The global economic situation is growing ever more dire, as budding recessions in the US and UK respectively threaten to impact Australia’s financial situation. Interest rates are high across the developed world, with meaningful consequences for the affordability of household goods – and for the spending power of the average household budget.
In times of crisis for the economy, more and more people are looking for ways to bolster their main income stream with a second job or side-hustle. The increased ubiquity of internet access has made access to new opportunities all the more equitable, while other opportunities present unique recession-proof qualities in the face of shrinking markets. What options might you have to shrewdly boost your income ahead of difficult times?
Online Content Creation
One leading way in which people are seeking to subsidise their household costs is through content creation. Social media is already well-ingrained in our daily lives, but new platforms continue to find new audiences – and present new opportunities for income generation.
Popular Instagram and TikTok accounts can increase their follower or view count by seeking sponsorship from brands. This may bear fruit in the form of product placement or outright advertisement. But social media isn’t the only route, as web blogging and site hosting remains a popular way to generate a semi-passive income through selling advertising space.
Forex Trading
Technological advancement in the financial sector has enabled platforms to offer market access to an increasingly wide demographic of consumers. This has resulted in a boom of ‘retail traders’, who transact on stock and currency markets to control their own portfolios.
While normal trading on the ASX only occurs between 10m and 4pm, retail traders can access other markets in other time zones – something that becomes particularly effective in currency trading, where the same currency can be traded on every forex market. After your working hours are up, you can become a forex trader and transact currencies digitally in other exchanges.
Real Estate Investment
If you are interested in investing, but do not have the presence of mind for short-term day trading, there are other ways in which you can substantively grow money over the long term. Real estate is something of an evergreen investment, enjoying high demand near-permanently and near-universally. The value of real estate is practically guaranteed to grow – and is best-placed to weather economic movements around it.
If you have the money to invest in a property outright, owning real estate as an asset can be the safest place for your money. At the very least, it is protected from rising inflation; at the most, it enjoys inflation-beating appreciation. There are also short-term benefits if you choose to rent your real estate out.
Selling and Re-Selling
With the internet long having taken root in the consumer consciousness, e-commerce has become one of the biggest success stories in global business. Online retail has vastly outstripped physical retail for some time – and continues to grow at a much quicker pace. The e-commerce market is rich for the budding side-hustler, where even the sale of unwanted household items can be facilitated online faster and more effectively.
You could create a profile on an online auction site and sell unwanted goods, or even buy up job lots of items for re-sale individually. For a more ambitious project, drop-shipping could help you. Creating and managing a digital storefront is easier when you don’t have to invest in stock and storage. You could pair with a warehouse, that would manage logistics while you manage customer service.