Ways to earn a side income?

[JoeB313]

Hi all,

In addition to my regular day job, I am trying to brainstorm ways to earn some additional income on the side to accelerate my investing. I've thought about taking a second job, but I think that would be too grueling.  Also-- I am trying to think up something I could do with spouse where we could bond/have fun and earn some extra cash at the same time.

Anyone have any ideas?

[swick]

It entirely depends on what you and your spouse like to do. What are your hobbies and interests? Could you think of ways these could earn you extra money?

Random example: Say you love to geo-cache. You could easily organize local geo-caching site seeing tours of your city (or a local park so you don't have to drive anyone around - have them meet you there) for couples or families on the weekend. Make a few customized caches for them to find, with a fun cheap treasure to take home with them. Perhaps provide a picnic lunch for an extra fee. Your wife loves taking pictures? Offer to include some location portraiture shots on disk documenting their fun day for a few bucks more.

Do you do something on a regular basis for yourselves that you could do for someone else at the same time and charge for?

Example: You comparison shop to find the best deals on what you buy anyways, right? You know where to look quickly to find the best deals. Offer to do the same for family and friends and split the difference of the money they would save. This could be HUGE money on pricier items for very little work. Of course, you would have to trust your friends and family to pay you once you find them a great deal:)

You can monetize pretty much any hobby or activity, but you have to identify your interests first - Post and we'll help you brainstorm!

[ivyhedge]

RelayRides!


This will definitely appeal to some folks (and certainly not to others). But if you've a ride in a covered area, a general trust in carbon-based units, and are careful with your customer selection, it might serve as a welcome addition to your passive stream...

[superheropunk]

Depending on what your area of expertise is teaching is a good way to earn extra cash...

Beside my regular job, I am an adjunct instructor at a local community college. It is a great way to earn some extra cash.

[JoeB313]

Thanks for the feedback guys!

That relay rides thing seems interesting, but I don't know if that will be cost-efficient in the long runs considering the mileage put on my car.  Perhaps I should consider buying a used car and renting out that one?

As far as my hobbies go, the only hobby I've ever really had is online gaming (very un-mustachian I know-- but I still love it).  There is a really competitive gaming scene out there and online real time strategy games are a lot of fun and mentally challenging.

My other major interest is food.  I love to cook.  I've thought about selling food at farmers markets and things like that but it seems like the health code regulations are too burdensome.

[swick]

Any chance you can take advantage of the "really competitive gaming scene"?

If people are always looking for an edge - strategy, new techniques, different combinations of skills set, how to optimize your hardware, or what have you (not sure what applies to the games you play and know the most) would people be willing to pay you for your knowledge via a monthly online newsletter or something they could subscribe to? Could you flesh it out by reviewing new games and such? Perhaps start a website that would include a subscribers only forum?

Added bonus, if you turn it into a side gig and earn income, you might be able to claim some tax rates for mortgage/internet and computer equipment.

As for cooking, there are lots of people who can't or don't want to cook, could you make a few servings of extra dinner per meal and people can pick them up on the way home (or be delivered for an extra fee) You could email your menu plan for the week to whoever might be interested and they can pick and choose, or if you are cooking in bulk you could prepare and deliver frozen meals.

[prosaic]

You could sell online gaming tips/help/tutoring at Fiverr.com

[Grigory]

Become a nude model for art classes. The rate was $15/hour for a 4-hour session last time I checked.

Become a guinea pig! If you volunteer to become a test subject for new pharmaceutical drugs, you can make $10,000 or more. (Safety not guaranteed.)

Grow your hair out, then sell it to one of those creepy "natural hair" companies.

[GuitarStv]

Strippers make good money and work during off hours . . . if you're considering nude modelling, you might as well go for the higher income work.  Also, it's bonus motivation to work out!


:P

[Tyler]

I actually think online gaming is a fairly Mustachian hobby as long as you avoid monthly fees and don't blow money on everything that comes out.  The hours of enjoyment per dollar spent for a good online game surpasses many other kinds of entertainment.

What's your day job?

I work with a guy who rents out his house via Airbnb during major events in town.  His family just stays with friends/family/goes camping for a few days.

[Kaytee]

My other major interest is food.  I love to cook.  I've thought about selling food at farmers markets and things like that but it seems like the health code regulations are too burdensome.

