What does your side business pay for?

My wife's first historical fantasy book has seen a climb in sales over the past few months.  It's quite a blessing to see this lifelong labor of love being well-received by her friends and other readers.

The income from the book is getting steady enough and large enough that it's becoming a fairly reliable expense offset.  Her book royalties are covering accelerated payments on our used van loan.

This isn't the first time I'd heard that connection: “This income stream pays for that.”  The jazz ensemble director at my grad school wrote a jingle that brought enough residual income to take him and his wife on a cruise every year.

He really loved that jingle.  I just can't get the darn thing out of my head.

Where are you on this pay scale?

The slow, steady, low-risk way to start a side business is to exchange some of your (–insert favorite distraction–) time into business-building time without taking on debt.  Writing a novel takes time — lots of time — but getting the book published on Amazon entails minimal cost, once, and following that it's pure profit.  Starting a blog the right way (with your own hosting and your own domain name) is about $100/year.  Odds are fairly good that you have some bill that exceeds $100/month.

Every little bit helps.  As long as you're turning some kind of profit, things are good.  If you start your business on the bargain plan (no debt) then you'll be getting into profit with only a small amount of success.  Every bit of effort that you exert into creating something that keeps on providing value to customers — whether it's information products, videos, novels, or web posts — will help, and the mass of your business will increase steadily.

Here's what some side business profits will buy you:

• $50/month.  This is less than $2 per day, but it amounts to $600/year.  This will pay a cable bill, pay for a fairly nice dinner out, or send you on a decent local weekend getaway once a year.  It also covers one or two car payments.
• $100/month.  This is $1,200/year.  It could cover a mortgage payment per year, or a month's rent per year, give or take.  It easily covers dinner and a movie out for the whole family every few months.  It covers a cell phone bill with a data plan just about every month.
• $500/month.  Six thousand a year could cover an annual trip to Disneyland in some style, or a very nice cruise with lots of spending money.  Depending on where you live, it could cover most of your rent or mortgage, or a decent-size car payment, every month.
• $1,000/month.  Things are starting to get really fun.  Saving this amount for a year could allow you to buy a quality used car for cash.  This amount covers the payment on a $200,000 30-year fixed-rate mortgage. Every month.
• $5,000/month.  You get the picture.  Quitting your day job isn't so far-fetched when you're pulling in $60,000/year on the side.  How cool would it be for your side business to pay for the 40+ hours a week you spend earning money at your job?  What would you do with that extra time?

Figuring out what your side business pays for is a good way to make the results of the effort tangible. It's a great feeling when the side business starts paying for substantial expenses.