The absolute best way to create extra income is to pursue something you love. For this reason, I’m a fan of turning a hobby into a business.
Here are some proven ideas or things I’ve come across that people do to make money. Notice – none of these are theoretical options. I’ve either done them, or someone close to me has done them.
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Organize Travel Tours
A friend from my hometown loves to travel.
He decided to open a small business that does travel arrangements for groups. He charters a bus, makes accommodation bookings, purchases group tickets, and goes along as a guide. After taking a few months to get into the market, he found that he was easily able to cut his full-time job back to part time. He now loves the variety of doing both jobs half time.
As the Baby Boomers continue to age, retire, and travel, there are some great opportunities in this field.
If you live close to a popular tourist destination, you could easily start a blog and offer some type of personalized tours and travel services to the mass of visitors.
Services For The Elderly
I spent about three years working in an apartment for seniors. Many of the residents there paid top dollar for someone to do a service they were not interested in doing. Because of their age, they had a unique mindset regarding money. Why, they asked, should I do something I don’t like when I have the money to pay someone else to do it? The money isn’t going to be any good for me in a few years.
Here are some possible service options to help get you thinking creatively.
- Companionship
- Oil changes and car wash
- Taking car for safety inspection
- Basic computer tutoring
- Hobby related assistance and instruction – teach an instrument, scrapbooking lessons, arts and crafts.
If you are interested in something in this field, I would visit a local seniors residence and ask some of the staff about the residents’ greatest needs.
Sell Items On Ebay
I went through a stage in my life where I would go to a store and see a great deal. It could be Brita Water filters for $1.00 each, life jackets for $5.00, or backpacks for $4.00. I would say to myself, “That is an awesome deal, but I don’t have any need for that product.”
After a few years of passing up these amazing deals I started purchasing highly discounted items and selling them on Ebay. Just because I didn’t need the product didn’t mean someone else wouldn’t buy the product.
From there, I started expanding things by searching second hand stores and garage sales for good items to sell online. If you have an iPhone, you can just search for an item online to see what it is selling for. Buy items that have a good chance of selling.
Minimize the Risk: In our case, my wife and I agreed on a set amount that we would use to initially fund the purchases. Say you agree on $500. Until the business starts pulling its own weight, you can never have more than $500 in inventory, thus limiting your risk exposure to $500.
Here’s some money making (and legitimate) ebay strategies.
Snow And Lawn Care Services
OK. I’ll be the first to admit it. This doesn’t sound flashy or exciting. In fact, it is quite a common way of making extra income (second only to the lemonade stand). However, I think that these two jobs still present some great ways to make a little extra income.
The beauty of these jobs is they require almost nothing to start – you probably already have all the equipment at home. To start a business doing lawn care, just start telling people you know about your service. Contact some neighbors and always stop and give someone a business card when they are shoveling snow or cutting grass.
Freelance Writing
Last year I become an accidental freelance writer.
I come from a math family. I have terrible grammars (I did that on purpose – grammars). And so, I never had any intention to become a freelance writer. However, I’m now making a decent side income by writing articles and selling them to other bloggers.
I’ve done paid writing for five different websites, and in each of those cases the work came to me. Who would have thought that someone would pay me to write an article? If you like writing, there is a good chance you could be earning a side income as a freelance writer.
How do you get started as a freelance writer?
Here’s what I did. I started writing on my blog, and then the requests came to me. If you look around online, there are blogs that advertise their willingness to pay for articles. On average, you can expect anywhere from $10-$50 per article.
All of these jobs are geared more to the entrepreneur. If, however, you are looking for a traditional part time job, here is a list of 50 part time jobs.
Do any of these ideas sound like something you might want to try? Have your own money making idea? Tell us about it in the comments!
If you happened to have a plow for your truck in the southeast this year you could have made a killing as much snow as we have gotten. Supply and demand was in effect and the demand for snow clearing far outweighed the supply of plows.
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If you can get $50/article for freelancing as a writer, that’s not bad!
Hmmmm let’s see…. wow, given I average 20 articles a month, that’s a handy $1,000 bucks! In fact, that might be a good benchmark for all bloggers. $500-1,000 in online income if you write 20 articles a month.
