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Is it possible to live off lots of small part time jobs?


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I've been wondering about this for a while.

I've been a corporate monkey for a long time now and I need a change.

 

The one job gives me (a little) security and pays pretty well but....

 

Was just wondering if it's possible to do say 3 small part time jobs and :

1) Make the same amount of money

2) Have some free time

 

Anybody holding down multiple orga... I mean jobs? :)

Chris Griffin: Yo, did y'all check me when that hottie was all up in my Kool-Aid? Yeah, I was looking to break off a little somethin' somethin' but my crew gave me the 411 on that skank and she's all about the bling-bling.
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I did that for about a year in the early 80's.

I DJ'ed at a strip club a few nights a week. I played 2-3 nights a weekend in a band. And I worked part-time at a gas station most afternoon/early evenings.

Never knew exactly how much I was going to be paid from one week to the next, but it wasn't bad for a kid paying cheap rent and no real bills.

Probably averaged a couple hundred a week from the band, say $150 a week assuming I DJ'ed 3 nights, (the girls shared their tips, and there were a BUNCH of girls), and the meager amount at the gas station, maybe about $100-150.

Don't think I could stomach the uncertainy these days, and for what I did then, would probably pay about the same now, so it wouldn't go NEAR as far.

That all ended when I wrecked my Harley. Went to school, got an electronics degree, and went from there. Took me ten years to pay off the medical bills and school loans.

I'd like to say "Them were the days", but....that's kind of all I can remember :freak:

 

Tele

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IF your home is paid for why not?

if you got a car payment and a house payment and a boat payment and a credit card payment and a phone payment and a cable bill payment and a water bill payment and an electrical payment and a subscription ta' GUITAR MAGAZINE plus if you drink copius amounts of alkyhall and smoke ciggies you ight wanna rethank that idea.

 

A normal man will NEED to have four or five or six or seven or eight or none or ten careers in his lifetime. WE GET BORED EASILY. so find something that fills your sails and drains your bilges and pays your dock fees.. the ONLY way to sail !

Frank Ranklin and the Ranktones

 

WARP SPEED ONLY STREAM

FRANKIE RANKLIN (Stanky Franks) <<<

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My cousin used to do this. While she made as much money as I did (I was working a 40-50 hr service industry job), she worked way more hours and her schedule was way more hectic. She had little personal time and her work hours were very erratic.
"You never can vouch for your own consciousness." - Norman Mailer
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No insurance.

No paid vacation.

No sick leave.

No retirement benifits.

 

You also have to worry about trying to keep the three jobs form overlapping.

 

The only way to really make this work it by having a special skill that people want. If you are good with carpentry or plumbing this might work.

 

Robert

This post edited for speling.

My Sweetwater Gear Exchange Page

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Bob Keelan and Rabid are right on the money. Don't shoot yourself in the foot. Good jobs are hard to come by right now. A buddy of mine lost his job as a computer support person due to downsizing, and right now he's having a lot of trouble finding anything. So, I wouldn't voluntarily put myself in that position.
"Cisco Kid, was a friend of mine"
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That's pretty much what I do. I do computer work part time at home, have my home studio which brings in paying clients part time, and my band makes some money gigging. I hope at some point to make a little extra cash writing for magazines too, though I haven't gotten around to really pursuing that yet, and I have a few other ideas in mind as well.

 

Yeah, it's hard to juggle everything around and stay focused on priorities. Whether it will work for you really depends on several things... if you have too many monthly expenses to the point where you're currently living paycheck to paycheck, it may not be a good idea. Health insurance is expensive and you'll have to pay for that yourself.

 

I do have a lot more "free time" - that is, time to do what I want - than most people in a corporate job but that's more due to the fact that I'm self employed and my expenses are low than the fact that I have 3 part time "jobs." Being self employed means you can keep more of the money you generate, but it also means you gotta do your own taxes, marketing and stuff that your boss now does for you.

 

Also, the fact that my band and studio do generate some income accounts for a lot of my perception that I have "free time." After all, music is mostly what I want free time for. :) My monthly expenses are also very low considering I own a house. I have no car payment or credit cards, I rent out a room to a friend, my studio gear has all been paid for with income from the studio, etc.

 

I COULD make as much or more money now as I made when I was working a corporate job, but I wouldn't have the amount of free time that I do, and that's the main objective. So it's been a combination of tightening the belt (which I prepared for by not buying an expensive house/car/etc.) and working for myself that's allowed me to have that time. Working 3 part time jobs for somebody else in order to equal the amount of money you make now, is not likely to get you any more free time - probably the opposite.

