About a month before the holiday season began I wrote briefly about my wanting to pick up some extra work. It has been my habit to always work during the holidays, the extra money came in handy as typically I was always broke! This year it didn’t happen and not for the reason you would expect. I had a particular company in mind because I’ve worked for them before and figured it would be easy to be rehired with the company as I was a good worker and did well with sales.
It wasn’t that simple.
I wasn’t hired on because they needed people with open availability. I work a full-time job, of course I don’t have open availability! Evenings and weekends no problem. But, the midday shift was not going to happen. This open availability request also annoyed me for other reasons and I will be writing a post about that sometime in the spring.
I thought that I would miss the money that I would have made working at that store. I don’t! The reason why I don’t miss the money is because I’ve worked for the past year to clean up and organize my finances. I increased my take home pay dramatically by getting rid of debt and being very intentional with my money.
I don’t miss: the stress of working at the mall, the loud music, the high strung customers, and the crying kids. I don’t miss the time it took to get to the mall, how tired I was when I got home, or the long days.
Things worked out the way that they needed to this year. I was actually pretty conflicted about doing retail this year because each year I did it made me more and more mentally exhausted. The stimulation from lights, music, registers, colors, and people had begun to get on my nerves. I already work with a lot of people so I felt like I always had to be “on.” I would typically work 15-20 hours a week at $11 an hour. An extra 80 hours a month or 160 hours for the season.
What I didn’t realize was that by doing side hustles through out the year I had already made my holiday money! This year I needed to rest because I will be stepping up my side hustles in January. When I looked at this past year I discovered that late summer through late fall were full of land mines that affected my hustle.
- August-it’s so freaking hot-Lame but true. Zaps my energy.
- September-Back to School and the slow change into Fall. Makes me sleepy! We also had the floods 🙁
- October-Conferences. I went to back to back conferences and was basically out of town for 2 weeks.
- November-Thanksgiving and the Holiday season begins.
- December-Christmas/New Year’s Eve/and I’m tired at the end of the year.
Because the later half of the year was so problematic I will be focusing on my side hustles from January-Mid-August and really trying to get those to rock so that I can continue into the Fall making extra money.
Side Hustles that make more money an hour are the way to go! I love being asked my opinion about something that I like and making $75 for one hour of giving my opinion. This happened last week! That’s almost an entire day of working at the Mall.
In the end, things worked out the way that they were supposed to. I’m really trying hard not to get pulled into low paying jobs that won’t make the kind of financial difference that I’m looking for. Those jobs won’t move the needle as quickly towards the type of financial stability that I’m wanting for myself.
Do you work Holiday Retail?
Have those side hustles helped you out? Did you give up on retail like I did?
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I think that’s why I knew the Container Store wasn’t for me. You have to add in your precious time as a commodity. So I could make x amount of dollars per hour at the container store, or I could use those hours towards working on my blog which would in turn generate a sponsored post which took all of five minutes to post and made the same amount as if I would have worked a full week at the container store. I call those my Big Rocks. So I don’t blame you at all for not wanting to do it.
The Container Store would overwhelm and excite me because I would want to find a container to organize EVERYTHING! At this point I make more half-heartedly doing side hustles for a quarter of the time. I wonder what will happen when I try harder?!
I have never ever worked retail! I wanted so badly to get into retail when I was younger but never could – I was a waitress instead.
You aren’t missing anything! I wasn’t a waitress-because I worked retail. I feel like that would have been a lot more fun. I did learn a lot of interesting and random things though!
I was trying to remember if I’d ever worked retail. I’ve had some crappy jobs, but I don’t think I have. The closest was working as a gas station cashier. At least there was no Christmas rush there! We do notice that people in our office are more grumpy around this time of year, which is really sad. I’m glad you didn’t have to spend 20 hours a week listening to crappy Christmas music and smiling until your face hurt.
It has really worked out this year. I’m already really tired because of all of the travel, getting sick, and changing habits. Adding additional stressed out people to deal with just would have pushed me over the edge. I can’t even imagine how stressed out I would be if I’d worked retail this year. I’m focusing more on my blogging stuff which will pay off more in the long-run.
I attempted to work seasonal retail to make some extra cash a few years ago. It was Kohls – what a nightmare! They told me it was $9.50/hr and ended up paying me $7/hr and refusing to fix it. I couldn’t stand the people nor customers, I lasted two weeks. Ever since that experience I’ve been afraid of retail side jobs. I have been applying this year, but the pay isn’t worth the time/drive/gas at most places. Especially when I also have a toddler that needs childcare.
It doesn’t surprise me at all that your hourly wage was cut. I cannot believe how far businesses will go to underpay their employees-but push them to sell more. If I owned a retail business I would hire fewer people pay them more and treat them right. It would all balance out in the end. Try finding side hustles throughout the year that take less time but pay more!
I’ve never worked in retail. I am happy with my full time Mon-Fri job and quite frankly I don’t want to work any more hours than I already do. Some days I stay behind in the office to catch up on all my projects and this is as far as I want to go right now. I have been thinking of getting a weekend job or a side gig to speed up my debt repayment progress, but I’ll be honest and say that I want my free time all to myself. I don’t care how much extra money there is to make, I need my free time to spend with my family, friends or on my own. I also want to have time off during the festive season. Does this make me lazy? Some may say so, but I don’t feel the need to work 70-80 hours a week, 35 is more than enough for me at this moment in time 😛 Money is not everything and although it would be nice to make extra cash by working extra hours, I think I give it a miss for now 😛 Who knows, I may change my mind next year but I’m happy with my decision for the time being.
Eva, I have worked up to 70 hours a week way too many times in my life. This time I’m working with a very, very clear plan and outcome that I’m looking for. I love spending time with my friends and family and have begun building in free-time so that I can prioritize what is important. Unfortunately, my debt amount is large enough where I need to put in a lot of extra hours so I can get them paid! I think that you should do what is comfortable for you and you’ll be happier for it!
I’ve been investigating side hustles and this will be on the menu for 2014. Right now I’m having enough trouble finding the time to decompress from my new job (started in January) with increasing responsibilities and stress, and finding the time to work out! So I think it’ll come down to balancing what my priorities are. Will continue to stalk your blog to see what side hustles you are doing 🙂
I have done some super fun side hustles but retail wasn’t that fun. I did work with some great people at interesting places, but the amount of energy that it takes to do well at a retail store. I think that it’s a good idea for you to get used to your current job. Hopefully there will be possibilities to earn extra money at your job-much easier!!Will be writing a monthly post re: side hustles at the end of the month 🙂
Hi, Michelle,
I liked this post. I’ve often taken on side jobs like this to pay down debt or save up for something and wound up regretting it and burning out quickly because it’s exhausting to work two jobs (especially in retail or service industry!).
What are these side hustles you speak of? I’ve looked into Task Rabbit but wasn’t sure if I should trust the website just because NPR did a story on it (you have to give your bank account info to take a job). I’ve looked on Craigslist, too, but also wonder whether I should trust the posts. Do you have recommendations?
Thanks, and happy holidays!
I actually don’t use Task Rabbit, Fiver, or the other one (whose name I can’t remember). I side hustle exclusively using Craigslist. The key to this is very carefully vetting the posts, anything sketchy-it IS. You should have a minimum that you want to earn. I try to do special events and one time fun things.That way there are other people around. I always let people know where I’m at. I find interesting side hustle opportunities and apply for them almost every single day. I would say that you need to live in a mid-sized to larger city to have consistent opportunities. Or, in an area with two mid-sized towns that are connected. I think I’ll write a post about this soon!