Ditching the nine to five: What's your side hustle?

These days it seems like everyone’s got a side hustle they’re working on, be it a podcast, blog, start-up or app. They are generally the first step towards ditching a traditional nine-to-five job and becoming your own boss.

But many are generating little or no income – some with scant intention of doing so.

Freelance writer Madeleine Dore is an example of the movement, as the creator of popular website .

“I was unemployed and felt pretty dismal having just come back from an exciting year studying abroad in Denmark,” Dore says about starting the website as a university graduate in 2014.

“Back in Australia, I was unable to find work as a journalist, while friends around me were making leaps and bounds in their newly forged careers.”

Dore created Extraordinary Routines as a platform to help document high-profile people’s daily lives (academic Susan Carland, artist Bill Henson and businesswoman Zoe Foster Blake among them), often revealing insightful musings – on career, health, friendship, spirituality and family, for example.

Within a few months of launching the site, Dore went on to land a job as the deputy editor of industry website ArtsHub. Recently, Dore started another venture–, which hosts free events designed for other creative types and entrepreneurs to work on their ideas.

While generating only modest income, Dore says her side projects are providing numerous other opportunities.

Wilhelmina Ford is another side project devotee and founder of website, which connects Australian single parents looking to “share the load” financially and emotionally.

“They share the load by sharing a home which halves rent, everyday expenses, household duties and creates a support system and friendship under one roof,” Ford says.

She hopes that the site will eventually become a sustainable not-for-profit organisation able to be partly automated and managed by a team.