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A Simple 3 Step Process to Start a Side Hustle in the UK

27th December 2018

side hustle uk

A snazzy side hustle is an excellent strategy to making life a little easier.

A side hustle is great idea to earn a bit of extra money, especially as a student. It’s a great way to practice certain skills, to add something on your CV and to create something scalable for the future. As a full time university student, you don’t want your side hustle to be taking up your entire time – you simply want it be that: a side hustle. Ideally, you want it to be something you enjoy doing and that builds skills – not as hard as you think. Check out the examples at the bottom of this page.

So here’s a process to figure out a side hustle that works for you – I’m stealing it from the amazing American website Side Hustle Nation, but adapting it to us students 😉

 

1. Write down your skills

You may think that as a student you don’t have many skills, but that shouldn’t be a problem. Write down on a piece of paper what you’re good at and what you want to be good at. So if for example you know you’re good at internet and technology stuff, and you want to be good at programming, write that down.

These skills you write down can be the most randomest thing; maybe you’re good at remembering UK Pop song lyrics, or at organising parties, or at asking questions in class. Dive deep into what you think you’re good at, and write it down.  

 

2. Write down what you like doing

Easy peasy, write down your hobbies, what you really enjoy doing. Think of what you do every day and every weekend that you look forward to doing. Once again, it can be as random as you want; going out for drinks with friends, watching movies, meeting new people, reading, writing, posting photos on Instagram, trying new restaurants and many more.

The more creative and random this column is, the better. Just think how awesome it would be if you could turn ‘what you like doing’ into a side hustle? Lit 🔥 That’s what it sounds like.

 

3. Write down your network

Once again, you may think you don’t have much of a network as a student, but let me encourage you to think twice – having friends who appreciate you, having a class you see at least once a week and being part of a huge educational organisation such as a university in the UK; these are all networks. If, in addition, you’re part of clubs, societies, have roommates and a family, that’s even more of a network!

By network, it just means the people you know. And in fact, as a university student I would say you have an even better network than adults in the working world. Why? Because you have direct access to professors with expertise, to funding for your business (sometimes) and people who are willing to help and educate you. An amazing place to start a side hustle in the UK.

So in this third column write the different networks you have – I’ve just given you 7!

(the fam)

 

Find something that connects the three

Aha! This is where the magic happens.

If you’ve done each of the columns next to each other, it’s super easy to see your skills, interests and network in one place. Now what’s something that could combine the three and make money? You’ll be surprised with all the ideas that will pop into your head.

Here are some examples to show you how it can work.

My example (I did this 2 months ago and couldn’t believe I had been missing out on this opportunity!)

Skill: Writing

What I like doing: listening to podcasts

Network: the personal finance bloggers

So as you guessed it, my current side hustle is writing the show notes of personal finance podcasts! I put ads on Fiverr, Upwork and started contacting people who would be interested in the service. Currently making a decent income!

 

Another example:

Skill: Making friends easily

What I like doing: Learning about cultures

Network: the city I live in

Side hustle: organising meetups, pub crawl guide, promoter, etc

 

A crazier example:

Skill: Being a good listener

What I like doing: Partying 🎉

Network: friends

Side hustle: a party podcast? A party reviewer?

 

Or another:

Skill: Memorising random music lyrics

What I like doing: Meeting new people

Network: The beautiful internet

Side hustle: Setting up karaoke competitions?

 

I’m just giving you those examples to show you that this is really something anyone can do thanks to the internet and people’s help.

Once you have a few ideas, you need to test whether this side hustle will actually make money and work. Could it replace a day job? Or be a part-time job? Some of the best ways to test:

  • Put an ad up on Fiverr and see if people are willing to buy
  • Contact people online and see they would be willing to pay
  • Organise a meetup on Meetup.com and see if people would join
  • Check out people who are doing the same and see if you can copy them
  • Ask people on social media

Keep testing, keep researching, keep asking around and seeing if the idea will work. Start small: it’s not always easy and many times it takes hard work, but you’ll always be learning something in the long run (isn’t that what university is for?).

The sooner you start your side hustle the better – the earlier you can grow it, the more money you can make and the more time you have to fail and try something else. What’s important, is to have the mentality; keep testing, keep trying new things, keep working on your skills. A bit of hustle, and you can get anywhere you want to be 😉

 

For some more side hustle ideas check out the Side Hustle Nation blog and Side Hustle School

Here are some related articles on Financially Mint that might also help you out 😎

  • Simple steps to start a business in university
  • 5 Ways You can Make money online as a student (No, not surveys 🤦‍♀️) 
  • How to Earn Money Freelancing in university

 

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Financially Mint is on another break! ☕ I will Financially Mint is on another break! ☕

I will be living in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for the next few months, and then hopefully heading to Australia. 
My plans for the next year:

I'm putting the career testing theory into practice. My next career test is working for an NGO here in Kuala Lumpur. This week will be my first week. I will be working with sex trafficking survivors and I've also been asked to do some financial education presentations to help the staff.

After that the plan is to move to Melbourne, Australia, and do my next career test: consulting. If that doesn't work out I will try another career test which may be more achievable: business development in a startup. Thanks to the amazing career books that I've read, I'm pretty confident I can get an interesting job. We'll see how it rolls. 🏀

How am I funding this? I'm very excited to say that I've managed to grow my part-time freelancing income to a full-time income that can sustain me in South East Asia (I would need to work full-time in Europe). I'm calling myself a 'Freelance FinTech Writer'. Rent is crazy cheap (like 300€/month) and it's literally cheaper to eat out than cook. I'm still able to save 15% of my income. 🎉🎉 The increase in clients and pay has been thanks to all the effort I put into Financially Mint, and to some crazy cold emailing and networking in the past few months. 
After some thought, I concluded that learning mark-up language (HTML + CSS) was a more efficient use of my time than writing blog posts and working on FM... so I am now taking a break to learn some basic coding and decide what to do next.

