My Six Figure Side Hustle

Earlier this week I was reading an article from Business Insider about a survey, which resulted in 95% of workers who are thinking about quitting their jobs. Why do so many people want to leave their jobs? Of the 95%, 61% responded with burnout, 29% responded with lack of opportunity for growth within the company. Seems reasonable, right?

But what if up and quitting your job isn’t an option right now? Maybe you have a family with a lot of financial responsibility. Maybe you’ve worked your way up within your current company and aren’t confident in starting somewhere new. Maybe you have no idea what you would even consider doing besides your current job. Feeling stuck is common, so I hope you know you’re not alone.

But what if I told you that according the US Census Bureau, a whopping 4.4 million new businesses started amidst a global pandemic in 2020? 56% of Millennials started a side hustle to help supplement their income. Of that 56%, “63% were motivated by the need for extra spending money, followed by pursuing something they’re building a career in or are passionate about (30%) and having more time since working remote (26%).”

I suppose you could consider me part of the 56%. In November of 2020, I started educating on personal finance online. From there I created webinars, calculators, budgeting templates, and a course to help people learn the fundamentals of finance and invest in the stock market. Little did I know, I created a six figure side hustle from simply doing something I was passionate about.

I didn’t start Female in Finance thinking in less than a year I would have created an LLC, hired a lawyer, a project manager, a CPA, and email strategist, a UX designer, and a business coach. I did it because I had more time working remote, and I wanted to pursue something I was passionate about. I say this to simply encourage you to start what you’ve dreamt of starting and to take a leap of faith.

I completely understand that you may not have the financial ability to up and quit your job and take the leap right away. But what if you could work your job AND start your side hustle at the same time. Maybe you “don’t have the time.” That’s probably the first thing I hear. My rebuttal: You can make the time if it means enough to you. Start with an hour a day.

Now, I’m not going to sit here and tell you to make a financial education page on Instagram or a financial blog. That’s simply not many people’s cup of tea. But, I am going to share with you how I started a six figure side hustle in college.

Let me take you back to 2008

In 2008, I was just starting college and I actually wanted to drop out. I struggled with being around so many people, I was extremely shy, I felt a lot of pressure to get good grades, and I wasn’t even really sure what I wanted to do. I had an idea of being a mathematician for NASA working on space trajectories, but the school I chose didn’t offer math as a major. So, I chose Business with a double emphasis in Marketing and Finance thinking I’d be able to find a decent job.

It was my first semester and I enrolled myself in a political science class. I would go to my Professor after class and tell him I was so confused there was no way I knew how to even study for his test. I ended up in his office hours multiple days a week thinking I wasn’t very smart, but I didn’t want to fail class being on academic scholarship. A few months into the semester my Professor said he was leaving for a week and wouldn’t be able to help me during office hours. But, he asked if I could watch his dog while I was out of town for $250.

Being a college student, I was like $250 for 7 days? Not too shabby. It made my mind go to…what if I did this 4 weeks per month and brought in $1,000 per month just for entertaining people’s dogs and keeping them fed and alive? What if I did two dogs at a time? Are there websites where I can advertise myself for something like this? My entrepreneurial mind ran wild.

I said yes to the job. One day as I was walking his dog, someone came up to me with their dog and said hi. They asked about “my dog” but I responded with, “this isn’t my dog, I’m just helping my Professor while he’s out of town and I’m dog sitting.” They then mentioned to me that they would be leaving town soon and asked if I would watch their dog for $40 per night (this was $5 more per night than what my Professor offered), for 10 days. Boom, another $400.

Now, mind you, at this time I was working part-time at a local surf shop while doing some subpar modeling on the side. Within a month of watching people’s dogs, I was out earning both of my part-time jobs. New side hustle, activated.

Now, back in 2008, there weren’t any cool sites or apps to promote your business venture for dog sitting. At least none that I found at the time. So, I resorted to printing out flyers with phone number tear-offs and taping them to light posts in surrounding neighborhoods.

By the time I was in my third year of college, I was earning six figures petting other people’s dogs and keeping them alive.

Now, if you don’t like dogs, then I suppose you may want to quit reading and go about your day. But, you could take my business model and find something else to get creative with and earn money. So, maybe you want to keep reading? 🙆🏼‍♀️

How to get started with dog sitting

Lucky for you, it’s much easier to get started with dog sitting now, than it was in 2008. You don’t have to fight your printer to work when you need it to print out flyers. You can simply open your phone and download the app called Rover.

This is not a sponsored post for Rover. This is simply an app that I have personally used and found it easy to build a customer base very quickly. You might be wondering why I would have needed to use this app if I had established a six figure business in college, and the reason is because I left California for a few years and lost my entire customer base. When I came back to San Diego, it took about 6 months to get back into rebuilding that business, and I used Rover.

