As an electrician, you keep yourself busy with either commercial or residential work. Wiring office buildings, working on new homes and other electrical jobs are plentiful most of the year, but sometimes there’s a lull and you find you’ve got some free time. If you’re lucky and you’ve handled your finances well, you can take the downtime and chill out, go on vacation or maybe catch up on office work.

Or you’re like many self-employed people and a lull in work means you need to scramble to find more work so you can pay the bills. This is when a side hustle comes in handy.

As a self-employed person, you know that it pays to have more than one revenue stream. If one avenue shuts down, you can shift your focus to other streams of revenue until business picks up again. But you might not realize how many other things you can do as a side hustle. Maybe you’ve never had to think about it, or maybe you’ve never been interested in branching out, but now you are. Here are a few suggestions.

Cable Installation

It used to be that if a person ordered cable or internet service, the service provider would send someone out in a company vehicle who worked for the company. However, that is seldom the case anymore. These providers do still hire some techs as company employees, but most of the major cable providers such as Comcast, Spectrum, etc., freelance installation and repairs to contractors, many of whom are electricians. If you think talking to people while installing their high-speed internet and setting up their new cable box sounds like a good way to make extra money head to your local cable company and apply. There’s some training involved, but the fact that you’re already familiar with the safety requirements is a huge plus.

Smart Home Setup and Installations

Between smart thermostats, alarm systems and the use of Alexa, Google and Siri, homes are becoming increasingly automated. Someone has to set up all this technology and make sure all the pieces play nice. This could be you. Similar to the cable and internet installation, companies outsource installation and troubleshooting to freelancers. Contact the companies that sell the products and find out how to get on their installation team list.

Lighting Installations of All Kinds

Whether you prefer to design special lighting for intimate spaces in a home, create the lighting needed for an outdoor entertainment space or enjoy creating spectacular light displays for the holidays, this is a side hustle that could prove lucrative. Many people would love to hang lights for the holidays, but for various reasons, they aren’t able to do so. You could be the person to fulfill these folks’ desires.

Home Improvement Stores

When people buy items for DIY projects, they sometimes need an expert to come help. Big-box stores such as Lowes and Home Depot have a list of contractors that are available to help homeowners with these projects. Get on those lists and you could have some decent residual income.

Having side hustles are a good idea. You can never have too many eggs or too many baskets for those eggs. So, if any of the ideas above interest you, pursue them and see what happens. For those of you who already have gigs on the side, what do you do for extra work?

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