I will still be podcasting and taking part in the FI community on Twitter and everywhere else... so I'll still be seeing you around 😉

To our success 🎉🎉
Only 30% of jobs are posted online. 🙄 Let's sa Only 30% of jobs are posted online. 🙄

Let's say you've got a list of career paths to test. You've figured out a direction, you know which sector you want to work in and you've got some cool companies in mind.

But then what? How do you get an internship in the company you really want to work for? How do you get a job in that specific NGO? How do you get them to notice you? 🤔

In FM's latest post I share a strategy that I am still testing but seems to work - copied from a book titled 'Designing your Life' by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans:

The strategy: Conducting 'Life Design' Interviews. .
A Life Design Interview is basically meeting the person that has your 'dream career' for coffee. ☕

You find someone who is working at the company you want to work for, in the sector you want to work for or simply has a position you're interested in, and you reach out to them (LinkedIn helps). You ask about their story, their position, how they got to where they are and their advice to people starting out. 
This is what I've been doing for the past month in Edinburgh, and of the 40 people I contacted, I met 8 of them for coffee, my goal to simply learn about their story.

With an added bonus: Trust. ✅

Not only did I learn stuff about working in a startup, or as a content writer or working in an NGO, but I also built a trusted connection. It's those connections that help you find the hidden jobs, the dream careers and the best opportunities.

Check out FM's latest post for a proper run down on Life Design interviews. 💪 (Last week we organised the FI Europe podcast retreat! An amazing 4 days doing speeches, masterminds, debates, boat trips, beach and surfing. Post on this coming soon 🔥)
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#financiallymint #budget #budgeting #personalfinance #savinghacks #makemoney #savemoney #money #shoestringbudget #moneyhacks #moneysavinghacks #financialeducation #financialfreedom #adulting #savingtricks #earnmoney #lifeadvice #counsel #careeradvice #retirement #investing #careerbuilding #skillbuilding #career #selfimprovement #inspiring #fieurope #lifedesign #interviews
Investing in yourself now will return bucket loads Investing in yourself now will return bucket loads in the future. 🔮

I talk a lot about this on Financially Mint - how taking the time to build career capital and explore career paths will allow you to find a career of best personal fit, which will then make you the money you need.

But it is true that I am personally at the very start of this journey, and so can't offer many examples of this working. 🤷‍♀️ Well today, this changes as I interview the Financial Gladiator, who did exactly that.

He went to university to study business in Poland, and finished his masters in Australia. In the meantime, he was doing internships, making connections, building skills and beefing up his portfolio. 
He says it himself: ' I always looked to add experience and skills to my repertoire rather than dollars' 💸.
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7 internships later in several different countries and industries and a lot of hustling, moving around and learning about what career fitted him best, FG ended up in a job that paid him a six figure salary. This kept on snowballing, and in his early thirties he hit a salary of over $500,000. .
That goes to show how much investing in yourself can return in the future.
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$500,000 annual salary doesn't need to be your goal, but it still goes to show that you'll make the bulk of your money after investing in your own career. 📈

A great interview filled with actionable career advice and FG's complete story, check out FM's latest blog post! (Edinburgh castle 🔥)
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#financiallymint #budget #budgeting #personalfinance #savinghacks #makemoney #savemoney #money #studentmoney #studenthacks #studentlife #shoestringbudget #moneyhacks #moneysavinghacks #financialeducation #financialfreedom #adulting #savingtricks #earnmoney #lifeadvice #counsel #careeradvice #retirement #investing #careerbuilding #skillbuilding #career #selfimprovement #inspiring #work
Most of us don't know what we want to do in our tw Most of us don't know what we want to do in our twenties 🤷‍♀️. And that's absolutely normal.

But that's why we don't want to be committing to one thing - who know what you might want to do in 5 years? 🧐

Instead of committing, why not be exploring, investigating and testing career paths. But how can you do this cleverly without being a typical 'millennial-career-hopper'? By building career capital at the same time.

This means that every career test you do will help you build skills, connections and a more solid portfolio. If you have no idea where to start, here are some examples of jobs/activities that can help you build career capital:

1. Working for a growing organisation with a growing performance: this could be consulting, a startup - anywhere with a good mentor and team 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦
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2. Graduate studies - for those who want to work in research, a think tank, etc.
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3. Building a valuable and transferable skill - skills such as writing, programming, designing, data science, etc will always be useful in the future 💻
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4. Creating content - you don't always need a shiny piece of paper or a medal to show that you've done something. Creating your own thing can be just as useful.
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And much more amazing career advice... in FM's latest blog post 🤓
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(I’m running out of pictures to post so here’s one of a beautiful evening in Edinburgh) .
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#financiallymint #budget #budgeting #personalfinance #savinghacks #makemoney #savemoney #money #studentmoney #studenthacks #studentlife #shoestringbudget #moneyhacks #moneysavinghacks #financialeducation #financialfreedom #adulting #savingtricks #earnmoney #lifeadvice #counsel #careeradvice #retirement #investing #peoplemanagement #skillbuilding #career #selfimprovement #inspiring #work
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