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Although I would wager that $50 an article would be on the high end, and only for more experienced writers. I’d guess the average per article is a bit lower than that. But still, it’s a nice chunk of extra change every month!
the idea with seniors is a great one. The lawn care and snow removal can be hard work, but it does pay. It’s money. :) That extra money can help a person pay off debt
Seniors also often need notary services. I am commissioned as a notary here in WA, and when I was laid off in 2008 I took a gamble and started a full-time mobile notary service. It keeps me busy and is great income. I got additional training on how to close real estate transactions (I wouldn’t advise anyone to try to do it without that training) but if you’re already a commissioned notary or can become commissioned easily in your state, the “odd job” general notary work is great extra income.
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great suggestion, thanks for adding your input!
Hmmm, I think I need to get a net book so I can write some articles while I cut and deliver pizzas. I could also install a mower deck and plow on my Cobalt to provide other services to my pizza customers. The sky’s the limit :-)
All kinding aside, these are great ideas. Working a side hustle is the quickest way out of debt and the quickest way to wealth. Great job.
Jeff´s last post ..Net Worth – February 2010
You know better than most Jeff just what it takes to get out of debt. By the way, could i have a pepperoni with extra cheese? :) I’m a big tipper!
These are all great suggestions. For some people, they may want to just interview others who have side gigs and ask them how they found “it”. That may also put them on the right direction.
Doing the freelance writing thing to me is an offshoot of what almost anyone can do to generate extra income.
Find your passion/talent, transform it into a commodity that other people are willing to pay for, and market it.
Its oversimplified, but true
We became distributors for a greeting card and gift company. We are having a lot of fun, and the side income is very comforting these days. We hope this will be our full time career in the future.
@Kyle
You are exactly right. The problem with snow stuff is that it depends on the amount of snow you get. Big snow = big money. But, less snow is bad for business.
@FS + Peter
Hey, I should have been clearer that those numbers are the averages I’ve seen across industries (specifically on Problogger forums). The highest I’ve seen publically advertised was $100 per article.
I didn’t actually put my average. As for the average for someone in the pf niche I’d say to expect around $20 per article. This is typically the starting pay I’ve seen. In fact, someone could apply to be a staff writer at Moolanomy and start at $20.00 per article with some extra bonuses for performance.
It would be really, really hard to find people who are paying $50 per article in our niche. If you find one either the site owner is extremely generous or your are a very talented writer.
@Financialbondage.
There is are so many ways to help seniors and make a decent income. I call that win/win.
@Jessica
Thanks for the great idea. What a neat way to help people and make a living.
@Jeff
Now you’re thinking – how could a person combine all of these jobs. Though rare, there are some jobs that actually help you with another. When I worked as a secretary I had the evening shift and I was basically just on call. I used that time to do all my graduate school homework. If I was there today I could write all my articles at work.
@Neal
That is a great idea – to interview people. That’s why in this list I only wanted to put ideas I know can work. So many people get a great idea, chase the idea, and end up broke. The safe bet is to do something that you already know can work. Find out what other people are doing to help you come up with some good ideas.
@David
Finding your talent/passion is the key. Those who pay for your services get a better product and you have more fun along the way.
@Gary
Thanks for the idea.
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Last summer garbage collectors in Toronto went on a very long strike, my brother (a entrepreneur by nature) took quick advantage of the situation by setting up his own private temporary garbage collection services. Start up cost was about $700 and they made over $25,000 in about 3 months. Paid tuition for 3 years.
@Ray
I was just south of Toronto (Beamsville) for about two of those months. If I had been on the ball I guess I could have made some extra cash!
I guess taking advantage of unique situations is a great way to earn some extra income.
A friend of my was able to make some extra money writing short scripts for a production agency. They ranged from 10-30 pages, and it was basically creative story telling. They gave him the premise, he made up the rest. Easy money considering all you have to do is come up with some stories!
I also bought the Blueprint E-book and look forward applying the concepts!
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Interesting idea, thanks for contributing!
Thanks for buying the e-book!
I use http://www.loanables.com to make extra money. I list things for rent that I have stored in my garage or attic (and don’t use that often). I’ve rented out my tent, camping stove, bikes, etc. It’s easy and helps me recover some of the investment on those expensive items that are used only every so often.