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Fiery Millennials

Financial Independence from a millennial's point of view.

My Side Hustle: Revealed at Last!

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The num­ber one ques­tion I’ve been get­ting from every­one late­ly is “Hey, what’s your side hus­tle? I’m DYING to know!”

I did­n’t real­ize that I was cre­at­ing this big of a mys­tery! It tru­ly was­n’t my intention.

At first, I was­n’t ready to share it.

Then.….. I did­n’t want to talk about it until I was on firm foot­ing and mak­ing some money.

Then I went on vaca­tion for most of two months and got busy.

But now.….. Now I am ready to share!

My side hus­tle is.….…

Stained glass!

I know, it’s not the “typ­i­cal” side hus­tle of finan­cial coach­ing or doing tax­es for people.

But I real­ly enjoy it and it’s very sooth­ing for me to do after work or on the weekends.

So much of my day job at Mega­Corp is sit­ting in a chair, star­ing mind­less­ly at a com­put­er screen as I move elec­trons around.

This is real, phys­i­cal work. I can see my progress as I work on it. I like the imme­di­ate feed­back. (Even if that feed­back is me swear­ing loud­ly as I crack a piece of glass that I real­ly need­ed or the sharp pain of the glass slic­ing through the skin on my hands.)

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I also real­ly enjoy the cre­ative process that goes into stained glass. Think­ing up an idea (Fly­ing keys from Har­ry Pot­ter book One? Sure!), sketch­ing it out, fig­ur­ing out the pieces, cut­ting, shap­ing, grind­ing, swear­ing, sweat­ing, sol­der­ing it all into one piece.…. I love it all. I am appar­ent­ly a lot more artis­ti­cal­ly inclined than my his­to­ry of sub par art projects in school led me to believe.

Turns out I’m not great at draw­ing, paint­ing, or shap­ing pot­tery but I can do all sorts of oth­er cre­ative things!

My mom actu­al­ly men­tioned one time she was think­ing of tak­ing a stained glass class at the Art Cen­ter down­town and that set the wheels turn­ing for me.

Once I moved to a big­ger city, I looked up class­es in the area and lo and behold! There was one start­ing up in just a few weeks. That was last fall. I took the class and was hooked. I made a few pieces in class that look­ing back aren’t the best stained glass ever made, but the recip­i­ents of all three pieces LOVE THEM and that’s what matters.
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It took me a while to start the process again, but I’m glad I took the leap and did it. One thing that held me back from start­ing up again was the lack of a work­shop space. I could­n’t do it at home in my apart­ment because glass shards, ten­der kit­ty paws, and car­pet do NOT mix. The last thing I want to do is unin­ten­tion­al­ly hurt my cat and have to take him to the vet. He gets enough expo­sure to glass at home any­ways with the 2 glass­es, one mug, one bowl and one plate he’s bro­ken. He’s a 15 lb fluffy cannonball.

Then one day I remem­bered my apart­ment com­plex sent out an email adver­tis­ing their shop space. It’s heat­ed, but there isn’t any air con­di­tion­ing. That made it a bit dif­fi­cult to be oper­at­ing a sol­der­ing iron when it was 100 degrees out (38 for you non-Amer­i­cans) but I managed.

I like stained glass because the cost of start­ing up is rel­a­tive­ly low. I scoured Craigslist for a few weeks and was reward­ed with two amaz­ing deals. One lady was get­ting rid of her basic set of sup­plies because her fam­i­ly was grow­ing and she was too busy to con­tin­ue. Score!

The oth­er amaz­ing deal was a guy clean­ing out his garage and sell­ing every­thing he’d ever col­lect­ed to work with stained glass. I got a big (HEAVY) box full of his stained glass, every tool ever imag­in­able, and all the oth­er lit­tle doo­dads that come from hav­ing a hob­by for 2 decades. Every time I think I might need some­thing, it turns out I already have it! All of that was for $75! The guy at the local stained glass shop was super jealous.

I did end up hav­ing to buy a few things off Ama­zon, but the total cost was neg­li­gi­ble com­pared to what I could’ve spent buy­ing every­thing brand new from Hob­by Lob­by and the local stained glass shop.

Depend­ing on what col­or of glass you buy, it can be either super cheap or ridicu­lous­ly expen­sive. The local shop has basi­cal­ly every col­or you can imag­ine. I also man­aged to get lucky, as my aunt and uncle live very close to a stained glass fac­to­ry. My mom went to vis­it them and came back with two huge bun­dles of glass for approx­i­mate­ly 30% of what it would cost at the local shop. SCORE!

