You may have no­ticed it but did not la­bel it. It has a name: a sim­ple but pro­found­ly im­por­tant con­cept that could de­ter­mine your en­joy­ment of life. The af­ford­abil­i­ty cri­sis is im­per­cep­ti­ble, eat­ing away at your pur­chas­ing pow­er slow­ly and re­duc­ing your abil­i­ty to take care of the next gen­er­a­tion. What can you do? Since I have been writ­ing a col­umn on en­tre­pre­neur­ship, you guessed it, I have a so­lu­tion that match­es my fo­cus.

The af­ford­abil­i­ty cri­sis can be caused not on­ly by the ris­ing in­fla­tion. In­fla­tion has been in the low sin­gle dig­its for a decade, so keep­ing up should not have been dif­fi­cult. While in­fla­tion mea­sures the gen­er­al lev­el of prices, some com­po­nents af­fect us more than oth­ers. If you are a ma­ture per­son, med­ical bills can eat away at your in­come in a dis­pro­por­tion­ate way. In ad­di­tion, we need a greater va­ri­ety of stuff; these new con­sumer items (or­gan­ic foods, elec­tron­ic gad­gets) make mat­ters worse.

Your in­come al­so may not have risen more than the in­fla­tion rate, even with dual fam­i­ly in­comes. While you can cut ex­pens­es so much, there is a lim­it. The way out of the abyss is to boost your in­come, and if you’re a salaried em­ploy­ee, it seems un­like­ly with low pay­check in­creas­es. The good news is that we live in the gold­en age of en­tre­pre­neur­ship, and you and your fam­i­ly al­ready have most of the re­sources to start an in­come-gen­er­at­ing en­ter­prise. This can help you feel ca­pa­ble and mo­ti­vat­ed to take con­trol of your fi­nan­cial fu­ture.

Don’t think about one ca­reer at a time, that’s like hav­ing all your eggs in one bas­ket—a very bad fi­nan­cial strat­e­gy. Think you have a port­fo­lio of ca­reers, one that is dy­nam­ic and has par­a­digm shifts as things change. A ca­reer port­fo­lio is not on­ly a di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion of risk but al­so a strat­e­gy for in­come spread, as with a mu­tu­al fund.

You are like the fund man­ag­er, tasked with op­ti­mis­ing in­come and risk. Your cap­i­tal is not on­ly your tan­gi­ble as­sets but al­so your tal­ents and ex­per­tise, which you may over­look. You should al­so fo­cus not on­ly on net worth but al­so on im­prov­ing your so­cioe­mo­tion­al wealth—en­joy what you do. Start­ing a ven­ture or side hus­tle can boost your self-worth and ac­tu­al­i­sa­tion.

First, you should do a self-as­sess­ment and ask an ex­ter­nal to de­scribe what you are good at and what ar­eas you need help with. Con­sid­er chal­lenges such as time con­straints, le­gal re­quire­ments, or mar­ket de­mand that might af­fect your side hus­tle’s suc­cess. This analy­sis may re­veal any blind spots in your think­ing and help you pre­pare ef­fec­tive­ly. Here are some side hus­tles that you can ex­plore:

Skills you use al­ready: You may be ex­cep­tion­al­ly good at do­ing fi­nan­cial analy­sis and nev­er thought that you could start a per­son­al or or­gan­i­sa­tion­al con­sul­tan­cy busi­ness. You may be a good in-house graph­ic de­sign­er or so­cial me­dia strate­gist and have no­ticed that SMEs of­ten lack a strong dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy. Maybe you are a good blog­ger or con­tent cre­ator; this can make you an in-de­mand so­cial me­dia con­sul­tant.

On­line tu­tor­ing: You no­tice the lessons econ­o­my is grow­ing as the pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem de­clines. All you need to do is check the ex­am fail­ure rates and pitch your sup­port idea. It can al­so be men­tor­ship or one-on-one in­ter­ven­tions to im­prove test prepa­ra­tion.

Be­yond acad­e­mia, it can be prepar­ing ex­ec­u­tives for lan­guage flu­en­cy, or ca­reer coach­ing for mid­dle man­agers who need guid­ance on up­ward mo­bil­i­ty. Skills train­ing in ar­eas of pub­lic speak­ing, plant prop­a­ga­tion, and well­ness liv­ing.

Ser­vice peo­ple need: Our res­i­dences are filled with ma­chines and gad­gets that make life con­ve­nient, but when they break down, the down­time can be painful­ly dis­rup­tive. You can take away the stress of bathing with a buck­et when your wa­ter pump fails, or when your wash­ing ma­chine goes ka­put. Our plumb­ing is most­ly PVC pipes, which can break eas­i­ly. You can be the rapid de­ploy­ment force, ready to work at any time. Dig­i­tal prod­ucts: The ad­van­tage of in­tan­gi­ble of­fer­ings is that they do not need stor­age, are un­af­fect­ed by im­port du­ties or forex short­ages. They are cre­at­ed in your en­tre­pre­neur­ial mind and are of­ten per­ceived as ex­per­tise that on­ly you pos­sess. The man on the street will call you a “crack shot”. How­ev­er, it took you years to de­vel­op this tal­ent for writ­ing newslet­ters, do­ing pod­casts, cre­at­ing eBooks, and de­sign­ing web­sites.

Re­pairs and re­selling: Of­ten, peo­ple toss out items that have not reached their ser­vice life. You know about this as you are a do-it-your­selfer. One man’s trash is an­oth­er’s trea­sure! You may not want to be a junk man like in the TV se­ries Stan­ford and Son, you will re­fur­bish these and ex­tend their lives. Or you could use the Bam­boo car strat­e­gy, buy the whole and sell parts from it; the sum of the parts is greater than the whole!

Do­ing a one-off per­for­mance, as in the mu­sic in­dus­try, gigs can be a won­der­ful way to dip a toe in the wa­ters of en­tre­pre­neur­ship. It is all about ex­per­i­men­ta­tion, try­ing some­thing small, col­lect­ing da­ta and re­fin­ing. Do not get ex­cit­ed about ear­ly re­sults, as it could be a flash in the pan. Progress beats per­fec­tion.

Nev­er un­der­es­ti­mate the re­sources you have at home: a PC, in­ter­net, an ex­tra room, and fam­i­ly tal­ent; they can be your lever­age for greater things. An­oth­er tip: do not over­build, wait for da­ta, and al­ways be on the look­out for the un­ex­pect­ed; it may hold sub­lim­i­nal op­por­tu­ni­ties.

The af­ford­abil­i­ty cri­sis may not be a threat af­ter all. You can turn it in­to an op­por­tu­ni­ty to for­ti­fy your fi­nances and en­hance your en­joy­ment of life. There is al­ways a sil­ver lin­ing in dark clouds, and as­pir­ing en­tre­pre­neurs of­ten start when things are chal­leng­ing and ben­e­fit from shift­ing pri­or­i­ties. You can shift your par­a­digm with a side hus­tle.