Mop and Broom?

I’ve made side hustles into main hustles. Woodcarving and videography; currently, I have no active side hustles. At this point, I’m not looking for any more, either.

Over the years, I had many. I was the managing editor of a small community newspaper. I wrote the editorial and a feature article or two, but mostly managed the process of actually shepherding an issue through the process of procuring news, organizing everything, and getting it to the printer. I had a great copy editor and production designer who worked much harder than I did.

But hitting the real Way-Back Machine button, life was all side hustles. My friends and I made rent for our apartment on Beacon Hill in Boston on side hustles. As we’d approach the end of the month, there’d be a meeting of all residents in the Folkie Palace (our Folkie crash pad). We’d compare how much money was in the rent jar against how much we still needed to gather in. Then we’d sweep off in groups to earn, cage, or cajole the needed Bread. Oh, for those not aware, Bread was the word we used for money.

I had a regular route along Charles Street where the galleries and shops were. Need that storage room cleaned? What about that back door with the trash cans? They’d equip me with the mops and brooms, and I’d go to work. I always made sure that I did a good job; I might be visiting next month. Occasionally I’d even be offered a straight gig- regular forty hours per week. Naw! Too regimented a lifestyle.

That evening we’d gather and add up the gain from all our various side hustles: the Monk normally could hustle some work as a cook, Bill found work painting signs, placards, and maybe a mural – no computers in those days; it was all hand work.

Somehow, by the end of the month, when the landlord came around, we’d have it all together; if there was a bit of excess, all the better! We’d throw a party to celebrate. The next day we’d return to our chosen list styles of neer-do-wells.

The side hustle lifestyle was one I had learned as a kid growing up in New York City. My father, as a superintendent of an apartment house, always had side hustles for things that were not covered by the residents’ rent. The lady in apartment 402 wanted some shelving put up. Sure, we could do it. In those days, most buildings had incinerators for trash. There was a hopper on each floor for throwing trash down. The hopper was in a little closet where people placed things that wouldn’t or couldn’t go down the hopper. It was my job to go around and clean that stuff up. Scrap metal, books, and all kinds of stuff wound up there, and I enjoyed part of the take after we sold the stuff to the junkmen or the scrap metal dealers. It was just one of my side hustles.

The best side hustles were ones that have ready payment. Cash in hand, off to one side; well, you know, payment in universally convertible cash. Otherwise, if they are regular and regulated by payroll check, then those have some very significant advantage to them. There is just plain no sense in a side hustle that is a pain, you know, where it pays poorly or has an unpleasant boss.

In other words, be fussy about the side hustle. Doing a favor is one thing. But a side hustle is about coin of the realm!

What are your favorite side-hustle ideas?

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