Depending on where you live, your city may have kitchens for rent (mine does, run by the USDA and EDC). Local, small, start-ups can sign up for time in these kitchens. Also, some restaurants rent their kitchens out during off-hours. Alternatively, check out "The Soup Peddler's Slow and Difficult Soups" by David Ansel. (http://www.amazon.ca/Soup-Peddlers-Slow-Difficult-Soups/dp/1580086519#reader_1580086519). Dude quit his engineering job, started making soup and delivering it by bicycle. It's an interesting read and may inspire you.

Do you have an idea of how much extra money you'd want to make monthly? A goal of some sorts, that might help focus some of your search efforts.

[fiveoh]

Thanks for the feedback guys!

That relay rides thing seems interesting, but I don't know if that will be cost-efficient in the long runs considering the mileage put on my car.  Perhaps I should consider buying a used car and renting out that one?

As far as my hobbies go, the only hobby I've ever really had is online gaming (very un-mustachian I know-- but I still love it).  There is a really competitive gaming scene out there and online real time strategy games are a lot of fun and mentally challenging.

My other major interest is food.  I love to cook.  I've thought about selling food at farmers markets and things like that but it seems like the health code regulations are too burdensome.

I made over 3k in a year playing WOW.  That was a while back when it was THE mmorpg.   I know in Diablo 3 you can sell stuff on the AH for real money.  I haven't played so i'm not sure if you can really make decent money on it or not. 

[tuyop]

Right now I'm looking into craftmaking as a way for my partner and I to make some money. Soap is a very interesting one, since as far as I can tell, making it is as simple as:

• Make some lye:
  
• Collect some rain water or make your own soft water by
  dissolving baking soda or borax into hard or distilled water.
  
• Burn some hardwood and collect the ashes. Take care to ensure
  that there is only hardwood ashes in your ashes.
  
• Chuck the ashes into your soft water.
  
• Either wait three days and use a natural filter of stones and
  hay to filter the leached lye, or put it in a pot and heat it up for
  half an hour and skim the lye off the top. Be careful! Lye is caustic
  and can totally ruin your day if you get it in your eyes.
  
• Put the lye into a clean glass container, plastic also works.
  Keep it away from aluminum.
  
• Get some animal or plant fat.
  
• Put the lye into a pot (not aluminum!) and heat it up until it's
  boiling, then add the fat and stir the shit out of it until it turns
  thick.
  
• Pour that thick shit into a soap mold that you make by creating a
  wooden box lined with grease or parchment paper. Let it cool.
  
• Now you have soap. It can be sold to hippies on Etsy or at farmer's
  markets for a ridiculous markup, seeing as how it's just made out of
  potentially flax seeds (for oil), burnt trees, water and heat.
  

This is also a way to make glycerin, which can be used to make even
more expensive soaps for female hippies or rich guys who shave.

I'm just not too sure about the yields. It seems like, based on the tiny bit of research I've done, you need:

5lbs of wood = .32oz of lye (using the most conservative estimates)
.32oz of lye + 4 oz of fat (rendered tallow, for instance) = 4 oz of soap

The average going rate for soap is $1.34/oz on Etsy or $1.63/oz on several online stores. That's CAD.

So, if you collect the ashes from a cord of hardwood (approx. 20lbs of ash, or 102oz of lye once leached), and get your hands on 6lbs of plant or animal fat and turn it into soap, you're looking at $156 in gross income from soap if you sell it at average retail.

Since it's straight-up handmade wood-ash lye soap, I'm sure you could make much more money at a farmer's market if you put in the time, though.

Now, I understand that it doesn't sound that lucrative. But consider the fact that you could potentially make it out of things that are normally unharvested (rainwater) or treated as waste (ashes), and your oil could be had for like $0.30 per ounce or less if you make it out of animal fats (super quality beef tallow is $0.23 per oz), or harvest your own flax and make linseed oil or whatever. If you can get access to these materials, soap is basically a license to print money!

