Side hustles for retirement. Part-2

But one of the things with a side hustle, we're going to get into what our side hustles in a minute, but one of the things about that is that you're leaving a major market where there's lots of people, frequently moving into Wenatchee, Washington, which is a small more agricultural community. There's not as many potential opportunities to market your site gig, nor are you at all known in that community. Okay? So, so when when people are thinking about a side gig, this is one of the things that's attractive about web-based side hustles. The idea you don't have to be the expert in the community necessarily. You're marketing to a, a, a more large base, you know, the whole country, potentially. Yeah. And and and you can, you can structure it that way.

So, so that's one, one aspect of this that I think is really important to retirees especially. They're, they're a unique class of people looking to set up side hustle. So this idea that maybe you are an expert in in construction in some way, you can actually go set up a side gig on the internet and market that and do consulting, construction consulting, and things like that. There are people who will pay you for your advice based on the fact that you've been in, Brad, in your case, sales. You've been in sales for, for you know, decades. You have leadership, you have, you are a world-class leadership expert. You've studied this for years. You have these skill sets. So no matter where you are online, you can market those. Okay? So there's one, that's one aspect of this.

Okay, there's another aspect. You know, one of the industries that we've seen explode during this COVID event is the RV industry. It, it is, it is to the wall. There's, they can't make them fast enough to sell them. A couple of reasons for that. First off, people, they're not going to jump on an airplane and fly around. They want to take some vacations, they want to do some things. So they've looked at this and they've thought, hey, you know, let's buy an RV. Right? There's another part of this that I think is a big driver. Retirees who who have looked at this situation, they found themselves unemployed, they found themselves retired now. They've got to make a decision. How are we going to navigate this situation? We're years ahead, probably. You know, we thought we could work another five, six years until we were 68 or 69 years old. Now we're 64. And and and all of a sudden, the restaurant I worked out of, the whatever I did, it's closed. The movie theater, the whatever, it's closed. Now I'm out in the market competing at 64 years old. I'm out competing with 24 year olds coming out of college. I'm not very competitive in that environment, even though I've got way more experience. That that dynamic, I'm not as competitive.

So a lot of these people are saying, I guess I'm going to retire or partly retire. And they're sitting on a home. Home sales are still pretty high, especially in the suburbs, because people are looking to move out of the cities into the suburbs. They don't want to be in Seattle. A lot of people do not want to be in Seattle right now. Yeah, Boeing doesn't want to be in Seattle. No, the Amazon, movie Amazon, yeah. Thanks, Jay. Thanks, uh, you know, whoever that woman, I don't live in Seattle proper, so whoever the mayor and of Sawarma Sawad or whatever name, city council, they've destroyed that city. Amazon moved 40,000 people. They took out more than a million square feet of office space right across Lake Washington in Bellevue and moved just like that, snapped their fingers and said, okay, forty thousand people, you're going to work from home, you're moving, we're going to Bellevue, figure it out. And so, so thank you very much. Thank you very much. Well, yeah, yeah, it's incredible. It's like, it's like the Seattle government in Washington state government, the gift that keeps on giving to everybody else.

So, so here's the deal. RVs. Now you've got an RV. Perhaps you look at selling your house, establishing some kind of a smaller residence in, um, I don't know, uh, South Dakota because the tax situation's tax structure is really good. That that becomes your domicile. Yeah, you don't necessarily live there. Your RV's registered there. You got a 40-foot RV, or you've got a small house. I got, I got a buddy that's a retired architect. He has a very small house in Arizona. He's up here a lot. Right? So a lot of these people will buy an RV. They're gonna spend time up here with their family and stuff like that. In wintertime, they're gonna, you know, unhook and head south.

Now, if you've got a side gig, now I wanna make sure everybody knows, we're not accountants. Brad and I aren't accountants. We're not tax advisors. But we've lived life in the business world and we have a lot of experience on how these things work. If you've got an RV, so if you have, yeah, you, you, you learn, you've learned some tax lessons in the last couple years, haven't you? I have too. Oh, yeah. But if you've got an RV, how about if you create a situation where you can write that off? You can travel right off your travel expenses, write that off, because you now have a an internet-based business. And you might even have the opportunity to travel to some of these places and interact with your consulting clients or your whatever. But no matter where you are, you've got the ability. Your residence now is mobile, and you can create legitimate tax deductions to write off your living expenses, convert those living expenses to business expenses legitimately, as appropriate. Consult with your tax advisor, but I know a lot of people that are doing this.