Here’s an example of what my Rover profile looked like. This isn’t the full profile but what people would initially see.

Rover is an app for people who want to be a dog sitter as well as for those who are looking for boarding, day care, and walks for their dogs. It takes about 20 minutes to set up a profile with your picture, what services you want to offer, pricing, your calendar of availability, your About Me, and your policies.

Within about 2 hours of setting up my profile, I received a message for someone looking for day care for their dog. I may have gotten lucky, but I was also a bit strategic (are you surprised?).

I went full on CIA mode. I did my research. I looked up what other people were charging in the area for all of their services, and I made my services $5 cheaper than the average rates. The goal for me was to get people to book with me for less in order to get reviews.

From there, I could increase my prices as soon as people would know I’m trustworthy and haven’t lost anyone’s dog. I highly recommend doing this to get started.

To be fair, it does not take watching four dogs per month to make six figures. I don’t want you to start this thinking it will be so easy breezy that you’ll make six figures in 37 minutes. But, by getting started today, you could be well on your way fairly quickly. In fact, I currently know other people who watch dogs who are also make six figures. I am not an anomaly. If I can do this, so can you.

For the sake of simple maths, let me break down how I was earning six figures. $100,000 per year would mean you would need to make approximately $8,333 per month. That’s a lot of dogs you would have to watch. You’re going to have to get creative. Here’s how I did this. Firstly, I would board two dogs per night, and my rates raised to $75 per night as I became more established. With two dogs, that’s $150 per day, and over 30 days, that’s $4,500. We’re halfway there.

I also found two dogs who needed weekly day care. One dog needed Mondays and Wednesdays. The other dog needed Tuesdays and Thursdays. Perfect. I would charge $50 per day per dog (8 hour day), that was an extra $800 per month. We’re now at $5,300.

Some people just needed dog walks. This was easy for me to do in between classes or after class. I would charge approximately $1 per minute, therefore a 30-minute walk I charged $40 and a 60-minute walk would be $60. Most people opted for an hour as it was technically a “better deal.”

Because I had put signs up in neighborhoods, I would end up walking 4-5 dogs at a time for an hour. I would drive to the neighborhood, scoop up each dog, and start the walk for 60 minutes. 5 dogs at $60 each was $300 in about an hour. Cha-ching.💰

I would do this about 10 days out of the month, which was an extra $3,000 per month. That got me to exactly $8,300 which made me hit the six-figure mark.

Disclaimer: I live in a high cost of living area. It’s easier for people to fork up $60 for a 60-minute walk where I live. This is not uncommon here. It may be super uncommon where you live. That’s something to consider.

Now, of course I also owed money to Uncle Sam, so I put aside about 30% of my profits and added it as income to my tax return. Sure, some people would take the cash and run with it, but let’s just say as much as I enjoy high risk when it comes to investing, I don’t risk shit with the IRS. I don’t have time to get schooled by Uncle Sam or any of his friends. I recommend you do the same, and if you want to pay less in taxes, take advantage of investing in your retirement accounts to lower your taxable income instead.

I don’t make six figures watching dogs anymore.

I’m not dog sitting like I used to for many years. It wasn’t necessarily an easy job, but it was still fun for me while it lasted. I mean, it’s called a side hustle for a reason. I hustled. To hit six figures, you would have to hustle for a bit too.

I don’t want this side hustle to sound all unicorns and rainbows, because you pick up a lot of dog shit and you have a big responsibility of keeping someone’s best friend (dog) alive.

Once I finished college, I knew it was time to look for a big girl job (according to society). I’m starting to feel like my own peanut gallery making comments in parenthesis.

Anyways, I remember applying for a job in marketing for a medical device company. They offered me $35k for 50 hours per week. After doing the math I would be bringing in $13.50 per hour which was less than what I was being paid for modeling, and also less than what I was being paid for watching dogs. It was a hard no.

Maybe you’re in this position right now. You’re not being paid enough for the work you’re doing, or maybe you are passionate about something else. If you are, then I’m going to kindly encourage you to go for it. Build it while you’re at your job. Once you’ve created income that matches what you’re earning at your current job, then maybe you can quit and turn your side hustle into your main hustle.

That’s what I’ve done with Female in Finance, and it wasn’t even intentional.

Let me wrap this up for you. If you're part of the 95% of workers who wakes up on Monday praying your office has decimated into the oblivion, then I’d recommend a side hustle. You never know what can come of it. Maybe it’s six figures…maybe its Maybelline, but better.

Cheers.

LP