If Your Side Hustle Doesn’t Pay, It’s A Hobby Not A Job

This is your weekly instalment of WTF is going on because, these days, a lot can happen in a week…

Over the course of the last three years I have, more than once, asked myself why I don’t have a ‘side hustle’. Last year, a book titled *Side Hustle: From Idea To Income In 27 Days *which teaches people how to make their launch business profitable in just 27 days, unsurprisingly, became an instant bestseller and, according to the McKinsey Global Institute, around 20 to 30 per cent of British workers have a second job.

As a hideous millennial member of what people call ‘the DIY generation’ I know a lot of people with side hustles: amongst them are spare-time Depop shop owners, podcast hosts, pottery makers, succulent sellers, yoga teachers and network makers. Everyone I know else seems to have one, those who don't wish they did and some of them appear to be quite lucrative.

However, moonlighting is nothing new, so the pervasive notion that millennials invented it is lazy. But, it's true that the way we moonlight may have changed, made ever easier by mobile tech but the primary reason for doing it remains the same: making money.

We've romanticised the side hustle - perhaps it's a way of clawing back some autonomy as we realise how monotonous work can be but the truth is not every side hustle will turn into an empire or, even, a job that pays you a liveable wage. If the side-hustlers I know were honest with me and with themselves, I think most of them would very much like to ‘turn their side hustle into a full-time job’ because it’s much more fun/fulfilling/creative/rewarding than their day job but they simply aren’t making enough money from it to do so. As a journalist and author, I guess, somewhere along the line, I turned my hobby into a job but doing that has made me very wary of the second job trap.

I’ve toyed with my own ventures, sure. The strongest contender is, without a doubt, a gourmet baked potato delivery service which goes by the name of Better The Spud U Know. Imagine an option with sour cream, chopped chives, crispy lardons and endives called ‘Pommenfant Terrible’? I know, I know. Or, equally as good, another with slow-cooked spiced lamb, basted with anchovy paste, served with pomegranate couscous inside an enormous sweet potato which we call ‘Silence Of The Yams’? Don’t tell me you wouldn’t go there.

It’s very sad for us all indeed that neither of these ideas will ever come to anything. Is that because I’m lazy? Possibly. But I think it’s more likely because cooking is my hobby, it’s what I do to relax and I would hate it if it became my full time job. It is, to use a dirty phrase, an act of pleasure. I don’t cook for Instagram, I don’t cook for my personal brand, I don’t cook to further my career and I don’t cook hoping that, one day, I’ll do it for work/be a food influencer/release a baked potato-only cook book. I cook because I love the chemistry of it, I get a kick out of feeding my family and friends and, above all, myself. Plus, I doubt I could make enough money to live on from selling my spuds.

Always being determined never to write for free could go some way to explaining why I don’t write for pleasure. It’s important that we do what we love and are paid properly for it. And that's why the side hustle economy is troubling. I worry that it has blurred the crucial boundary between work and free time in an age where it’s being consistently broken down my technology anyway. It’s now easier to work than it’s ever been, indeed the main order of the day seems to be how we can stop ourselves from working quite so much and avoid becoming addicted to our smartphones. The side hustle, to me, feels like yet another example of how our work has invaded what should be our leisure time.

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Several studies and research reports have looked at this phenomenon: the commodification of leisure time and found that late capitalism has completely reshaped pleasure. Today we are now more likely to buy objects to use in our leisure time than to make them, which was once the norm. And, by extension, it seems we are now increasingly trying to make things in our spare time that we can sell.

Why are we all so keen to work when we aren’t actually at work? Is it because we’re a driven, get up and go generation of entrepreneurs? Or, is it because we’re the first generation to be worse off than our parents and grandparents in real terms? Necessity, after all, is the mother of invention and, as a BBC long read on this topic put it ‘with job security a thing of the past for many, some experts recommend that people…consider starting side ventures to supplement their incomes and maybe even provide them long-term stability.’ Sorry to be the bearer of bad news guys but they’re not wrong - the World Economic Forum predicts that five million jobs will be lost by 2020 across the world.

If our jobs don’t pay us enough should we ask for a pay rise or start a embark on a hustle to make up the difference? We rightly talk a lot about the gender pay gap but there is absolutely also a generational pay gap in this country; the Resolution Foundation found that millennials are earning less than Generation Xduring every year between the ages of 22 to 30, resulting in an overall pay deficit of £12,500 per person.

If your side hustle can make you money and become your job, then you should go for it and never look back. I hope to see you on a 30 under 30 list very soon. However, if you’re looking to turn your hobby into a side hustle because you need cash then perhaps it’s time to start demanding that your work pays you enough not just to survive but to thrive.

Our drive to pursue our own ventures is testament to this generation's determination. It also speaks to our unique ability to try and polish the economic shit show we've inherited but, as the saying goes, 'you can't polish a turd but you can roll it in glitter'. We can dress moonlighting up as side hustling but it doesn't change the fact that many of us aren't earning enough to do the things out parents did at our age - like buying houses, having families or saving towards out pensions.

We shouldn't give up all of our free time to make money because we don't earn enough, even if we enjoy what we're doing. We need hobbies purely for pleasure and we need work to provide income. It’s really important that we are able to distinguish between the two.

Follow Vicky on Twitter @Victoria_Spratt

This article originally appeared on The Debrief.