 

I should add that I do think having a diversity of income sources is a good thing in several ways. 1) It seems more secure than most of today's corporate jobs... if you lose one part time income source you're not as screwed as if you lose your entire job. 2) It just feels better to be doing different things throughout the day. Even something you enjoy can burn you out if you do nothing but that, day in and day out, and if you dislike one of your jobs but it pays well, it won't suck so bad if you only have to do it a few hours a day.

 

What you might want to do NOW, while you still have a full time job, is 1) start trimming the fat from your budget and downscale your lifestyle as much as possible... pay off any debts etc. and 2) put away some money, enough to live on for about 6 months ideally. Then you can see how much you really need to earn every month, and if there are times when you fall short you'll have a cushion while you're getting going. What I try to do, is take on additional work if I need to make a big purchase, and pay cash for it.

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It sounds like you really don't care for your present job right now. It's a tough call since you probably get benefits.

 

I'd suggest making a list on paper of the benefits/detriments of each and weigh them accordingly?

 

I would add that if you really hate your job and it's stressing you out, then it's probably time to leave it. At least with three part-time jobs, you would hopefully really enjoy those and gain some benefit from that.

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My next door neighbor has three part time jobs. He also has a nicely furnished apartment and two late model cars. He's doing better than I am. Kcbass

 "Let It Be!"

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This is very common here in LA.

 

So many people are actors, writers, or musicians (or selling real estate, etc.), that they do a variety of things.

 

I have a friend who just shucked three part time jobs (personal trainer, assistant to a wealthy art collector, and producing an infomercial) for a full-time job producing spots - her first job in decades with full benefits (PPO, dental, vision, etc.) and great pay (nearly six figures). She did have to re-locate.

 

I have another friend who keeps getting more and more successful in music but his fear makes him have at least one day job at any time. One of the few cases where the music gig supports the day job (having a gorgeous independently wealthy wife can't hurt, too).

 

Right now, my cash flow from music is negative, and I depend on the one day job to support the habit.

 

The people I know who live on multiple part-time jobs are all smart, happy, and capable. They probably work more hours than someone with one job, but then again, so do we as musicians. We all have broad needs, and these people seem to have found a way to meet their range of needs while surviving. Full-time job benefits are generally shrinking these days, anyway, so unless you have a lot of little mouths depending on you, catastrophic coverage might be all that you need to pay for.

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I work at a school, and a lot of the teachers are *forced* to scramble for part-time work, especially in the summer. I'm doing okay financially and manage money well and don't have kids, so it's easier for me. But of course, I play in a band and run a studio, both of which are additional sources of income (and more importantly, a lot of FUN!).
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of course, when I was younger, playing music all the time, I had many jobs, including:

 

sweeping out lumber yards

 

detailing cars

 

managing a record store for Italians in Boston who, shall we say, didn't want to make a profit

 

counting people entering and leaving a bank

 

delivering mail at a major New England insurance company

 

painting Tufts University after Jumbo the elephant self-combusted and burned a few buildings

 

inventorying Bob Mackie gowns at I. Magnin in Beverly Hills

 

movie extra

 

and:

 

Fred Garvin - Male Prostitute

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LOL Doug!

 

Hey, when I was gigging full time and lived in L.A. I did the movie extra gig a lot too. It was great when I was 18-19 and looked a lot younger, cuz they always called me for "teen movies" where they didn't want to use underage kids. So I ended up being in some hilariously awful teen flicks. :D

 

Always met a lot of musicians on the sets, too. You could always tell the musicians from the "aspiring actors" - the actors were hamming it up for the cameras and standing in line to give the assistant directors blowjobs, while the musicians were huddled in a corner with a couple of acoustic guitars and a harmonica, totally not giving a shit. :D

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Originally posted by Doug Osborne:

and:

 

Fred Garvin - Male Prostitute

:D (Talk about your great Dan Ackroyd moments! :thu: )

 

I worked freelance for 10 years. The big problem with 3 part time jobs comes when one of them has hours that overlaps the others. That made taking a regular part time job virtually impossible for me. I tried to work part time at MARS music, but they wanted me to work hours that kept me from mixing gigs and crew work that gave me contacts and better pay, but no job security and feast/famine cycles.

 

I don't know if I could go back to that existence after almost 10 months of working a day job with people I like, even if it's not the best use of my skills. This from someone who loves tour-bus life, travelling, and wouldn't mind dressing down every day of my life. But the trade off is uncertainty and less time with my family. We were lucky. The entire time I was freelance my wife has worked for auto finance companies that provide incredible benefits and decent pay.