IMG 20160719 202921 e1478117196327Stained glass makes for excel­lent gifts. The cost of the sup­plies are rel­a­tive­ly low com­pared to the fin­ished piece. I can use $1 of stained glass and charge $15, $20, or even $25 for it depend­ing on the pat­tern. The biggest cost is the time involved. The more com­plex the pat­tern (either with curved edges or just lots of lit­tle pieces) dri­ves up the time which in turn dri­ves up the price. I recent­ly fin­ished a beau­ti­ful snow-cov­ered pine tree about the size of a stan­dard piece of paper. The glass was part of the Craigslist deal, but I would esti­mate it cost $5. I can only sell the fin­ished piece for $25 max, but I spent almost 15 hours worth of work on it.

Clear­ly that’s not the best use of my time.

Or is it?

Those 15 hours I spent on the tree would’ve been spent sleep­ing, play­ing video games, or trolling Red­dit. I’m not get­ting paid any mon­ey to do those things (sad­ly), so I con­sid­er it a net pos­i­tive. Not to men­tion, I’m prac­tic­ing, and build­ing my skills. If I keep this up (which I will), I can expand my skills after I retire and have more time to devote to it.

Right now I’m focused on small pieces. The nerdier, the bet­ter. My short-term goal is to sell sea­son­al items at a craft fair. My midterm goal is to go to a Com­ic Con and sell nerdy stained glass pieces. My long-term goal would be to get good enough that I can replace win­dows or cus­tom design pan­els for doors or oth­er big pieces. I’m still waf­fling on cre­at­ing an Etsy store. It’d be the best way to get my pieces out in the world, but ship­ping heavy, frag­ile stained glass pieces make me incred­i­bly ner­vous (and it’s expen­sive). If you’d like to con­tact me about poten­tial­ly mak­ing some­thing for you, shoot me a mes­sage via the con­tact form or my Face­book page.

Money details:

Mon­ey spent so far: $1525

This includes rent­ing the work­shop, all the sup­plies, antique skele­ton keys for the Har­ry Pot­ter pieces, and oth­er lit­tle odds and ends. (For instance, I had to buy a spe­cial kind of sol­der to put the key wings on the key. The key met­al did­n’t work with my nor­mal sol­der. That was a pain to fig­ure out!)

Mon­ey made so far: $30

I’ve sold two keys (both to a cowork­er), with one more on order for a friend. I hope to sell a few of the sea­son­al pieces I’ve made in the past few months, but we’ll see if I can get them made before I have to pack every­thing up for a move.

So there you have it! My side hustle/hobby has been revealed! I’ve includ­ed some more pic­tures below that did­n’t fit in the post. I’ll be sure to share my future pieces on my Insta­gram!

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What do you think? Do you have a side hus­tle or a favorite hobby?

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. It’s fun­ny, I think many nine-to-fivers need some kind of phys­i­cal activ­i­ty after star­ing at a com­put­er screen all day. For me, it’s cooking. 🙂

    Holy cow, your apart­ment has a shop space? That is freak­ing awe­some!!! Man, I can think of all the times that would have come in handy. More apart­ments should do that!

    Well, I got­ta say, your pieces look love­ly. 🙂 In my mind, hob­bies can cost mon­ey; if you get any­thing back from them at all, it’s a win. It’s great to have a prof­itable hob­by, but if it brings you joy and you’re pro­duc­ing some­thing, it’s still wonderful.
    Mrs. Picky Pinch­er recent­ly post­ed…The Picky Pinch­ers’ Octo­ber Bud­get ReportMy Profile

    Reply

    • Thanks Mrs. Picky Pinch­er! I wish I was bet­ter at cook­ing. Right now my skill lev­el is “enough so I don’t die from star­va­tion” lol!

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    • Thanks TJ. It’s a lot of fun to put them togeth­er and very sat­is­fy­ing to see them completed!

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  3. This is super cool! I am a firm believ­er that every­one should have some sort of cre­ative endeav­or on the side. Stained glass is not one that I had even con­sid­ered before, but the work you’re doing is real­ly cool and inter­est­ing. And, most impor­tant­ly, it sounds like you enjoy doing it. Your descrip­tion of the real, phys­i­cal work involved remind­ed me of Nick Offer­man talk­ing dur­ing his stand up spe­cial about his hob­by of wood­work­ing. Cre­at­ing some­thing in the phys­i­cal world is a real­ly great feeling.
    Matt @ Opti­mize Your Life recent­ly post­ed…Why Have Hous­es Got­ten More Expensive?My Profile

    Reply

    • Espe­cial­ly as my day job involves noth­ing in the real world. I like to do work where I can visu­al­ize the out­come. Hard to do for me when it does­n’t exist! Thanks for the comment 🙂

