Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
A financial literacy podcast from WKNC 88.1 FM HD-1/HD-2.
Akhil Mitta 0:00
Hello, and welcome to the very first episode of the podcast Money Talks. Money Talks is a podcast for college students to learn about financial management, risk management, investing and so much more just your day to day budgeting and just things you want to do as a college student that will be good for your finances. I'm your host Akhil mitta. And I'm a rising sophomore in NC State University. The first topic we're going to cover today is about side hustles, and whether or not as a college student if you should do it. So let's get right into defining what a side hustle is, is basically something that you do on the side as a full time employee or as a college student, in our case, to make some extra cash. Sometimes it can be passive income, and the other times it can get so serious that you can actually start to make money full time just doing your side hustles. Now a funny story that I've actually had in regarding popular side hustles is one of my friends back in India, they decided to create a corn stall outside our local area, which is basically we have a street right outside our apartments and our villa complexes that basically sells all kinds of street food you have the Indian delicacies like pani puri, and like momos. But he decided to go and sell corn. Now, it's not the typical lemonade stand that you earn money with as a kid. But this was a little bit more than just that he boiled the corn, he basically bought inventory for around two to $3. And then he sold corn at 30 cents apiece. And what's funny about this is it's just one of the very many examples of how side hustles operate. Because this alone, he probably made around 15 to $20, which doesn't sound like a lot for United States terms. But in India, that was a banger, he managed to have so much fun with that money. And it was a lot of money for him because he was just 14 years old, if I recall correctly. Some more prominent examples in the United States, though, would be things like doing Uber Eats, or in my case, starting a podcast or drop shipping or tutoring someone or just honestly doing freelancing work. There's always a lot of different things you can do as a college student, and people are more than happy to pay for it. For my example, I personally actually do Uber Eats every once in a while because I have an electric scooter on the campus. So if someone requests for something from Hillsborough Street, all the way to their dorms, it's like a five minute job for me and I get like six to $7 for each single delivery that I do. And that's just making me a lot of money, even though it's minimal effort. In regards to that there's a lot of benefits about side hustles. So one, of course, we make the money. That's what everyone wants, you can always afford that next Starbucks that you've always wanted to buy, you get to save up money, in the case that you want to build cash for your future, or just in case you want to keep emergency funds aside, it gives you experience on how you should act, how you should talk how you should be as a person who's selling something, I'll tell you another example of an idea that one of my friends in my freshman dorms came up with. And this was to basically create a midnight delivery service within the campus. So what he do is he by up stock of let's say frozen pizzas, and it's 3am. In the night, it's 4am in the night, someone's craving something to eat, they want to get something to eat, but they have nothing in their fridge because the college dorms, fridges are not the best. But they basically decide to heat up those pizzas that are just frozen and then sell them to people around campus. So one frozen pizza is what seven, eight bucks. And you could sell like each slice for just $2. And he mentioned how there are so many people who are actually looking for a late night snack like that, that can be hot, that can be fresh, and they could actually be worth it for people to pay $2. And I personally also think that's a pretty great idea. You can also have people come to a specific norm just to enjoy food because you know, you'd have hot and fresh food ready to make. And these are just some of the examples that I've had in mind and that my friends have had in mind about making money on the side. We all always want to make as much as we can we all have that, you know, get rich, quick attitude. So we always want to see what's the next side hustle or what's the next best thing that we can do. But it's important to note that there are a few things about side hustles that you may take for granted. Some of the cons in terms of side hustles is if it's not managed properly. If you don't have good time management, it can start affecting your personal life and your academic life as well. Because while you may be focused on getting that bag, you might not focus on your academics or you might not focus on your social If, and often this can lead to things like burnout attitude, like, I'll sleep when I'm dead, you know, that cannot be your life model. Because this is just a side hustle. And at the end of the day, it's not a full time job. Of course, there's also the aspect of making money online. And with making money online, freelancing does get into a lot more broader aspect and doing side hustles come into a lot more broader aspect. But one big thing about doing things online is how you present yourself, how you send messages, you have to deal with people maybe charge backing, that if they didn't like something that you delivered a product or a service that you delivered, you may have to deal with annoying customers, you may have to deal with people who have very high expectations. There's a lot of different things that goes on, there's a lot of moving components when it comes to side hustles. And the main thing to remember is that there has to be a good balance between work school social life. And of course, the side hustle itself. Like for me, when I do UberEATS, I personally do not do it during Monday through Fridays, especially because there's very few orders as well. And I mainly do it over the weekend, because that's when I'm most free. And I usually do it around 12pm or six to 7pm, because that's prime time. And you wouldn't believe the fact that there will be three or four orders that are due in just one hour, and I make around 30 bucks. So there's a lot of money to be made. The most important thing