If you are single and your only source of income is your job, all your income eggs are in one basket; that being, of course, in contradiction to the age old financial advice that you should never have all your eggs in one basket. This advice is promoted these days as a sort of short-hand for the wisdom of diversification as it applies to investing.
Diversification is a simple concept: It simply means that you invest a range of asset classes instead of just one or two. For example, if all your savings were invested in a single stock or all in cash, you would not be diversified.
On the other hand, a well-diversified investor would have some money in individual stocks, some money in mutual and index stock funds, some money in bonds, and some in cash.
But the wisdom of diversification also applies to income, as well. Income diversity is a more difficult outcome to achieve than investment diversification but, I think, even more important to your financial security.
If you are married, and you and your spouse are both employed, that is some level of income diversification (ID) right there. If one of you is laid-off or loses your job for any reason, you still have the other’s income to soften the blow and you still have some income, at least.
The way to truly diversify your income, however, is to create another one or more individual income streams independent of your full-time job. The income from your savings and investments, if any, is one possible source of additional income. And, in fact, the money one has saved is often the fall-back position when unemployed.
Obviously, then, the more savings, the better! And, ideally, your savings and investments would provide enough income to cover your expenses entirely. At that point, you will have achieved financial Nirvana—financial independence.
Financial independence the ultimate financial goal; and, if you think about it, once you have achieved financial independence, you could ditch paid employment entirely. You could retire, in other words!
Most people will work thirty or forty years or more to achieve financial independence and then shuffle off to a grey-beard retirement. But in the meantime, they are taking their chances and putting both their immediate financial security and their retirement at risk if they fail to adequately diversify their income.
Aside from building your savings, however, more ID is required. Perhaps the most straight-forward way to achieve the required diversification would be a second and part-time job.
There are only so many hours in the day, I know, but even as little as ten hours a week of “extra” work in a second job would be sufficient to achieve the goal of ID when combined with savings.
Ideally, your part-time job would be in a different field than your full-time job and with a different employer, as well. In that way, you would be learning and refining an individual set of skills and building a network apart from the network of peers and associates at your full-time job.
Most unemployed people find their next job by way of a personal referral; that is, someone they know refers them to someone they know. The second network of a part-time job is a valuable resource to have: Your second network and your first could both be tapped for job leads if the need ever was to transpire.
Also, income from your part-time job should be used only to build your savings; this is not income that you should become dependent on to meet your recurring monthly expenses. Instead, by devoting this income to savings, you are building your level of financial security and income diversification.
The second most-common way to enhance your level of ID is by being a small business owner. Building a profitable small business is not as easy as finding a part-time job, but the rewards can be greater and you will not have to live with the scheduling demands of both a full and part-time job.
Often a part-time small business can be started with a minimal investment and this is, in fact, the ideal. The internet can be an ideal venue for a small business and millions of entrepreneurs all over the world have a business online today. Starting a small business is a delicate balance between creating income and expending capital in start-up costs.
There is another side to the ID issue, however. The whole purpose of diversifying your income is as an insurance policy of sorts against the unintentional loss of your full-time job. It is said that many of us are only a few missed paychecks from being destitute, homeless, or worse! That is the situation you want to avoid and the way you do avoid it is by income diversification.
Think about what your situation would be if you lost your job today and were unable to replace that income for a period of six months. Do you have the savings to support yourself for that length of time or would your entire way of life be at risk? The other side of the income equation is expenses.
If your income and expenses are equal, your condition is that of living paycheck to paycheck. This is the most risky situation short of being in a situation where your monthly expenses exceed your monthly income: The only way to sustain that situation is to incur debt and even that will not work for long.
The lower your expenses are, the longer you will be able to live off your savings, if that ever becomes necessary. So, when considering ID, it is also prudent to examine your expenses before you are forced to do so by the loss of employment. And, also prudent, is to begin to look for ways to achieve income diversification and to implement a strategy to do so.
Perhaps the best place to begin your search for income diversification is to yourself: What is it you love to do? What would you do to stay active if you didn’t have to work for a living? What work would you do for free if you could, in fact, afford to work for free?
The extent to which your part-time job or small business entails work you enjoy, the less it will feel like real work. And the more likely it is that you will be successful at it! By building a business based on your passion or what you feel to be your calling in life, you are increasing the chance that someday you might be able to leave work you do not love behind you.
Imagine being able to love your work. It is much more likely that you will realize work you love as the result of concentrated effort on your part to build the life of your dreams than it is that it will happen by accident.
We should all seek to achieve income diversification; doing so, while at the same time doing work we love will allow you to achieve two goals with a single effort: income diversification that doesn’t feel so much like work!
Wallace R. Curiel is the author of Money Well Spent, The Debt Whisperer, and many other books available at amazon.com and other online retailers. You can see his complete list of titles at http://www.tmgbooks.com including his work in progress, Zen and the Art of Financial Independence, and more articles on financial independence, real estate, and personal financial management. You are invited to visit his blog:
http//www.financialindependenceextreme.blogspot.com.
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