actually do it! If you have never had a side hustle before and that thought freaks you out, don’t get too worried. It is absolutely do-able. I just want to warn you beforehand.
The friend of mine who I mentioned earlier, Meredith Murray of MLM Indexing (her initials are MLM. Don’t worry. It has nothing to do with the MLMs that most people think of, I promise!), has been indexing either part-time or full-time for over 20 years. When we worked together, she did it as a way to make extra income. When she retired from the school system, she had established a reputation for timeliness and accuracy that allowed her to make a solid living through her indexing business. After 20 years, she is still enthusiastic about indexing and says she often has more work than she can handle.
In summary, if you are looking for a work from home activity that allows you some control over your work schedule, but is a legitimate way to potentially match a teaching salary, indexing is a strong option. It works better for fast, avid readers who are also detail oriented. For outstanding resources, check out the American Society of Indexing website.
And if you found this article helpful, please feel free to share it on social media. You might have a teacher friend who has been looking for a work at home side job exactly like this one.
