Interview with Anupam on creating 2nd income source along with his regular job – part 3/5
POSTED BY ON November 6, 2014 COMMENTS (41)
Do you want to know how someone created his 2nd income other than the regular 9-5 job ? In this 3rd article for “increasing income” series (part 1 and 2 here), we present an interview with Anupam Mehra from Bangalore, who is one of our blog readers and has agreed to share his story of creating second income in his life. I was very impressed with him because he has done something which most of the people only imagine and never make it a reality by taking extra efforts for whatever reason.
So I mailed Anupam 7-8 questions to answer, so that it can be shared with you all. I am sure you will get some great ideas from him, a lot of motivation to something similar in your own life and at the end, lets start a new kind of culture on this blog where we share our knowledge with others so that it can enrich others life in some way.
Here is the interview ..
1. Can you share very quickly about yourself and what you do right now in job ?
I have post-graduate degree and have about 8 years of experience. My education and profession are in the same field, Electronics. I have broad range of experience in all aspects of product design. I was lucky in a way that in both the two companies that I worked for, there were no set job definitions. For example, some companies have set roles like development, testing, documentation, verification etc. But, for me I had to do all of this at some point of time. This helped me gain good experience overall. I think for all new graduates, embrace this sort of opportunities since it will give you a good idea on what interests you. You can choose to specialize in something that really interests you as you gain more experience.
For me alternate source of income did not mean alternate field of profession. I am really passionate about my area of work. Initially for earning 2nd income, I completed a few projects on freelancer websites like Elance and others. Some of the projects were not related to Electronics, for Ex: Visual Basic Automation, but for most part I did projects in my field of interest only. Some of the projects I quoted a very low price to ensure I got the project. For the past one year, I have been consulting with a US-based company. I am guiding a group of engineers in verifying a very complex design. I have provided a lot of automation tools that I developed, which is helping the engineers improve their productivity.
2. How does it feel to have another source of Income apart from your professional active job income?
To begin with, I wanted more control in my career. I did not want to worry about layoffs, appraisals, not getting onsite etc. I also wanted to see if I can get better at what I do. Of course making more money feels really great. I feel content professionally which makes be feel relaxed at home and I spend more “quality” time with my family. It just means I can save more (and of course my wife thinks she can spend more…).
3. Was it tough to start earning alternate income ? Because most of the time everyone has this complain of “not having enough time” ?
Not having enough time is the first thought that will come to our mind. To being with, I evaluated how much time that I spend on unnecessary activity. One of the first things that I did when I started freelancing was make a commitment not login to facebook, gmail, whatsapp etc while at my work. I am required to spend X amount of hours at work. I was determined to use all this time efficiently such that I would not have to spend extra time in the office. Of course, sometimes I would have to work 14-16 hours a day to meet some deadlines. But mostly I wanted to be disciplined and not spend extra time in the office unnecessarily.
And the good thing about freelancing is you can do it in your own time. After I come home “early” from work, I would spend time with my family, do all the regular stuff, put my 2yr old son to bed and login to work. This sometimes would work well, since my clients would be in the US or UK and the time works out perfectly. I would also wake up at 5.30 a.m. instead of the usual 7.00 a.m. on weekends just to get some work done before my family wakes up. At any point I have not worked for more than 15 billable hours a week. I had made this clear to all my clients as well.
4. How did you identify that you can earn alternate income – Because most of the people complain – “I have no idea what can I do other than my job ?”
The starting point for me was, identifying my strengths. What it is that I can offer better than most? How much time can I spare comfortably on a weekly basis? I explored teaching options that are available, both offline and online. I started off with this initially. As I mentioned before, Visual Basic programming was a hobby for some time which I used to generate some income. Basically once I had an open mind, I was not hung up with the type of work. I was more interested on the service that I can provide and its quality. I offered real value for money initially as I built my reputation on the freelancing websites and then slowly picked and chose which projects to bid/work on. So the question is “what skills do you possess that you can leverage to generate an income?”
5. What is one single thing you consider as most important thing one should have in them if they want to create second income source of income ?
Attitude – “Go-Do”
What I mean is I lot of people including me used to have these great ideas when having lunch/tea with colleagues and friends. Some of us have this frustration that “I am wasting my time”,” I should be doing a lot more”, “common guys, let’s start a company on our own”.
But somewhere in the daily grind, we remain in inertia… mostly because we want that comfort zone. You are the CEO, CFO and CTO of your one-person enterprise, be it being employed in a company or working for an alternate source of income. Having the great attitude of believing that you can do it and offer outstanding service to your clients will surely help you succeed.