So a side gig becomes more than just the dollars you make in your side gig, which can be good. It also becomes a way of protecting your retirement income asset, right? Because you have deductions. The average person, we've talked about this multiple times, if you don't, if you're not self-employed, if you don't have a business, you really cannot take advantage of the tax system, especially as it's set up. If you're an employee, that's why that's why is being so down on just having a quote unquote side gig, because you just have another job. You really can't deduct anything with that, and that income is fully taxable.

So a side gig, aside from fact, the other point that article did make, Val, which I'm going to insert here, is so the power of social media. I didn't think they did a did it justice, but I'm going to say something that Gary Vaynerchuk has said, and he says if you're not using social media now in 2020, you're irrelevant. And he's, he's 100 right. Like it or not, the internet's there. It's at its peak. And I, and I shun all these articles that slam the negativity of it. They're watching us and tracking us, I don't care. I'm looking at from a business standpoint. How about if you look at from a business standpoint what you can do? It's amazing. I mean, we just brought in a new person that watched a video that we shot on YouTube, signed up from New Jersey. We've had a few Zoom meetings, and the guy's sharp and excited. He found me. Is that powerful or what? How much money did I spend to market that? I did six videos with the business partner and one with you, Val. So I'm just saying, social media is underrated as a medium to get out there and reach people.

And but again, back to your point, having a business, if you want to do an RV, great. Um, now you can deduct some of these things, and you don't take the full burden of the tax rate where wherever it is you might live. So, well, um, I, I want to point out something here that's in this article, and I want to, uh, update this a little bit. Okay, uh, it's, if you're interested in ongoing freelance work that utilizes your professional chops, these sites can connect you with reputable sources. And there's a list of some job sites here. These are mostly social media sites. There are also service micro job sites like Fiverr and TaskRabbit and Amazon delivering things like that. But I, I want to throw, when I remember this is about a year old, and there are some new sites that have come on that are hugely helpful with this, or let's say, because they're new, sites will be within the next couple years, these are going to be some of the focal points, and Jewelbook.com is one of those. And and just so you know, I'm, I'm very excited about Jewelbook.com and and what that promises to be. But that's another place where where people can market skill sets. Yeah, they can market skills and connect with people who are willing to pay them for those.

So let's talk about some of these skill sets. What are some of the kinds of things that retirees or non-retirees, even if you just want to set up a, a second, a second gig, a side gig, you can start putting money from your side gig away into your retirement. You can build that part of your business up, and there's a lot of things you can do with that, uh, and I'm throwing some ideas out here like, you can create videos in in video books, vlogs, and things like that and actually sell those. You can, you can sell, um, uh, content like that. Of course, so you make it. Yeah, you make it once. Go ahead. What's that? You, you made the content from it last week, and the big focus of them was about how to market, and I wasn't particularly me, about how to market your courses. You can set up your courses and market them online from your expertise.

And speaking of Jewelbook.com, Jewel Book is specifically set up. There's a part of Jewel Book that's specifically set up to allow people to market course content in books, online books, and things like that. So, so there is a whole world of things out there. Let's say somebody is a subject matter expert and they want to, let, let's just because I spent a life in the construction industry, let's say that you've got a construction background, but it can be anything but construction. You, you can literally sit down, if you enjoy writing, you can sit down and write content about the process of of of remodeling your home or something like that, and you can literally market that and sell it. Or you can do webinars like this. I mean, there's so many things you can do. You can, you can have people book your time and pay for your time up front on a credit card or whatever, and then you, you have your time reserved in a calendar, and you just pop out and say, oh, I've got a, I've got a webinar today with Mary for an hour, who's in New Jersey. I'm in Seattle. Mary's in New Jersey. They're getting ready to remodel their house, and they want somebody to walk through this process and give them advice, and and they're going to pay me a hundred dollars for an hour. And and so there's, there's all of these different ways that people can use social media and websites and to develop side gigs based on their skill sets and experience.

But let's talk about some of those. So we talked about construction, right? So if you, if you've got a construction background, there are, I don't know, millions of people out there building and remodeling and doing things in their kitchen. A lot of them want to be do-it-yourselfers. They want to try and save a couple of bucks and do it themselves, but they don't know exactly how to do that. That's not their skill set. So, so they would, they would be way money ahead if they're going to do it themselves to to pay somebody a couple hundred bucks to walk them through the process and lay it all out so that they don't have that learning curve. People in construction can do that.