[Daley]

Right now I'm looking into craftmaking as a way for my partner and I to make some money. Soap is a very interesting one, since as far as I can tell, making it is as simple as:

-snip-

Now, I understand that it doesn't sound that lucrative. But consider the fact that you could potentially make it out of things that are normally unharvested (rainwater) or treated as waste (ashes), and your oil could be had for like $0.30 per ounce or less if you make it out of animal fats (super quality beef tallow is $0.23 per oz), or harvest your own flax and make linseed oil or whatever. If you can get access to these materials, soap is basically a license to print money!

Or, you could just take the shortcut of buying bulk potash instead of making your own lye. Not even the crunchiest of hippie dippie boutique soap makers that I've met over the years bother with making their own lye when they're making soap. Is it a potentially handy skill to know how to do? Sure! But so's learning how to extract essential oils from plant material or rendering animal fat... but if you're not proposing doing that as well, why would refining your own potash be so important?

[swick]

A note on making your own lye, I have done it, it is very hard to get a consistent product in the right strength - also if you are using a recipe for soap, keep in mind that Lye made from wood ashes is potassium hydroxide, while Commercial lye is sodium hydroxide. Some recipes will call for different amounts depending on the type, and some don't clarify which type of lye to use.

[tuyop]

Right now I'm looking into craftmaking as a way for my partner and I to make some money. Soap is a very interesting one, since as far as I can tell, making it is as simple as:

-snip-

Now, I understand that it doesn't sound that lucrative. But consider the fact that you could potentially make it out of things that are normally unharvested (rainwater) or treated as waste (ashes), and your oil could be had for like $0.30 per ounce or less if you make it out of animal fats (super quality beef tallow is $0.23 per oz), or harvest your own flax and make linseed oil or whatever. If you can get access to these materials, soap is basically a license to print money!

Or, you could just take the shortcut of buying bulk potash instead of making your own lye. Not even the crunchiest of hippie dippie boutique soap makers that I've met over the years bother with making their own lye when they're making soap. Is it a potentially handy skill to know how to do? Sure! But so's learning how to extract essential oils from plant material or rendering animal fat... but if you're not proposing doing that as well, why would refining your own potash be so important?

To be honest, I'm more interested in minimizing my use of linear production chains and I kind of stumbled on the soap-making by looking at uses for wood ashes.

I've just been playing around with the idea of living a lifestyle based on a philosophy that there is no waste. The exercise isn't necessarily to optimize production by outsourcing your labour by buying products, the exercise is to see what doing away with externalities entails.

Rainwater is useful because it can be harvested and purified for drinking, used for showering or washing in some cases, or redirected and stored to produce food or wood. That wood then gets burned for fuel, but what happens to it after that? You've got heat which you use for cooking and living, and ash, which makes up .4-1.3% of the mass of the wood, if you can usefully harvest that (I suppose that composting counts), then you're one step closer to a closed, sustainable system.

In keeping with the exercise, ideally I would produce my own essential oils and seed oils using redirected rainwater and composted human manure and organic waste for fertilizer. Offhand I know that flaxseed oil and animal fats (chicken, duck, goat's milk) could be produced where I live, and essential oils can be made from all the temperate spices and are probably commercially appealing.

The only problem is that that stored solar energy and those nutrients then leave the system by being sold rather than being redirected back to the land through graywater recycling, but the money could arguably improve the system by bringing increases in labour or improved infrastructure.

Edit: Sorry OP, back on topic:

I've tried the following ways to make more money, and they almost all depend on having a skill that you enjoy, a network that lets you find people who will pay for that skill, and the time and tools to do it.

1. Live modelling. I make about $60 a month doing this. It's not going to make you rich, but it does let you meet new people and broaden your comfort zone. All you need here is time and your body and an internet connection to respond to a craigslist (or kijiji) ad.

2. Car repair. I've done brake work and filter changes and other minor stuff for friends in exchange for small favors and pay. Depending on your network and tools, this could be really good.

3. Personal training. I love working out. I've spent thousands of hours reading about weightlifting, dieting, endurance sports, injury treatment and prevention and the like. I also really love teaching and I'm very good at it. I currently work for $20 an hour doing one-on-one training with people I meet through work and...

4. Tutoring. I volunteer as an adult literacy tutor, and I also do math and upgrading. This is awesome because it's introduced me to a lot of adults who are willing to work hard at something and improve themselves.