is that I kept it on those times, specifically, and no other times whatsoever. And that's what the balancing act is we're gonna talk about a few examples of some side hustles that work for everyone. Because, of course, I would love to share some of the things that I've personally thought of. And you can probably use this as a framework for something you might want to do in the future. So of course, we have the world of online freelancing dropshipping web development, we can have like graphic design services, we can have music lessons, you can have like virtual assistant work. And there's a bunch of other things that you can go really in depth into with online freelancing. If you look closely, some of the things that we can do at NC State campus itself would be something like tutoring one of your friends. Or if you live near campus, or live around campus, you may have pets, and people may want to do dog walking or pet sitting. There could be something like if you're a pretty art artsy student, you can try to sell handmade crafts on Etsy, or you can sell it honestly, at NC State itself. Because Fun fact, I'm pretty sure you can rent out a table entirely student union free of cost, just as long as you have an organization, either that or you can do something around tally, that lets you basically set up shop. And I think that will be a great thing. Even if you do something like sell handmade crafts, you will have people stopping and noticing you, in my opinion, food is the biggest thing, because everyone's obsessed with food. And they will do anything just to get some hot food. If you're able to deliver it. Of course you have other things that are might be a little bit outside of NC State. Maybe for people who don't have a car, it might be difficult, but you have things like part time catering, you have house cleaning, you can do computer repair services, editing services, event planning, there's a bunch of things that you can do, it's more about getting that motivation to start. Now you can start as simple as doing Uber Eats, because it's the most freelancing type of thing that you can do. Because no one's gonna be telling you, hey, I want to do this, or I want to do that this you work on your own time. You can do things like that, give yourself some confidence. And then you can move onwards to other things like full scale businesses, like selling things online, or doing drop shipping, which is a very big thing these days. So my personal philosophies when it comes to doing things like side hustles is mainly the balance between your college work and your side hustle itself, because for me personally, back when I was in high school, I used to do freelancing work online. And it reached a point where I had to do around six to seven hours worth of work every single day. And I would totally start neglecting studies, and my education. And this, this made a big impact actually, because I got so obsessed with just trying to make as much money as possible, that I didn't really think about anything else. I didn't really think that education doesn't matter, school doesn't matter. You need to make sure that there's always a good balance. In my opinion. That's one of the best things that you can do. And it's always recommended to make sure that you leave enough time to do everything else you normally do in your day to day life. And this should just be some sort of an add on.
Akhil Mitta 9:39
Let me get you some motivation to start a side hustle. And I say this because I want everyone to start doing something to make sure they can start earning money and basically make some bag and keep it aside have some emergency funds, use it to go out and splurge every once in a while. One example of this can be opening up a food stall entirely Now I know what you're thinking, you know, it's not possible. It's too complicated. But if you think about it, the spaces outside on tallies green fields are pretty much free to use. For many people there, you have people putting tables there, you can most definitely find an electrical socket that's a little bit outside, maybe next to the benches that are near to the entrance or something like that. So you can actively cook food, I have never seen a single person actually actively cooking food at tally, and then selling that, when I think about it, I think it's a real game changer. Personally, one of the ideas that I've had is, so I'm Indian. So I come from a there's a big community of Indians in NC State. One of the big things that everyone loves in India is this noodles, that's called Maggie. Normally, it's pretty hard to obtain Maggie, I mean, it's not that hard. It's just it's really far away. It's inconvenient. And usually people don't really want to make it at home, especially freshmen who barely get access to kitchens that are usable in the first place. But you get to make this ramen use, you buy it for around 40 cents, 50 cents for a piece, you cook that and you sell that for two to $3. Now I know why this will work is because there are so many Indian students who are missing those noodles and they want to just go ahead and have some hot noodles anytime they want. And if you just go and do this, on the weekend, you're gonna have people roaming around tally, for sure. And usually it's freshmen. So you're gonna have them coming up being like, oh my god, this is the first time I've seen something that's from my country that I cannot find anywhere here. And it's hard and it's fresh. And you know, you can have your variations, you can sell it at this, this much of a price. You can add cheese, you can add vegetables, whatever it may be. And that would sell like hotcakes. Because not only will you appeal to the Indian community, you'll also appeal to everyone else who are interested in trying that new thing or trying that new food. So that's just one example of how big it could be. If you do it right. And of course, there are many other things that you can do within the campus. But this personally, I think would be a big hit if someone started doing it because I personally would also go there just to make sure I get some food and get some noodles in me that are hard and fresh. Basically that's that on side hustles I hope you learned a little something on why side hustles are so valuable and how you can gain such real experience money and good amount of life skills with side hustles. And so thank you so much for listening to the first episode of money talks. And I will see you guys in the next one. Bye