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  5. My moth­er in law did stain glass work for years as a hob­by and LOVED it. She final­ly had to give it up due to her health, but all those love­ly pieces she made still remain. I love the idea of hav­ing a side hus­tle that adds con­trast to your day job! My mom works a very phys­i­cal­ly demand­ing job, and she likes to fill out sur­veys when she gets home. She only makes a few hun­dred dol­lars from it, but it is fun for her and just uses time she would oth­er­wise scroll fb. =)
    Ms. Mon­tana recent­ly post­ed…3 Lessons after 6 months BloggingMy Profile

    Reply

    • I’m glad you’ll have memen­tos from her! Sounds like the sort of thing that remains in the fam­i­ly for ages. My mom makes quilts for every­one. Long after she’s gone, her grand­kids will have those quilts to remem­ber her by 🙂

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  6. It’s strange, I did­n’t know peo­ple even made stained glass any­more. Maybe the UK has enough already? Looks like you are enjoy­ing the process. Can you/do you share the space with oth­er people?

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    • I saw tons of it in the UK whilst I was there last month. Every­thing from doors and win­dows on hous­es to soar­ing cathe­dral heights. Some­one’s got to take care of all that!

      And yes, I could split the work­shop with some­one but I don’t. It would be nice to save some of that $150 I pay them every month!

      Reply

  7. What a won­der­ful hus­tle / hob­by! I love those pieces, espe­cial­ly the key, what a cre­ative idea!
    And thanks for the idea also. I’ve been dig­ging into my hob­by / hus­tle pos­si­bil­i­ties recent­ly which range from cake dec­o­rat­ing ( that I have been doing for­ev­er) to new stuff like pot­tery or glass blow­ing. I’m fas­ci­nat­ed with glass blow­ing, but I can see that even if I can find a class, I’m not like­ly to be able to make it a real thing. I have a feel­ing that stained glass could sat­is­fy my cre­ative glass desires. I’m going to be look­ing for classes!

    Reply

    • I would LOVE to blow glass but I’m super clum­sy. I don’t think molten glass and red hot ovens mix well with a lack of bal­ance. I don’t mind los­ing a bit of blood now and then but burns HURT and last longer. I’ll stick to stained glass for now. I’m glad I could inspire you!

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  8. Very nice! Mr. BITA’s grand­fa­ther made stained glass as a hob­by his whole life. He died last year and we inher­it­ed a few of his pieces. Stained glass is beau­ti­ful, just mag­i­cal in the right light. I love hav­ing things about the house that were made by Great Grand­pa BITA. I plan to use them as focal points for dis­cus­sions with Tod­dler BITA about her ances­try when she is a lit­tle older. 

    Also good job being patient and wait­ing to score all that good stuff off of Craigslist. I know that when I am start­ing some­thing new I am so very excit­ed about just get­ting going that I would find it real­ly hard to wait it out like you did. You got some great deals there. More than the deals, I love the fact that you are reusing some­one else’s well loved tools. There is a sense of tra­di­tion there, of pass­ing on the baton to the next gen­er­a­tion — so much nicer than new stuff from China.
    Mrs. BITA recent­ly post­ed…On the path to finan­cial inde­pen­dence: Octo­ber 2016My Profile

    Reply

    • It’s a guess­ing game at first to fig­ure out what prices the mar­ket will bear. For­tu­nate­ly for me I like those kind of games. Thanks for commenting 🙂

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    • It’s very relax­ing (except when I break the glass I need. grrrr) I don’t think I’m coör­di­nat­ed for gui­tar. It requires too much per­fec­tion for my life lol

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    • Thanks Matt! The Min­neso­ta piece was a house warm­ing gift to a friend. My favorite part is the seams are where the inter­states cut through the state (most­ly).

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  12. You go bro!
    I’m in a sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion as you and stum­bling around on my glass legs too.
    Glass work is absolute­ly fas­ci­nat­ing. Your spin of a hus­tle is unique. It’s impor­tant for a glass artist to have a niche, you’re def­i­nite­ly on the right road.
    Will anx­ious­ly be fol­low­ing your progress

    Reply

  13. I too start­ed cut­ting glass back in 1995 and just recent­ly inher­it­ed a lot of stuff from a stained­g­lass­er that passed away and daugh­ter want­ed to give it to me. I do sell in a crafty shop made up of local artists here in NC but there again I under sell a lot of stuff or make it for friends I just find it total­ly relax­ing. I too have dwin­dled down to two kit­ties and two one year old pup­pies. Cats know when and where to tread if I drop a knife or piece of glass shard pup thinks it’s a gift

    Reply

    • If I pass away keep my email and let my fam­i­ly know you would like to come gath­er up all the glass, grindrs saws and tools if not I am sure it will be trashed

      Reply

      • Or give my address to your fam­i­ly and tell them to con­tact me 🙂 hope­ful­ly that won’t be for many years!

        Reply

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