There is a LOT of talk these days about creating a “side hustle” to boost your income. A side hustle is nothing more that what folks used to call a “second job”.

Common examples of a modern side hustle are:

Uber/Lyft/Doordash driving, buying and selling on sites like eBay and Amazon, renting out a room in your home, getting paid to review products, etc.

The reason these are popular as opposed to the traditional part time job is that they allow you to work on your own schedule and do as little or as much as you want. While I admire the effort to add to your income and thus improve your financial situation, the downside is that they ALL require some level of administration to make certain you are complying with various laws involving licensing and taxing. If you attempt to “hustle” your way around these, you may find yourself in a lot of trouble.

It is advisable to at least discuss your “side hustle” with a professional who can advise you on such implications.

You’ve likely seen all kinds of information related to the above telling you that you will never have enough. A common calculation is that you need a million dollars so at 8% you will generate $80,000 per year and combined with social security you “might” just scrape by.

Rather than take an approach which suggests simply piling up all the cash that you can, it is often more productive to take a look at your expected expenses assuming no debt and no kids. It is often a surprise to folks how little they actually “need” in retirement with those factors eliminated.

Thus, your very first goal should be to enter retirement entirely debt free (the exception to this would be income producing properties where someone else is actually paying the debt). Many people spend their working years with more than 50% of their income going towards debt (mortgage, cars, credit cards, student loans, etc.). If that were eliminated from the equation suddenly you are in an entirely different financial situation.

Thus, while most financial planners say you need 80% of your income in retirement, the actual number may be FAR less if you can eliminate all debt. Actual income needed in retirement is generally much lower (around 50% in some studies).

That’s a rather big revelation. For a working couple making 100K per year, if you will only need 50k in retirement, combined social security (at full retirement) may cover the bulk of that load and the amount you need to supplement that income in retirement becomes far more realistic.

Most retirement scenarios out there are designed to scare people whereas taking a realistic look at your retirement can provide you some comfort if you feel that you are a little behind in saving for it.

I have come across literally hundreds of various Tictok’s, Reels, etc. that make the above astounding claim. Just run out and and form an LLC and you will save money.

I’m here to tell you that forming an LLC will not save you one dime in taxes and you will simply incur expenses to set it up and keep it registered. No, you can’t simply set up an LLC and write off your car. That’s called tax fraud.

They also claim that you can use the LLC to get a business line and avoid using personal credit? That would be great if it actually worked. I don’t know of any lenders who offer business lines of credit just because you set up an LLC.

The final claim is that the LLC provides absolute limited liability protection. This is true ONLY if someone sues ONLY the LLC. If they sue you as the owner, it provides you NO protection whatsoever. Imagine if you own stock in Tesla and someone sues Tesla. You have limited liability to the extent of your investment in Tesla. If someone sues you personally, they can simply take your Tesla investment along with everything else. An LLC is lousy liability protection and something like an umbrella insurance policy is likely a much better option.

What an LLC IS good for is creating anonymity. Holding your rental property in the name of an LLC rather than your own can make it difficult for someone to find out that you own it.

The internet is great for the amount of information provided. It is also great for providing really bad information.