Earn more money on vacation?

[MVal]

Hey, I have a ton of vacation time to take at work. In addition to a regular, do-nothing week, I would also like to use some of my time to make extra cash. I mean, how awesome is it to get paid while you're not at work and then also be making more money at the same time? But what to do? I would love to do one of those farm-stay things where you work on a farm for a week, but it seems mostly you just come out even on those since your only compensation is free room and board. That's great, but I'm really hoping to use my time off to generate extra income.

Any ideas?

[Gone Fishing]

Know anyone rehabbing a house?

[MVal]

Hmmm, no, but my uncle a couple hours away has a real estate business. He owns several rental houses and perhaps he could use a hand with something. I don't have any mechanical or carpentry knowledge, but I'd be willing to learn.

Maybe I'll ask him if he could rustle up some hustle for me one of these days.

[Gone Fishing]

Pay is not usually great but you could also look into day labor outfits in your area. 

Probably not much fun, but I bet if you spent your time studying up on personal income taxes, you could probably "make" far more over time than you could possibly bring in over a few days.

[MVal]

Pay is not usually great but you could also look into day labor outfits in your area. 

Probably not much fun, but I bet if you spent your time studying up on personal income taxes, you could probably "make" far more over time than you could possibly bring in over a few days.

What do you mean by studying personal income taxes?

[johnny847]

Pay is not usually great but you could also look into day labor outfits in your area. 

Probably not much fun, but I bet if you spent your time studying up on personal income taxes, you could probably "make" far more over time than you could possibly bring in over a few days.

What do you mean by studying personal income taxes?

I believe So Close means studying your tax situation to see if you can lower your taxes for the year.

If you can go on a cheap vacation and rent out your house via AirBnB, you could make money.


Side note: I have made money on vacation before, but I cheated. I am a grad student and can only log 40 hours of work a week on a biweekly pay period. I went on a 12 day vacation that straddled two pay periods. Hence I was able to work 40 hours in both pay periods, losing no wages.
I stayed with family for the Korea part of my trip (5 days), and kept expenses low in Japan. I incurred $670 in expenses after taking into account cc bonuses. But I made $800 in the end because my relatives gave me monetary gifts.

[sleepyguy]

If it's a "staycation" I try to do things that don't directly "make" money but allow me to not spend money in the future.  It's ALWAYS things I don't mind doing too much... if I dread it, it goes to a pro/contractor or what not.  It's also nice to do things and learn a trick or two... that you can do later in future houses and such.

- built a fence
- repaired sections of a roof (I would not do this on a 2 or 3 story house, or a high pitched roof, luckily I like bungalows)
- rebuilt kitchen and washrooms
- update electrical (not main junction... sockets, switches, etc)
- low voltage wire entire house (cat3, cat5, coax, etc)

So pretty basic stuff, I looking to learn more about car repair now as that is an area I'm just TERRIBLE in.

Now in terms of direct earnings while on vacation, I would say the ONLY thing I do would be poker... but those can be loses as well :)

[StartingEarly]

Are you open at all to just cashing out some of your vacation? It sounds like you have so much that you're not planning on using it all. Some employers will allow you to just cash it out as long as you use enough of it, typically two weeks a year. The rest you should be able to cash.

[Kaspian]

Don't try this when visiting other countries or they'll boot you out for not having proper work permits.  I've had 3 friends booted from Canada for not having work permits and taking up jobs here.  One girl came to work at a weekend convention and two hitchhiker friends decided they could make a few extra spending bucks by picking fruit in the Okanagan Valley. 

Not sure if it's the same in US with states, but declaring income at tax time from different provinces here I've heard can be nightmarish. 

[Emg03063]

You could always look for a job with a temp agency.  If you're a professional, go find yourself a consulting gig in your field.  Craigslist has a gigs section, but think about how much you would need to make to make working a week off worth your while.  Bear in mind, the marginal utility of a week off when you're working is much higher than the marginal utility of a week off when you're retired.  If you're a homeowner, I agree that insourcing your own repair and maintenance work is likely to be your highest financial return.

[chasesfish]

I'd go with the uncle suggestion.

Even if you get paid almost nothing, if you could spend a week helping him rehab a house and learn some construction skills, they'll be worth thousands over your lifetime.

[Gone Fishing]

Pay is not usually great but you could also look into day labor outfits in your area. 

Probably not much fun, but I bet if you spent your time studying up on personal income taxes, you could probably "make" far more over time than you could possibly bring in over a few days.

What do you mean by studying personal income taxes?

For example, it may make sense for you to recharacterize your 2014 Roth Contributions to Traditional (deadline is 10/15), amend your 2014 taxes, take the deduction, and get a refund of the difference.  I probably spent 10-15 hours total on the research and filing the amendments on my 2013 returns, but it was worth over $2k to me.  Not a bad return on my time!

[Bob W]

Do you have other family and friends in the area?   Perhaps you could ask them for ideas or post on facebook.   You might be surprised what falls in your lap.

If you don't ask,  you can't get. 

I concur the Uncle rehab work if that is possible.   He may not pay you much and I wouldn't ask much,  but you may get a very good education there. 

I would also be thinking in terms of developing ongoing future side gigs.  So yeah,  what skills can you develop that could then be used on weekends and evenings?

Don't think of it as a one off type of deal but a chance to expand your horizons over the long run.