> Just like everyone else, I had periods of feast and periods of famine. The answer is to have a buffer. Think of it like a queue. You are pulling things off t

> Just like everyone else, I had periods of feast and periods of famine. The answer is to have a buffer. Think of it like a queue. You are pulling things off the queue at some rate with some variation, and stuff is arriving at the far end of the queue with hopefully a slightly higher rate but with much higher variation. In order to always have queue you can pull from, you need a buffer in the queue big enough to handle the input variations. Which is a way of saying, having however many months of living expenses in the bank (six to twelve months, usually). Spend money you have already earned at or below the rate that you are currently earning it. Is having another income stream that makes regular money worth it? It depends. We can assume that it makes less money than your irregular income or otherwise deprives you of some benefit or need, otherwise you would ditch your irregular income and do just that. In that case it's purely about how much reducing the volatility of your income stream is worth.