But think about all of the other areas that that that same idea applies to. They could be quilters. They could be wanting to learn how to sew. They can be, uh, you know, one of my big things that I think there should be way more people doing is actually online cooking classes. How many people are cooking from home right now? A lot. They're, and how many people are not going to, uh, the theaters and things like that for entertainment? They're turning to home. You know, I, I just heard a thing the other day. There is a serious discussion right now the entire theater industry might be dead. It might be gone. And and and in the not too distant future, we're going to be telling our grandkids, hey, we used to go to these buildings and everybody sit in this building and watch a movie. And they're going to be going, what? That's going to be like rotary dial telephones. They're going to say, really? Well, don't you just watch it on stream it on your on your device or whatever? Well, no, you need to put in Eclipse 7.2 home theater. It's awesome. I don't have to worry about that. I'm not going any more concerts. I can do them at my house. And I'm serious. We're having some friends over tomorrow, going to watch Furious 7. I got it on Blu-ray, but in the comfort of your own home, man. Yeah. Yeah.

And the point I want to make about all this, because with the COVID-19 shut down, the work from home, I really see that stuff like this, this interactive stuff, whether it's cooking classes or whatever, you, you've got to be a part of it. We're part of a a paradigm shift here with what's going on. I really believe that that this is how the future is going to be. Well and and and people are tending to talk about the negative side of that, and one of the things you and I always do is try and talk about the opportunities here. You know, somebody says, oh my gosh, you know, the restaurant industry's down, we've lost millions of restaurants. I'm in the restaurant industry. Well, how about starting your own cooking classes online? How about doing, you're taking advantage of this shift and putting yourself in this great position?

So you could come out, if let's say cooking is something you enjoy, you can do some research. You can come out and publish your ingredients list and say, okay, two weeks from now we're going to be doing Pad Thai or whatever, right? Yeah. And and or, or, you know, if you're from the Philippines, Olympia, two weeks from now we're going to be doing lumpia. So here's your ingredients, get those ingredients and have them ready, and then at this time you're going to want it. You're going to want to plug into, you know, you know, wherever, Jewelbook.com, I'm, I'm, I'm pretty excited about that. Plug into that and, uh, and and reserve your time, get, get there, get your links and everything, and then you come up and you've got everything prepared right there, and you're streaming online, and you now have the ability. And think about this, if you were, if you, if you were doing classes someplace and you had 20 people, that would be a lot of people in a class. But as you get your business built up nationally, you could end up with hundreds of people attending your class and maybe paying 20 bucks a, pound.

Hey, we got our new Blackstone griddle, and I gotta say, I love it. I, I think it's, honestly, I, I love to cook, but I love it now. I think that's taking my cooking to a whole new level because I got an actual griddle that has sides. But we watched videos about guys how to set it up and stuff. They were cooking that. I learned, and I'm like, that's like freaking cool. On YouTube, these guys, all kinds of videos on how to cook on this thing. But yeah, what if you took that because it changes your food? We're gonna do some halibut tomorrow night with our friends. But yeah, doing cooking classes and having that set up, you're going to get, you're going to get people jazzed because they're, go, wow. I mean, that grill, that was 274 bucks, not expensive. But it's one, I'll say it's one of the same. I'm sorry, I'm doing an advertisement for, uh, Blackstone 28 inch pro. So everybody knows Brad makes money from Gary Vaynerchuk and from Blackstone grill. [Laughter] He does. It's as much as he promotes him, he should be getting money from him. I know. But it's one about the single most best investments I made. I mean, I love it. Cooking on that thing is like awesome. But yeah, if you did videos, and so these people have done some pretty good ones. It's like, wow, these guys know what they're doing. But yeah, you could market that if you're a chef with passion. You got the right setup. Yeah, I'd like to learn how to do whatever recipes on this thing I bought. And I think a lot of people.

Let's analyze this for a minute, okay? Let's think about that. We're talking about setting up some kind of a side gig. We're talking about thinking about how to take advantage of a mega trend now. For for for the cost of 275 bucks, you can buy this grill. And and, um, I'm gonna, I'm gonna move here and I'm gonna grab something. Okay, so people can see. You got it. You got it. Now it wasn't, I wasn't really prepared for this. Can I, don't know if everybody can see this. This is a tripod. Okay? This is a mic stand, not expensive. This is a an inexpensive mic stand, right? And what I've got on the head of this, I've got a head that holds a camera that'll hold the phone, sorry, hold the device. You could use this with your iPhone, with your, you know, Android device. Yep. You can, you can stream your videos using devices like Stream Yard, you know, sites like Stream Yard or Zoom. Yep.

