When I was waiting to learn whether or not my contract at the mental health rehabilitation center where I work would be renewed, I was sobered by considering what would happen if it wasn’t. Most of my eggs were definitely resting in that basket, and without it, I would be pretty vulnerable financially.
I worked in publishing as a writer and editor for a long time. In that previous incarnation, I had a similar sobering experience. Except for a short stint when I was an employee of Health magazine and writing Dr. Dean Edell’s Health Letter, I freelanced. Freelancing was great—it offered a lot of flexibility, making it an ideal profession for someone, like me, raising young children at the same time. It was also something you could make a decent living doing.
Until the financial crash of 2008, that is. Almost overnight, magazines and newspapers eliminated their freelance budgets. Instead of freelancers producing lots of content, articles were either written in-house by employees, or publications got a lot smaller and less ambitious in their scope. After the crash, I spent some time ghost writing for a couple of doctors, but that dried up too. I felt I needed to diversify my income stream(s) to protect against that kind of wipeout in the future. But then other stuff happened, and I never really followed through on that.
I was reminded of that decision during this recent period of uncertainty around my horticultural therapist contract. Because now I have a contract for one year, which is great (but also not very long), and clearly anything can happen after that period is over. If this new administrator moves on, her replacement might be less enthusiastic about what I do, and the horticultural therapy program could easily get axed. If some of the management staff who are fans of the program retire or leave their positions, the program and my position could be vulnerable.
It seems to me that the way you make a system like this more robust is to diversify it. That way, one part of the system can weather an assault--e.g., losing a contract--but because the system is diversified, other parts of the system can thrive despite the assault. It can be a lot of work to set up alternative, additional ways to make money, but the payoff, ideally, would be greater peace of mind.
I’m not sure what this will look like for me. I enjoy and value doing my Wellspring Writing classes. I’ve started picking up a couple of freelance writing jobs again, and I believe there’s room for expansion there.
Two interconnected issues pose challenges:
*Who wants to think about how to make money all the time? I don’t. Sometimes I want to think about what’s on Netflix.
*But investing time and thought into a side hustle is a necessity, since getting any money-making endeavor off the ground requires that initial input of energy and attention. And energy and attention are finite.