Social media influencers are dubbing it “my 5 to 9 after my 9 to 5”—a “side hustle culture” where a person with a full-time position takes on a second, or even third, job.
Madeline Webster-Perry’s friends have nicknamed her “the side hustle queen”: She has six side hustles in addition to her day job. Living in Shaw and working remotely for the state of Massachusetts, she picks up work on the side, including babysitting and pet sitting, as well as jobs that draw on her career knowledge, including career-coaching services.
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“I love a side hustle. I love extra money coming in,” Webster-Perry says.
Sedar Birinci, an economic policy advisor in the research division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, says, “Inflation has been significantly above the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target over the last four years, meaning some people are feeling pressure to make ends meet. In those situations, taking on a second job helps relieve some of that pressure.”
The Bureau of Labor Statistics found that 5.5 percent of Americans have multiple jobs, which translates to roughly 8.9 million people.
Webster-Perry initially started picking up side hustles to pay down some debt she had from taxes, but now, the money she makes goes into savings. When Webster-Perry and her wife began to earn more income from their full-time jobs, they started to spend more. Rather than cut back on their spending, they figured out other ways to make money.
Her most coveted side hustle is working for Olivia Cruises, a travel company designed for lesbians, as contract staff. Webster-Perry and her wife do various jobs during their travel, like running activities or workshops, or helping with music events at night.
“We basically have a free vacation a couple times a year, and we go work on it. We make, like a small stipend, but we get our vacation paid for, but we work it,” Webster-Perry says.
Another motivation for a side hustle may be the desire for more flexibility or the opportunity to pursue different careers, Birinci explains. For example, a teacher may learn tech tools for a while and then get a freelance or part-time job to develop their résumé for a different future career.
In that sense, side hustles may actually help the economy, as many people pick up side hustles and use what they learn to score a new job with a higher paying salary.
Nick Williams’ company, Nicky Slices, started as a side hustle. Williams had the side hustle culture nailed: After work at his full-time position at a magazine in New York, he would head straight to a kitchen to work as a chef until midnight, five days a week. When COVID-19 hit, he moved back to St. Louis to regroup. He knew he needed to make some money, so he started cooking private dinners for people.
“When I was doing these private dinners with people, I was leaving them with a pizza as a thank you,” Williams said. As time went on people started to request the pizza. Slowly, organically, Nicky Slices was born. Williams started selling his Detroit-style pizzas on Instagram, a popular trend in New York and Los Angeles: People order a pizza from a menu that changes each week and pick it up at the allotted time.
What started as a side hustle is now Williams’ full-time career. With a building on The Hill under renovation and a following of over 23,000 people on Instagram, Nicky Slices hopes to open a brick-and-mortar restaurant by year’s end—and, he hopes, sooner than that.