Now what you've done is you've created a legitimate tax write-off for your Blackstone grill, just as one example. Your Blackstone grill, your iPhone, your, your, uh, mic, mic stand, and your your head adapter. Yeah. And your, your internet service. Yep. And, uh, and the cost of whatever platform like Jewelbook.com that you're using to manage the the business side and the payments on the calendar for your events. And you have created legitimate tax write-offs for all those things in your life. And for a relatively small cost, you have started a business that has the potential of making thousands of dollars per week as you get it build up, for a cost of, let's say you've already got a phone, most people do, but let's say for a cost of less than a thousand dollars to start a business. Yeah. You can write off parts of your home. You can write off your your food and your ingredients list. I mean, there's so many different things that you can write off here if you're keeping track of your expenses. And that's a pretty small investment, if you want to call it that, to start a business. And every, every part of it is a tax write-off. You don't, there is no part of that that you need to depreciate over a over or extended period of time. It's an immediate tax write-off. No, most of the tech stuff, the microphone, I've got a softbox light now which really helps with the light, the HD camera. It's pretty cheap. So you don't have to spend an arm and a leg, but you can do good video quality. And if you know what you're doing, it's just getting your mess. You could use, heck, you could use Instagram. I just jumped on Instagram here a few weeks ago. I'm learning that and using that now as a platform.

But if you put out good content, Val, here's the thing, and you know this, I know this, if you put out good content, you will get people's attention. Well, absolutely. And you do have to learn a little bit about how to create titles and and some of those things, but again, you know, you and I have, you and I actually have videos and content out about that on our platforms, and and many people do. So this is not some, you don't have to be one of the wizards to be able to figure this stuff out. This is really, really simple stuff in this day and age.

And and by the way, let's say you're retire a retiree, you know, back to our subject, and you feel like you have some technical, um, some lack of technical skills in these areas. Can I just tell you, uh, all you've got to do is put a message out there on Facebook that you're looking for some, uh, high school kid or something like that to help walk through these things, and you know, you'll pay them 50 bucks or something like that. And yeah, and and and these these, uh, you know, young people, you know, every 14, 15 year old kid knows how to do this stuff. This is not difficult. So it's easy to get those skill sets.

But there's other stuff. You know, I'll tell you real quick. I mean, just taking advantage of resources, you have to be resourceful. I think you have to have a certain amount of ability to read or research to learn on your own. But this Teachable Summit I went to last week, early, yeah, the week before, um, was through some my Facebook feed. Gary Vaynerchuk was a featured speaker on Thursday for half an hour Q&A. That got my attention. But guess what? I set, sat in on a gal doing, and who's a global Instagram strategist, for half an hour. I learned a ton. I took four pages of notes on that. I'm starting to utilize that. Guess what? I'm shooting three videos off the content I learned there about social media. Another gal did a half hour thing about how to shoot videos. Nothing real in depth or, you know, you don't need much more than what we've got, but just basic stuff. And it, get it, cost me 29 bucks, Val. Each of these sessions would have been a bargain at, I sat in for, I didn't sit in the whole three days, but five different sessions for 29 bucks. Again, tax write-off.

But the information's out there. If you, if you're resourceful, you can find people that are experts that'll walk you through this stuff. And then it's a matter of taking it and applying it. But it's amazing. You, you could, we have done this 10 years ago? No. No. I mean, let's put some numbers on that so people understand what we're talking about. And let's, let's put it in terms of, let's say you're sitting and watching this. Think about yourself. Think about what you just said, 29, and you went online and you paid 29 to register for this thing, and you had potentially days of different modules. Yep. So how many people just, what do you think, how many people do you think maybe they said how many people attended that for twenty nine dollars? Trying to remember the feed on there was several thousand people. Um, this was worldwide. I mean, the comments there, you watch the chat, there's people from literally all over the world attending these. So I'm gonna say thousands of people sat in. So let's say there were 3,000 people at 29 bucks. That's roughly 90,000. Probably more than that. I'm gonna guess it was way more than that. But there was a people from all over the world.

Just as an example, let's say that you're sitting and you're watching this and you're thinking about building up a little business, and you're thinking, gee, who would be, who would be interested in watching me grill from my Blackstone? We're just using one just to, you can, if you don't feel like you've got a talent or a skill, you can create one. You can get your grill. You can go learn how to use your grill. You can, now it could be anything. It could be a any kind of a tool, all right? But we just picked that one because you happen to have one. And you can learn how to do it, and you can create a brand new skill set for yourself. You don't even need to be an expert. You can study up on it week by week by week, and as long as you're two weeks ahead of whatever the next class you're doing, you are an expert.