It's easiest to find me on Facebook. Neil Bergman

 

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A couple of years ago, my wife had a baby, and had to have a surgery later. Without my job's medical benefits, that would have been $20,000 worth of medical bills. You won't have that kind of benefits from a part-time job, so you'd better be able to absorb that kind of blow if you cut back. Don't have a wife or kids? Last year, I had a case of acid reflux that felt enough like a heart attack that I had to go to the hospital for two days. That's an overnight stay, a lot of tests, blood work every couple of hours, medication, and later a stress test. I wound up paying about $35. Do you think you could cover something like that without medical benefits?
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Freelance is great, just keep in mind that you are entitled to charge a lot more than a salaried employee due to lack of benefits, self-employment tax, etc.

 

Charge a high enough rate and you won't have to work as much!

 

You didn't say what kind of work you do, but I would shoot for at least $50 per hour. (preferably much higher).

 

Of course you have to be really good at what you do ;)

 

Earn enough $$$ and you can pay for your own medical insurance, which is tax-deductible. Actually that's another good point, keep track of all your expenses because many things are deductible when you are self-employed.

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Originally posted by dementia13:

Last year, I had a case of acid reflux that felt enough like a heart attack that I had to go to the hospital for two days. That's an overnight stay, a lot of tests, blood work every couple of hours, medication, and later a stress test. I wound up paying about $35. Do you think you could cover something like that without medical benefits?

Well, if this were 1950, you'd probably spend $35 and still live just as long. You live, you die, party on.

> > > [ Live! ] < < <

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Everyone's mentioning health insurance but none of you seem to have noticed he's in the UK. We have the NHS here (National Health Service) which is free to everyone, well not really because it's paid for by tax money, but he doesn't need to worry about medical insurance.

 

I'm working two jobs just now and doing OK. The problem is when they overlap, lucky my employers at the lesser paid job are flexible. Unfortunately, the higher paid job (teaching kids how to use DAWs) is very bitty, as in one week I could be working 3 days (which pays enough for a full week) but then not at all for the next 3 weeks.

 

I think it can be done, it just depends on what the job is and how much money you need to live on.

 

Good luck

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Oh you're right, I didn't notice he was in the UK. Well, the fact that health care in the U.S. is tied to whether or not you have a full time job is pretty ridiculous, but that's another story.

 

For those in the U.S. who've been telling horror stories about your hospital bills, you CAN be self employed/work part time and still have medical insurance ya know. And you can get it fairly inexpensively (mine's about $150 a month) if you opt for "catastrophic" insurance rather than the typical plan. If you're basically healthy, there's no point at all IMO in paying twice that much or more per month just so that you only have to pay $10 for an annual physical. Pay for routine doctors' visits out of pocket and save a ton of money on insurance. If you wind up in the hospital, you're covered.

 

Also if you're an ASCAP member (or musicians union, NARAS etc. too I imagine), they can often get insurance at discounted rates... I went through ASCAP for mine.

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Well I just paid every bill I have off cept my car note, and thinking of devoting myself to music full time. Whether that entails giving guitar lessons, playing in bands, doing coffeehouse stuff, whatever. Just tired of the machine, ready to get off the merrygoround and feel terra firma a while.
Down like a dollar comin up against a yen, doin pretty good for the shape I'm in
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Originally posted by Lee Flier:

Always met a lot of musicians on the sets, too. You could always tell the musicians from the "aspiring actors" - the actors were hamming it up for the cameras and standing in line to give the assistant directors blowjobs, while the musicians were huddled in a corner with a couple of acoustic guitars and a harmonica, totally not giving a shit. :D

Or they'd be raiding the catering table!!! I did a few of those things, too, although mostly for TV instead of film. Hey, in just one day, I got to meet Richard Roundtree and then get paid a fistful of extra money to keep circling around the block in my red 240Z that the director really liked and wanted to be in the shoot, so my "TV extra" gig certainly paid off that day! :D:D
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Originally posted by Ken/Eleven Shadows:

Or they'd be raiding the catering table!!!

Oh hell yeah! Forgot about that. We used to sneak food into our guitar cases to take home later. :D

 

Hey, in just one day, I got to meet Richard Roundtree and then get paid a fistful of extra money to keep circling around the block in my red 240Z that the director really liked and wanted to be in the shoot, so my "TV extra" gig certainly paid off that day! :D:D
LOL... yeah, some of that stuff was fun. I once got paid a bunch of money to lie around the beach in Malibu for 3 days... granted, I got REALLY sunburned... and granted, I had to wear a ripped up wetsuit with safety pins stuck through it and a fake Mohawk :D ... but it was definitely an experience!
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