Ruben Seyde has refereed soccer as a side hustle for years — and even used his earnings to pay his way through college. Here are his top tips for how to get started. We want to help you make more informed decisions. Some links on this page — clearly marked — may take you to a partner website and may result in us earning a referral commission. For more information, see How We Make Money.
If the World Cup has you feeling inspired, know that there’s a way to get paid to watch sports: become the referee.
Ruben Seyde has worked as a referee since he was 11 years old. “It was my first source of ‘real’ money,” he says. The entrepreneur, who has refereed youth, amateur, NCAA, and semi-professional soccer matches, says the side hustle is a great way to get exercise and stay connected to a sport he loves. Seyde was able to work at this young age under the same child labor laws that allow kids to have paper routes or act in movies or TV shows.
Refereeing games is a side hustle Seyde used to pay for college and continued into his adult years. It softened the blow and generated residual income when Seyde decided to quit his job in order to start his business. As more Americans grapple with an inflation -induced higher cost of living, having a side hustle that is connected to an industry you love is an increasingly popular solution.
If getting paid to referee games sounds like something you could see yourself doing, here’s how it works. Weekly commentary from our senior editor on how to make money online, side hustles, and pursuing financial independence. The Side Hustle Paid His Way Through College
Seyde has always felt pulled toward side hustles . Becoming a referee and making $500 a weekend was the opportunity he was looking for to make money consistently.
“Eleven was the age at which you could sign up for the class and get certified, so my father took me to do it,” he says. “I passed the test and started officiating for 10 hours every Saturday and Sunday. At eleven, I didn’t need to ask my parents for money for anything — it was great.”
During his junior year of high school, Seyde says he started to take his side hustle more seriously. He took classes to learn how to get better at refereeing, listened to monthly seminars from professional referees sharing how to be better, and changed his wellness routine to become healthier and build up the endurance needed for soccer. His father, who had also been a referee, helped him develop his skills, and talked to Seyde about making sure he was saving a portion of his earnings for emergencies , college, and investing for the future.
“I went to college, and I continued to referee as a side hustle,” says Seyde. “Instead of going out partying on weekends and doing what typical college people do, I would work every single weekend to referee and continue making $500. That money ultimately helped pay for my tuition and everything I needed, like food and housing, while attending Boston University.” Use Your Side Hustle to Keep Career Options Open
Seyde graduated college in 2018 and got a job as a paralegal. He did both the job and side hustle until 2020, when he decided to quit his 9-to-5 to pursue starting a cannabis business . During the two years that he juggled both jobs, he set aside everything from the side hustle to build his emergency fund and business startup sinking fund . He says his side hustle earnings helped form the initial business investment, as he didn’t want to take out loans , and taught him good savings habits.
“Very few people have parents who taught them about money, in large part because most of their parents weren’t taught about money,” says Beau Henderson , a retirement specialist and CEO of Rich Life Advisors . “I deal with retirement planning, and can say first-hand a lot of struggles people are dealing with in their 50s and 60s could have been avoided if they were taught financial literacy when they still had time and the power of compounding interest on their side.” Henderson says that an alarming number of people have little or no savings for retirement , and that some of this distress can be avoided in future generationals via personal finance literacy.
Starting a cannabis business means going through a […]
source I Get Paid $1,500 a Month to Referee Soccer. How My Side Hustle Paid for College
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