Everyone wants to meet their expenses without having to cut down on their daily needs and wants. While the daily life demand cycle grows, the need to earn more money comes naturally. That’s where the concept of side hustle or moonlighting comes in. But what is moonlighting, and what could it really mean for kids and teens?
In this article, we will explore all the possible avenues related to earning more money by doing side jobs through various means to earn extra money. We will also explore various ways of earning extra income and its possible effects on kids. You will also know how to carefully supervise your kids for safety while they try to do side jobs.
What is moonlighting?
The term “moonlighting” refers to the act of doing some tasks that help a person earn extra income that is in addition to that person’s regular job or work routine. You will understand this word’s meaning if you think of “moon” and “lighting” separately. The moon works at night when people are usually sleeping, but it gives the benefit in terms of lighting. So, the moonlighting actually hints towards working for an extra benefit by doing work in an unusual routine.
Moonlighting especially becomes relevant when a person needs more money, but at the same time, he or she cannot leave his or her regular job. But what convinces people to do the extra work, and what motivates them to compromise their relaxation or comfort zone? For students, this additional income could cover their school fees or other expenses. Teens could be doing moonlighting just to have enough money to travel or spend at parties. For adults, it could mean meeting their kitchen or family expenses. Everyone has different objectives behind doing extra work for additional income.
Let’s divide the common motivations that convince a person to start moonlighting:
- Extra income: People may do moonlighting to have extra income to meet their daily life expenses. If a person’s main job is not paying off well enough to meet a person’s expenses, he or she would opt for moonlighting.
- Career growth: People also do moonlighting to enhance their skills and expertise to secure growth in their careers. An employee may want to earn extra money to attend a course to get a promotion on his or her job.
- Family support: Some people have additional family commitments, and the salary is not good enough to support their family members. That’s why a person may opt to start moonlighting until the income is good enough to support the whole family.
- Passion projects: Some people are passionate about certain projects. As projects require some investments to kickstart, that motivates them to do extra work to earn money to finance their passion projects.
Types of moonlighting
Moonlighting may take various forms and shapes. People can do additional lap work in their current offices. They can also do the tasks of their colleagues in exchange for extra income. It can also be freelancing online work.
Let’s explore various types of moonlighting in the section below:
Part-time side jobs: People usually do moonlighting by doing side jobs. These part-time jobs act as their secondary source of income. This type of moonlighting usually involves a person doing extra work after normal working hours. From a legal and ethical point of view, such part-time jobs should not affect the regular job that the employee works.
Freelancing/gig economy work: If a person has a specific skill, they can sell it online to get paid for the work they do for their clients. These clients can come via online freelancing platforms, like Fiverr and Upwork. You just have to post your skills and apply for the jobs that are relevant to your skills. The client hires you after discussing the required job. You submit your work to the client and get paid in return. This simple gig or service-based economy has turned out to be a fruitful industry worth millions of dollars. You just have to take your share from that economy by doing online work, also called online freelancing. In some cases, you can also get a local client, who may make you do the physical job.
Online work: The online industry is booming day by day. People are taking more and more interest in doing online trading of stocks or cryptocurrency. Some people also play games to earn extra money. These online games pay you well if you win after certain competitions. In other cases, people may also start giving online tuitions to smaller classes in general or for specialized subjects. You may have also noticed people creating content on various platforms, including social media (YouTube, Instagram, TikTok) and websites (blogging or paid ghostwriting). Online work projects, like affiliate marketing and graphic design, are also good options.
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Pros and cons of moonlighting
Moonlighting is a good option for people who want quick side income. But it still has some advantages and disadvantages. Let’s go through them briefly below to have a clear picture of this side hustle practice:
Advantages:
While there can be many advantages of moonlighting activities, let’s discuss the most important ones below:
Extra earnings:
The obvious benefit of moonlighting is the extra income. That’s the light of the moon you get when you do extra work. The additional income you get by moving the extra mile rewards you in terms of money. The most common practice of side hustles is to get payments earlier than regular jobs. While the usual salary cycle is set on a monthly basis, you can set the payments for task-based activities on a weekly or even a daily basis.
