Sometimes Side Hustling Hurts Your Pride

I’ve written a few times about how my main side hustle outside of stage managing is substitute teaching. What I don’t think I’ve written about is how much I dislike it. Besides the fact that teaching is totally not my thing and I’m not a huge fan of kids, substitute teaching is incredibly, mind-numbingly dull most of the time. You’re really just a baby-sitter trying to keep nearly grown ups sitting in their seats and not touching each other. This is more difficult than you’d think a lot of days. In a small way, the boredom is a motivator to constantly keep searching for theater jobs I can do instead whenever I find myself in a slump that requires some substitute teaching to get through. Furthermore, I’ve been a registered substitute for 10 years and there hasn’t actually been one slump yet where I had to substitute teach to get by – I just have always known it’s smarter to have money coming in if you can, even well before I was financially savvy. And I’ve been pretty lucky. I subbed a lot when I was in college on breaks, a couple of times when I was 25 and a few more times when I was 28 and this is my first time back to doing it. As far as a career in the arts goes, I’ve had to use my backup plans a lot less than most people I know…. I’m going to be really honest here: I don’t know what it is about this time around that makes me super defensive. I want to tape a plaque to my chest that lists all my degrees and my resume and my net worth to point out I’m doing this to be smart about money, not because I’m failing and all I’ve managed to do with my life in a decade is wind up a substitute teacher. I was on lunchroom duty the other day and bumped into a teacher who recognized me (I substitute teach in the school district I graduated from), who asked me how I was doing. And if I went to college after high school. Did I go to college? Did I even just go to college? What. The. Eff.? I just said yes and waited for her to wander off, but that was the moment when I realized I wanted to tape my net worth to my forehead and a note like “I am making good life choices by doing something I don’t want to do and making money, instead of just sitting around in my parents house on a 10 week vacation. But I could if I wanted to.” That same day I was on hall duty with another substitute teacher who graduated from there 10 years after I did. She asked me what I want to do with my life. I almost responded with a crazy tirade of “I am doing what I want with my life,” but it sure wasn’t her fault I was having a crazy mental day and calmly explained to her that I am already doing what I want with my life and I’m actually a stage manager. I guess I’m sharing this because I never realized before that pride can totally stop you from making money. The other day I had an unusually expensive day. I got a massage, took the train into the City, had dinner an overpriced but fun restaurant (Ninja New York – if you life ninja’s, check it out) and then had a few too many drinks at a bar catching up with several friends. Altogether, the day cost about $200. And to be honest, I totally didn’t plan to have a day out during this time off cost that much. But, it’s more than covered by subbing. I didn’t even think twice about it (ok, that’s a lie, I’m a personal finance blogger, I thought, “dang, $200… but it’s worth it and I have the money, so it’s fine”). When I’m completely unemployed, even if I have savings to cover an unemployed period, I don’t feel comfortable spending like that. Sucking up my pride and subbing even just a few days a week makes it ok with me. Partially because of subbing, the first action I did in 2016, even though I’m not getting a regular paycheck right now, was to dump $1,000 in my Roth IRA, because I didn’t have to touch any of that money in December. Side hustles are great, but some of them can certainly make you wonder what you’ve been doing with your life to be there right then… honestly, if you’re making money when you otherwise wouldn’t’ve been – what you’ve been doing with you life has probably been taking a lot of wise steps.

How about you guys? Has pride almost kept you from making money?