You might feel like you have the best job in the world, but anytime someone else is signing your check, they can decide to stop signing it tomorrow. And even if you’re a business owner, you still want to have multiple streams because anytime you only have one source of income, whether that’s a salary from a job or your business income, you could lose it.
During the pandemic, millions of businesses were shut down, and also lots of property owners couldn’t collect rent during the eviction moratorium. But at the same time that all this was happening, the stock market was hitting new all time highs. So for those folks that had an investment portfolio, they were able to use those gains to help them get to the other side. During the pandemic, I had one of my best year ever in the stock market.
Yes, in a perfect world you’d have cash flying in from all over. However, we don’t live in a perfect world. Most of us have only one source of income and that puts most people in a very risky (dependency) position. If you lose that soul source of income, you are in big trouble.
If you only have one source of income, it’s wise to start thinking on how you can diversify your sources of income.
I have several sources of income. I am a dance teacher, a photographer, and a website designer. In addition to that, I have have been investing for decades so I also receive dividend income. So, whenever one source of income slows down, the other sources pick up the slack.
In the future, I am planning to lean a bit more on my website design business and my dividend income from stocks, plus I would like to increase my cash holdings to withstand any downturn in the economy.
I am sure that if you look around, you might find some source of income as well. May dance partner Cheryl, she teaches English as a second language. I have another friend who teaches guitar lessons and many other friends who have an incredible amount of side hustles. The possibilities are endless.
One thing to keep in mind. As you are working, either your one job or the many side hustles, it’s important to continue putting money aside, maybe one day you will be able to live out the dividends or capital gains of your investment and to continue searching for that one thing that will enrich your life and your income.