Skill development:
Many side jobs a person does are usually outside of the daily work scope. A banker giving online tuition after working hours makes him do the work outside of his regular routine. That contributes to his additional skill development. Giving more tuition will give him the opportunity to excel in this field. Such side activities also break the monotonous routine and give a person a different environment, which he can enjoy while still earning more money.
Personal fulfillment:
Most people usually choose a side job in the field in which they are most comfortable. It can be a work that a person enjoys doing even after their regular job routine. That’s one of the biggest motivation factors that keeps a person moving forward. So, the side hustles provide a sense of personal fulfillment to people involved in moonlighting activities. A person can be a writer by heart, but he may be doing a sales job that he doesn’t like much. But if he chooses to write articles as a side job, it would give him internal satisfaction.
Disadvantages:
In addition to the benefits, you will find some potential downsides of the decisions you make in your life. Let’s discuss some of the possible disadvantages of moonlighting below:
Risk of burnout:
There’s a limit to doing work in a specified time. Most regular jobs already consume the energy a person possesses for doing a job actively. If you do a side job on a daily basis after your job, you may get tired, and the risk of having a burnout will start becoming imminent. So, you have to choose a middle ground in which you are able to manage both jobs without having negative effects on you or your health.
Disrupted work-life balance:
We all have only 24 hours in a day. If you dedicate a specified portion of your time to your regular and part-time jobs, it will impact your personal life as well. Being a workaholic may sound fancy, but it has negative effects on you. Work should be a part of your life, but life itself is bigger than work. You must balance both to maintain a healthy lifestyle. That’s the balance you are most likely to disrupt if you’re regularly involved in moonlighting activities.
Conflict of interest:
Your normal full-time job requires your full attention most of the time. But if you also have to dedicate some time out of your regular duty hours to your side job, it would bring a conflict of interest in your current job. If you have to talk to your other client for your side hustle during your job timings or do some work during your office hours, it may bring problems in your full-time job. The case may become severe if your company’s management comes to know about your moonlighting activities.
Safety risks for teens:
As the mental and physical attributes are evolving during the teenage years, parents need to take special care of their teen kids if they are doing some online work for additional earnings. Parents must keep an eye on their kids to ensure that they are not involved in doing something unsafe or illegal just to get additional income. So, parents must come up with a strategy to supervise their kids at all times. But what’s the best possible way to do it? In this scenario, using a parental control app like FlashGet Kids is pertinent. This app gives you all the updates about your kids’ activities right in your own phone, so that you know what online earning activities your teens are involved in.
The rise of moonlighting among teens
Moonlighting is extremely popular among teens. The idea of being financially independent motivates teens to get more and more involved in doing side hustles. Teens have increasingly started working part-time after the possibility of online income. Whether it is about selling services as freelancers or creating content themselves, there is a growing tendency for teens to participate in online earning activities. Some teens also aim to become millionaires by launching their online business ideas to become the next generation tech leaders. But are all the activities safe for teens?
As we mentioned earlier, there is always a huge risk of getting misled or being involved in unsafe acts while trying to work online. According to a 2024 study report by Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI) about the Impact of Digital Life on Overall Wellbeing, 41% teens trying to earn online encountered scams or fake jobs. Let’s discuss some of the potential risks associated with online earring, especially targeted towards teens:
Fraud or scam:
Teens trying to earn online may become victims of online fraud and scams. Fake online job posters may appear to be legitimate clients and may ask teens about their personal details. They may also ask them to click a few suspicious or spammy links. If teens get trapped with such baits, they may land up on unsafe websites that risk their personal data. Such fraudulent activities or scams may also cause legal trouble to teens for being involved in illegitimate activities. A fake client may ask you to fill a form by pretending that filling the form is the company’s requirement before hiring. In reality, that form or link could expose all of your laptop or PC’s data to the scammer.