6. Do you think now when you have a 2nd income source, you have higher confidence to start a 3rd alternate income source too ?
Absolutely! The possibilities and opportunities are limitless. I have just started. I intend to continue this. Some of my ideas require me to invest some capital. I have earmarked a percentage of my Additional Income to fund these. Multiple sources of income -> that’s the long term goal.
7. How has your financial life changed after you have started getting an alternate source of income ? Have your savings gone up ? Has your quality of life improved ?
I have to mention this here. My following of Jago Investor started when trying to correct my mistake of investing in endowment plans. So in the past two years I have corrected my initial mistakes (with the help of Jago Investor blog, Pattu Sir’s Blog etc) as well as started generating my additional income. So, both of these two factors have definitely improved my financial life. My wife and I made a combined decision on what percentage of regular income and additional income we will save. Rest is for spending. By doing this, we are living and saving comfortably.
We save most of our additional income by the way. We do not want to get used spending away this income as it might cause lifestyle inflation which might be difficult to recover from.
Since I am spending my personal time with generating additional income, I am more conscious on spending time with my family. I try to make it “quality” time. I regularly take casual days off where I am completely cutoff from both regular and additional work. I must say I have a supportive wife as well.
This additional income helps me in not worrying about the small stuff. Instead of worrying about the expense most of which is not in my control, I “worry” about increasing my income. This has led to a smoother family life.
8. Do you think having an alternate source of income is some kind of luxury or something which everyone should mandatorily have ?
Different folks, different strokes Manish!
It would be nice to have. I also recognize that some people will not be able to do it. Some folks might genuinely not have the time or would love to spend every free minute with their family or would be really happy with what they earn. My suggestion is people should evaluate if they really want to and can work additionally to generate an income.
Second source of income builds in some security in case of loss of regular job for whatever reason. It could also be a way for a person to transition from a regular job to full-time entrepreneurship.
Sometimes I also wonder if hours of research while choosing a mutual fund which can generate additional 0.5%-1% returns is worthwhile. Can this time be better utilized in updating skills and working for additional source of income?
Thanks
I would like to thank Anupam to accept my invitation to share his answers for my questions and share it with everyone else. I am sure you must have learned few things from this interview. You might have also got some validation from this interview about your own imagination and thinking. You can also see that someone has really done it and it works and now you will do it in your own financial life
Next week in the 4th part of this series, we will be talking about passive and active income and some ideas around it.
Now the question for you is – Are you working on creating alternative income source somehow ? Have you tried it ever ? and failed ? or succeeded ? Please share whatever you want in comments section below and lets have more conversation around this topic !
Every person wants a second income but very few try hard with dedication. If one studies enough on options , then easily without much risk a return of 2% to 3% is very much possible.
How can you claim that? Are you generating that kind of return, safely ?
a parental second icome is good option 🙂 🙂
Thanks for your comment sameer
Investing in stock market :Can we consider this as a second source of Income , as there is no guarantee of fixed income & always chances of loosing the capital.I am doing this since last 7-8 years but not finding useful as a second source of Income,
No , I dont recommend to consider that
Great article.
Recently I have started investing in stock market as I feel that 2nd source of income should be there.
I regret why I didn’t start this earlier 6-8 yrs. back. Anyways It’s never too late.
Glad to know that Amit Arora ..
Hi Manish,
I too have tried for a second source of income. I bidded for many projects on freelancer.com but dint got any. I also invested to update my skills but did not got anything in return. I have mostly worked as a UI developer and have a good command over HTML5 but I dont know where to search for projects which falls in my kitty. I am still searching.
Amit Ranjan
Thanks for your comment Amit Ranjan
Dear Manish,
I have also been thinking about free lancing since long time but due to laziness was missing on opportunity. Even, I am not able find proper free lancing job. I used to remain free on weekends. I eager to utilize my time with some value addition.
Thats great .. Then why dont you make a project on this and write down what exactly you want to do ?
Dear Manish,
I am Commodity Research analyst and having experience for more than 5 years in same field. I am good at writing reports, presentation and client query handling. I am working with commodityonline India Ltd which is one of the largest portal for commodity news.
Recently, I gave one presentation on commodity research in Shanti Business school, Ahmedabad. I am looking for freelancing work as guest lecture in any college.
Hi Amrita
I am not sure how can I help you on this at the moment .
