My reliance on a full time job to provide an income was really highlighted by the pandemic.
I’ve had stressful roles pre pandemic and been burnt out. But now I can experience burn out plus be infected by a deadly virus. Yay!
My healthcare job is 10 times more stressful now than ever before. I don’t have the luxury of working from home. Although our workload has increased dramatically, our revenue hasn’t. So it’s not as if we can ask for a pay rise. There is no extra money for all the extra stress.
This has been going on since 2020 – learning how to keep everyone safe, managing staff and public anxiety, implementing policies on the run, trying to access stock etc. Working was stressful and mentally draining. I slept a lot, read a lot and ate a lot of chips in 2020.
2021 was supposed to be better. It wasn’t. We endured lockdown after lockdown – 4 in total. Work alternated between really quiet (when I’d worry about being laid off) to really hectic (when I’d question if I could last another five years in the job).
We started administering Covid 19 vaccinations in August. The rules changed. All. The. Time. Needless to say, the public was confused with the messaging and what to do. We had to deal with the fall out – which included tears and rants. Some were excited of course but we copped a lot of angry people who were unhappy that they had to be double vaccinated to get a haircut.
Before the pandemic, I never questioned my reliance on my job to provide an income. But now I was nervous.
So I felt the need to create other income streams, just in case I can’t handle the job anymore or I am made redundant because of the reduced revenue.
In 2021, my other income streams are:
1. Dividends
2. Interest
3. Octopus Group Surveys
4. Cashrewards
5. Blog