Exposure to inappropriate contacts:
Teens may also get in contact with inappropriate content unwillingly. That’s because we usually have no idea about the whereabouts and background details of other persons in the online world. Suspicious or inappropriate people may pretend to be valid clients and they usually offer jobs in a way that looks legal and appropriate. But in fact, such contact may have inappropriate backgrounds and may get teens trapped into trouble by involving them in illegal activities.
Financial exploitations:
Another common scam related to online earring may cause teens to be the victims of financial exploitation. The scammer, pretending to be a client, may ask you to submit a minimal amount as a security deposit. They may mention that the security amount is refundable after the project’s completion. But in fact, teens who submit that amount will never hear back again from that scammer. This scam usually works on new freelancers who are beginners in this field and are desperate to start their career in the online field. Scammers already have an idea about this, and they offer new freelancers work and good feedback to start their careers.
Due to the above-mentioned risks, it is essential for parents to have careful supervision of their kids and teens so that they don’t fall prey to such scams.
How can parents detect and prevent unsafe online moonlighting?
Parents have the primary responsibility of protecting their kids from being involved in unsafe acts. While there are many legit ways to start moonlighting or online earning activities, it is still full of risks that may put your kids in danger. But how would you know if your kids are even involved in online earning activities in the first place? You may never know what they are doing on their phones until they share everything with you. But kids, especially teens, may hide their online earning ventures from their parents.
If you want to know whether your kids are doing online work, you have to take a closer look at their daily activities. You have to check if they are playing more games than usual or if they are involved in doing some other project-related work (writing, typing, virtual assistance, or content creation). If you see them getting more involved with their phones or PCs, you should start checking if they’re involved in moonlighting.
Other signs may include their financial independence. If your kids have stopped asking for their pocket money and they are more involved with their devices, it could hint at their activities with online earning. At this point, parents must confirm if their kids are earning through legitimate ways while keeping their studies unaffected.
But how to check if your kids are doing online jobs? Teens usually don’t like to compromise their privacy. So, checking their phones physically may not be a feasible option. That’s the situation when you must consider using third-party parental control apps like FlashGet Kids.
FlashGet Kids helps parents detect and prevent unsafe online content
FlashGet Kids helps parents protect their kids while they’re involved in online activities. You just have to install the kids’ version of this app on your kid’s phone and the parents’ version on your own phone. After successful configuration and synchronization of both apps, you will start receiving all the information from your kid’s phone to your own phone.
The following are some of the ways this app might help parents ensure their kids’ safety:
App & screen time management: FlashGet Kids helps you limit the usage of certain apps that you don’t want your kids to use. You can also limit your kids’ overall screen time and set rules when they can use their phones, along with the duration of usage.
App blocker for inappropriate gig apps/platforms: You can use FlashGet Kids app to prevent certain apps from being installed. So, if they are doing some work secretly on suspicious apps, you will have all the information, and you can take immediate action to prevent your kids from doing unsafe activities. Similarly, you can also block platforms that are inappropriate for your kids to use.
Real-time alerts for suspicious content or contacts: You will start getting live updates from your kids’ phones. What apps they are using and how much time they spend on doing certain activities on their phones. You can directly get instant notifications on your phone about all of their activities. So, if they are getting in contact with suspicious people or they are using inappropriate or illegitimate apps for online earning, you will immediately come to know.
Conclusion
Moonlighting is becoming more and more famous in today’s online world. People from different countries interact with each other to do projects in return for money. Due to its immediate payment practices and additional income, moonlighting has taken on an important role for adults and teens alike. That’s why parents must understand the core ideas and ways for online learning. With the FlashGet Kids app, you can ensure your kids are doing safe activities. Families can balance their kids’ personal and professional lives using this app.