Thats nice info. When I try there are so many freelance websites and am sure not all are worth to invest but few. It would be great if we get to know some of the trust worthy freelance websites as its always reliable to land into website reffered from a known perosn
We are writing an article this thursday on that 🙂
I understand the logic and passion behind pursuing an alternate source, but many of the folks (read IT!) like me don’t have that luxury (ya ya ya, it’s sounding like an excuse) – any business expects predictability. In my first job, if I am occupied for, say 12 hours a day for 6 months in an year (avg), this is only a dream.
And, as seasoned veteran, I can say appraisal is done for a reason – what you can do for organization and its growth!
As far as career and income goes, I have this view: income is only a reflection of what effort you put in for your own career growth and org growth. If you focus on the latter, former will reflected in your paycheck!
I hear you. I’m in the same boat as you. It may sound like an excuse to many but if you have to stay out of home 13-14 hours a day due to your primary job alone, thinking about an alternate active source of income by means of a secondary job is indeed a distant dream.
I personally hate thinking on the lines of organization growth. First & foremost we all know most IT companies (unlike other sectors) earn billions and yet pay peanuts to their employees. If we worked 12-14 hours a day for ourselves like we do for our org, just imagine how much we can achieve.
And you’re right. Appraisal is done for a reason – to promote the guys/gals who lick the supervisor’s butt all day instead of doing any actual work.
very nice article… this was my first visit to ur blog as i was searching good finance blog in india over google and came to know about this. Your blog answered all my financial querries…. thanks a lot & keep inspiring us also plz include real life stories (like this one ) of the persons from different fields
Sure .. thats the plan coming forward ! ..
Manish
Hi All ,
My question is that if we intend to take a work that coincides with our present job then won’t it be the violation of job contract like Moonlighting
Most company job contracts forbids you to work for another company while you are employed with them. But there’s nothing preventing you from taking up part time jobs on a no strings attached contract basis. Besides, its every person’s right to do whatever he pleases with his off-work hours and no company can say otherwise.
Isn’t it unethical or illegal to put this as a clause in job contracts???
I don’t know if its illegal or not but it certainly is unethical, no doubt. How can a company dictate to you what you can and cannot do while you’re out of office? Its a free country afterall.
But having said that, in India, private companies tend to get away with murder. Just look at how they exploit employees like slaves, surely some stringent labor laws could very well fix this but the government couldn’t care less as usual.
Good Article.
For second Income I have chain Marketing like Amway and Herbalife. I have tried working almost 4 months. But after that every one was saying no and not able to sold the Goods. Then I get to know that its all marketing, where I was a Techie guy and need to know lot of things. But now I have decided to some work on other projects like Free lancer. But my problem don’t know where to start and how to start. Can you please help me on this.
Thanks,
Allavali
Hi Allavali
Its always a good idea to start something where your strength lies, else it will become burden after some time . You can start with freelancer websites or fiverr.com .. try it
This is really very nice inspiring article series. My suggestion for more reading and example from world wide, read this book… The $100 Startup: Fire your Boss, Do what you Love and Work Better to Live More by Chris Guillebeau.
Sounds a great book . Have added to my wishlist 🙂 .. Thanks for sharing that !
Very nice inspiring article. Definitely a good job by Jago Investor.
I strongly for science graduates and engineers there is every possibility to get some professional work of their field.But for other professional may be some unique in nature. Lastly, I believe if person has patience and some analytic mind better option is stock market.There is no limit of investment,earning or sparing time etc. It is a business of Business. It gives value of company not price of company you invest in.
Thanks for sharing your views on this !
very nice and inspiring article…
Thanks
I have also been thinking about free lancing for some time but due to laziness was missing on opportunity
Harpreet, Can you give us date by when you will start freelancing work. Also define specific set of actions that you plan to take in next 1 week. My commitment is to help you and nothing else
I used to do freelancing earlier in E-commerce and WordPress projects so for start
I will be getting in contact with previous contacts and see if they have any projects.
Also I have created a elance profile of my own today
I get plenty of free time in my current job so time will not be problem for me
Great to hear that Harpreet !
I am feeling guilty that till i have not started. Till i am confused where to start and how to start. Jolting series. Thanks for forcing us to think.
Just start it .. It does not matter how small or big the amount is
This article has helped to boost my moral further since i also started alternate source of income since last one year following the blogs on Jago invester and i am really happy that i am going in the direct direction.
Second income source builds the confidence of taking risks and jumping in a business which i was earlier afraid of and worrying about financial security of a regular job. Thanks
Thats great to know .. I think you should atleast try it once .. no matter if you fail or succeed in it !