Hope for your financial life and beyond

Make More Than You Think Working From Home as a Bookkeeper

May 29, 2018 by 1 Comment

Today I’d like to welcome Tim Chaves, CEO at ZipBooks. Tim previously founded and sold two small businesses, and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.  In this article, he’ll share the ins and outs of how you can make money on the side – or as a career – being a bookkeeper. 

bookkeeperWhat would your reaction be if I told you you could make $15/hour or more doing accounting work from home?

“No,” you’d probably say. “I’m not an accountant!”

And you’d be right — about the fact that you’re not an accountant! But not about your potential to earn that money on the side, from home, doing accounting work.

What a lot of people don’t understand is that a trained accountant often does several different types of jobs. They may do taxes, audits, financial planning and bookkeeping.

But here’s the key: not all of the tasks an accountant does require an accountant to do them. And that’s why I want to focus specifically on bookkeeping.

What Is a Bookkeeper?

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Filed Under: Career, Work Tagged With: , ,

How to Manage Your Side Hustle and Family Life So You Don’t Go Insane

July 1, 2015 by 6 Comments

There may come a time in your life where you want to or need to create a side hustle to earn extra income. A side hustle can be many things depending on your skills and the depth of your need. Regardless what you choose it will be something you do on the side (apart from your day job) to bring in additional money to the family budget.

Side hustles can be a financial blessing. They can help you build up your savings account or pay off debt or meet any a number of financial goals you might have. A few bloggers I know have turned their writing side hustles into full-time jobs and now run their own personal finance websites. Others, like my friend Cat Alford at Budget Blonde have figured out how to make a full-time income from writing for popular blogs. Now she is teaching others to do the same in a brand new course she has developed – Get Paid to Write for Blogs.

side hustle IIIWhile the additional income of a side hustle is welcome there is a dark side that many are unprepared for. Side hustles done improperly can be a curse on family life.

It’s one thing to have a side hustle if you are single. I remember talking with a blogging friend last year who told me how he’d work his 9 to 5, take a 30-minute dinner (maybe) and then work till past midnight writing and networking. I’m not saying that’s necessarily an easy schedule but it’s not like you have anyone else to account for. It’s just you.

When a spouse and/or kids are in the picture side hustles take on a whole different dimension.

The first thing you’ll notice is the tension that surfaces the minute one member begins a side hustle. What was a normal life is no longer normal.

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Filed Under: Kids and Money, Marriage, Work Tagged With: , ,

Even Jesus Had a Side Hustle?

October 4, 2013 by 21 Comments

Hidden Nuggets Series #12 – “Then He said to them, ‘Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.’ They immediately left their nets and followed Him.” Matthew 4:19-20

The title of this post makes me laugh. Who would have thought the words “Jesus” and “side hustle” could be used to communicate a personal finance idea?

side hustleUnless you’ve just emerged from a remote tribal region in South America, you’ve probably heard of this really good preacher named Jesus who lived several millennia ago, who many claim to be the spiritual Savior for all mankind. (Count me among that group.) But you may be unfamiliar with the term “side hustle.” Rest assured it has nothing to do with Pete Rose diving head first into third base or Paul Newman and Robert Redford conning their way to a fortune in The Sting.

Having a side hustle refers to someone pursuing a secondary stream of income earned aside from their full time job. So for instance, generating income from a blog on the side or delivering pizzas at night after work would be classified as side hustle money. Many times side hustles line up with a person’s passion and if hustled on long enough with success, could allow them to transition from their full time job into that hustle. At the very minimum, the extra money they bring in provides some breathing room in the monthly budget.

The potential side hustle ideas are limitless, only confined to the depth of imagination of what you could come up with to make money.  J. Money at Budgets Are Sexy has a whole series devoted to people who are creatively pursuing a side hustle.

I admit the idea of Jesus having a “business-on-the-side” is purely speculative on my part and may amount to doctrinal heresy. But the idea is not without precedent in the Bible.

Jesus and His Side Hustle

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Filed Under: Hidden Nuggets Series, Random Fun, Work Tagged With: , ,