Second jobs whilst flying
 

I appreciate everyone will have their own opinions on this, whether is appropriate or a wise use of time whilst not flying but I am interested to here people’s experiences.

I see an increasing amount of pilots with second income streams, be that Coaching, Social Media, Mortgages/Finance, which seem to fit around work life either whilst at home or down route. What jobs have others done ‘on the side’ or have seen others do and does it seem to be worth it?

It all depends whether you’re looking for a way out of line flying whilst granting yourself the same if not a better income like most of those guys do/did, especially the ones very active on social media.
If you’re just looking for an activity to do during your time off, it means you have too many days off 🤣

I’m a little bit jealous of those that can do this. I think without being able to be extremely passionate about something on the side you’d just lose interest.

So it’s not a case of what should you do, but what do you want to do. No different to learning to fly really, far less likely to do well if you’ve just shuffled into because it looked cool rather than having a genuine desire for it.

My side hustle is just to do some overtime on days off when I’ve got nothing planned, not very exciting but amounts to about the same thing really.

As to having views on if people should be able to do this full stop, well why on earth not? Plenty of people have very involved hobbies, I imagine training to become a scratch golfer needs just the same time and commitment as giving some people financial advice a few times a week.

I've always reached the same conclusion: nothing I could realistically do well comes close to flying in terms of pay per hour worked—even before considering that 45% of my extra earnings would go to tax.

I'd much rather spend my days off with the people I care about.

Been always handy and trying to fix things myself, cars included, (re)built a few boats with my brothers. Few years ago did a whole house humidifier, including 220V wiring and redoing the panel, replaced water heater, and rebuild a deck. Saved around $40K, working mostly when the kids were in school over my days off in about 3 months. Would have had to work ten 4-day trips to pay for it, taking 401k into account too. Problem is I am not certified, so can't really do this for other people. Got a quote for the front yard. Six low voltage light fixtures: $4700. Will absolutely do that myself in a afternoon. Removing and stump-grinding three 40 feet trees, will definitely pay someone.

The above is the most valid statement I have read on Pprune over the past few years, and it does apply to -perhaps- more than 90% of us.
It does kind of make me smile though, because I think about the infamous “career changers” who were hanging around pilots during the Covid crisis, trying to convince us that our “transferable skills” were assets in other industries.:ugh:

While not wanting to put people off trying to earn some extra crust, my warning is don't spread yourself too thin.

Perhaps make sure you budget your spending, invest your income wisely, stay away from gambling, spread betting or get rich quick ideas.
Learn how to fix stuff and learn to do jobs around your property without having to employ others.

You will then have to earn less because you can save more and earning more in the UK is not an option as the Government take 45% of it to give to...

(This weekend I will be replacing the better halves brake disks and pads, then doing some other house jobs - saving about £400, then out for dinner tonight).

Be careful with tiredness
 

My advice is from an infamous story I was told a few years back.

A well liked and well known Captain, thousands upon thousands of hours, had a second job doing CFI work in a small airfield in the US. Had been doing this for many years and somehow working around his airline schedule to organise PPL training flights. One day he had just finished his airline flying duty (quite a tiring block) and was scheduled with a student in a C172 in the afternoon. Long story short, they end up upside down in a field with the student killed and the Captain pulling himself out the burning wreckage with minor injuries. Captain was investigated by the FAA and was harshly blamed for it and his lack of ADM. To make matters worse, he also lost his job at his airline despite union's best efforts.

So in a nutshell, do a second job but if you get too involved in it, it could end up costing you your main flying job one day.