On the Fence About Getting a Side Hustle? Here's Why It Pays to Move Quickly

Wait too long, and you could lose out.

Many of us have financial goals we want to achieve. Maybe yours is to pay off your credit cards. Or maybe you want your savings account balance to reach $10,000 within the next year.

No matter what financial objections you're trying to work toward, you should know that a side hustle could help you pull them off. The beauty of getting a side gig on top of your main job is that the money you earn won't be earmarked for ongoing expenses like your car payments or mortgage. As such, you should have the option to sock all of your earnings away, minus what you owe the IRS in taxes on that income.

But if you've been thinking about getting a side hustle, you may not want to wait. If you hesitate, you may find that a side gig is harder to get later this year.

Get ahead of an economic downturn

A Zapier report released in mid-2022 found that 40% of Americans had some sort of side hustle last year. So if you're thinking about boosting your income with a second job, you're clearly in good company.

But you shouldn't wait to line up that side hustle for one big reason. For months on end, economists have been sounding warnings about a potential recession. Now, in light of strong unemployment numbers and job market statistics that have come out early this year, some experts are downgrading those warnings.

But all told, a recession could hit later on in 2023. It may be a more mild one than initially anticipated, but economic conditions could sour nonetheless.

That's why getting a side hustle isn't something to wait on. If you get into the groove at a side gig now, you may have a reasonably easy time hanging onto that gig if the economy takes a turn for the worse. But if you wait until a recession hits to first go out and get a side hustle, you may find that it's harder to get hired at all.

Remember, during recessions, individual consumers and employers alike tend to tighten their purse strings. So let's say you're trying to score a side gig teaching guitar to kids. If you line up a bunch of students now and they get into a routine, their parents might continue to pay for your services even if economic conditions worsen. But people may be less likely to first sign their kids up for guitar lessons and commit to that expense if the economy has already taken a dive to some degree.

You don't want to delay

A side hustle could do a lot of great things for your finances. And even if you're already in pretty good financial shape, it certainly never hurts to have extra money to spend at your discretion. So if you're willing to put in the time to work a side gig, do yourself a favor and start exploring your options sooner rather than later. You don't want to delay your efforts to the point where a side hustle becomes unattainable for an extended period of time.