by Patrice Lewis

[Originally published July 29, 2020.] It's among the most dreaded news imaginable: You've been laid off from your job. In the last few months, this scenario has played out for untold millions of people. Suddenly your financial security is gone, and everything you've worked for has been snatched away.

When most people lose their jobs, they panic. There are bills to pay, a mortgage to maintain, car payments to make. How will they survive without their job? Frantically they update their résumé and commence the often-disheartening round of answering want ads or blasting out their credentials on the internet, begging someone – anyone – to employ them.

But there are better ways.

We've experienced that dreaded pink slip, so for nearly three decades my husband and I have taken an alternate view on income. Rather than putting all our eggs in one basket and pinning our financial strategy on a single income source, we've developed a number of lower-paying part-time gigs – in other words, multiple income streams.

I call this the "many irons in the fire" method of earning a living. The idea is if one iron disappears, you have multiple other irons still sizzling in the fire and won't be left destitute. You can then concentrate on honing those other irons into larger producers, either until such time as you find another "primary" job, or decide to permanently shift into having multiple part-time jobs.