People usually think of starting a side hustle to help improve their financial situation and take control of their life. The idea is simple: It helps you earn extra money to boost your savings, your investment for your future, and to get financial independence. However, many don’t realize that managing a side business while working full time has a huge toll on your physical and mental health.
Many popular side gigs can burn you out before you know it: from long hours to constant juggling of tasks. If you want to get some extra income streams going alongside your day job, then you need to know about these challenges. Reality is, these side hustles could end up ruining your finances, your health, and your long term goals.
Freelance Writing
Freelance writing is a simple way to make a little extra cash, many think. However, the problem is that that constant need to meet deadlines, manage several clients, and fill your calendar with enough work can burn you out too. You’re scrambling to create high quality content in a short space of time, sacrificing your mental well being in the process and having to manage the job you were hired for.
Online Tutoring
Another side hustle that will burn you out is online tutoring. While it has great potential to be a rewarding job, being able to explain such complex ideas to all ages can get very tiring very quickly. On top of that, it’s hard to schedule when you’re also trying to fit your day job and students’ time zones into your schedule. Online tutoring is a great way to make money, but it probably won’t leave you much time for financial management, or pursuing long term financial goals.
Virtual Assistance
If you want to make some extra income, becoming a virtual assistant is the way to go with a growing side hustle. Of course, it’s mentally exhausting to be able to juggle so many clients and their needs and schedules and tasks. You don’t always know what your schedule will entail, and you may get stressed making sure you accomplish a variety of responsibilities.
Flipping Items Online
There are plenty of ways that you can make some extra money reselling items online for a profit. However, it’s time consuming and stressful to always need to source products, deal with logistics, and handle customer service. It takes time away from other more important pursuits of your life to spend researching items, photographing them and listing them online.
Social Media Management
Social media accounts management for businesses is an attractive side hustle, but it’s a long hours gig, and you’re constantly monitoring platforms. It’s overwhelming to always keep up with trends, make interesting content and keep up with who we have to interact with. It is a time consuming job that can get in the way of saving, and all round improving your overall financial situation and you feel burnt out and financially stretched.
Photography
It is possible to make money with photography as a side hustle, but it’s not easy. Forever needing to secure clients, plan shoots, edit photos, and generally keep on top of your schedule gets exhausting. Burnout can come from delivering high quality results, on time, under stress, and having to constantly market yourself. The extra income is nice, but photography can be a lot of investment in equipment and software, which makes it harder to stay within your budget .
Rideshare Driving
You can see how Uber or Lyft can be a nice side hustle, but then you’re driving for hours and hours. The wear and tear on your vehicle, combined with the late night driving is starting to add up. You think you’re making more money, which helps your finances, but the cost of maintenance, fuel, and insurance can suck up more of your budget than you’d expect.
Selling Handmade Goods
Selling handmade goods on Etsy is a fun and profitable side hustle—so easy to think. Creating and shipping products can eat up your time and energy quickly, but the process of marketing them will eat you alive. Trying to produce consistent quality, on time delivery is a difficult task. All your time can be eaten up by this hustle, and if you’re not careful, it can impact your savings and finances.
Fitness Coaching
A very popular side hustle is fitness coaching, which is a long day of training clients, creating workout plans, and managing your schedule. This can lead to burnout if you’re trying to juggle a full time job. Physical and mental strain can be constant and this can affect your personal health and well being and how you manage finances.
Affiliate Marketing
While affiliate marketing might seem like an easy way to earn passive income, it’s usually a lot of up front work. It’s not easy to create a successful blog, website, or social media presence. It’s draining because you’re always creating content, testing products, interacting with your audience.
Dropshipping
Dropshipping is seen as a low effort side hustle, but it’s anything but easy. The pressure to find suppliers, manage order, and run customer service is so easy to burn out from. Like dropshipping, your products’ prices can also be changed, which can be unpredictable, especially if there’s competition from other sellers. If you spend time trying to manage your side hustle, you’re taking time away from crafting long term financial plans which can affect your long term financial health.
Blogging
Blogging is a lot of work to turn into a profitable side hustle, but it can be a really great creative outlet. Blogging is demanding, you have to create content, optimize for search engines and it will eat up all your time. It can be overwhelming to blog with your full time job. If you’re not careful, you may end up spending too much time blogging, and not enough time managing other affairs of your life.
Pet Sitting or Dog Walking
If you want to earn extra income, pet sitting or dog walking can be fun, but it’s not always as relaxing as it sounds. It can be difficult work, as long hours and unpredictable schedules wear you down fast. Running your own small business, with multiple clients and their pets, means constant attention to the business and little time for yourself. This hustle can leave you tired physically and mentally, overtime.
House Cleaning
House cleaning can be quite physically demanding and if you have multiple clients, you’ll feel drained. Things can be inconsistent, and tiring and burn you out. There’s no doubt that a side hustle has its advantages, but, in many cases, they compel you to devote less hours on saving, investing, and managing your wealth.
Event Planning
Event planning needs a lot of coordination, attention to detail, time management. Working full time and trying to plan an event can be exhausting. The demands of the client will leave no personal time and no financial planning. With event planning, you can find it difficult to focus to plan your savings, budgeting and investment to secure your future financially.
Real Estate Investment
Real estate is a great side hustle, but it’s a lot of work and a lot of risk. Property hunting and tenant management can be very time consuming and laborious. Real estate has the potential for high returns, but managing real estate is disruptive to your work life balance and stressful. If you don’t have a sound financial plan in place, real estate investing can quickly eat away at your savings and throw your budget out of whack.
Disclaimer: This list is solely the author’s opinion based on research and publicly available information.
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