5. Online surveys. This is kind of silly, but I made like $50 last year doing online surveys for Angus Reid Forum. I don't think I'll continue.

[Daley]

To be honest, I'm more interested in minimizing my use of linear production chains and I kind of stumbled on the soap-making by looking at uses for wood ashes.

I've just been playing around with the idea of living a lifestyle based on a philosophy that there is no waste. The exercise isn't necessarily to optimize production by outsourcing your labour by buying products, the exercise is to see what doing away with externalities entails.

Rainwater is useful because it can be harvested and purified for drinking, used for showering or washing in some cases, or redirected and stored to produce food or wood. That wood then gets burned for fuel, but what happens to it after that? You've got heat which you use for cooking and living, and ash, which makes up .4-1.3% of the mass of the wood, if you can usefully harvest that (I suppose that composting counts), then you're one step closer to a closed, sustainable system.

In keeping with the exercise, ideally I would produce my own essential oils and seed oils using redirected rainwater and composted human manure and organic waste for fertilizer. Offhand I know that flaxseed oil and animal fats (chicken, duck, goat's milk) could be produced where I live, and essential oils can be made from all the temperate spices and are probably commercially appealing.

The only problem is that that stored solar energy and those nutrients then leave the system by being sold rather than being redirected back to the land through graywater recycling, but the money could arguably improve the system by bringing increases in labour or improved infrastructure.

These are all noble and honorable things to try and strive towards, but this isn't a thread about closed-loop sustainability, it's about side income projects and making money... both are functions that break that loop to varying degrees out of necessity. Not to say that trying to be more environmentally friendly in the process isn't a good thing, but you're simply not going to be able to get close to competitive pricing doing everything from scratch.

[startingover]

I mow lawns, do errands for neighbors, post stuff on Craig's and ebay.  I thought of using my hobbies too.  Sewing baby bibs, blankets, whatever.  Or taking pictures of local places and trying to sell them to the locals at the farmers market or yard sales.  Just some thoughts.

[JoeB313]

Thanks so much, everyone!  These are all great responses, it's just a matter of me getting off my butt in doing something.

As far as my day job, I work in food product development for a relatively large company.

[b_girl]

Coming out of lurkdom to post.

My dh and I are big into side income. There are a ton of things to do depending on your skills and comfort level. Here are things that we have done (or do).

1. Rent out a room in house. Our current roommate is a business commuter. Only stays here while in town working for his company. He has a family a couple hours away. This is a pit stop for him. We provide a furnished room with all linens and do all the cleaning. We have an agreement that when he isn't here on the weekends we have guests stay in his room. win/win/win/win
2. My dh does basic cleaning and handyman work for an out of state landlord. It doesn't take much time as he only deals with emergencies or cleaning the place basically once (or twice) a year.  He also does very occasional other handyman work as his schedule allows.
3. Various gigs (usually labor) off CL. Anything from moving, participating in mock trials for research,  to going around taking pics of properties and filling out property conditions for a non profit.
4. working weekends for a lawn care company
5. working weekends for a catering company

Other ideas...
1. pet sitting is big in our area.
2. post on CL for gigs.


The trick is to find something that pays relatively well for the least amount of effort (ie renter is #1). But not everything is that 'easy' and it depends on how bad you want the $.

bobbi

[tuyop]

Thanks so much, everyone!  These are all great responses, it's just a matter of me getting off my butt in doing something.

As far as my day job, I work in food product development for a relatively large company.

Have you considered trying Fiverr? There are all kinds of little marketing tasks on there that you sound qualified to do pretty quickly.

[sheepstache]

These are all noble and honorable things to try and strive towards, but this isn't a thread about closed-loop sustainability, it's about side income projects and making money... both are functions that break that loop to varying degrees out of necessity. Not to say that trying to be more environmentally friendly in the process isn't a good thing, but you're simply not going to be able to get close to competitive pricing doing everything from scratch.

Well to be fair you asked, and he told you why he does it that way.  His response to the thread was simply to explain what his particular side gig is, not to insist this was what the op ought to do or the only way to do it.  As for competitive pricing, I'm sure with the right ad copy you can find someone willing to pay a premium for pure, from scratch material.

[Daley]

These are all noble and honorable things to try and strive towards, but this isn't a thread about closed-loop sustainability, it's about side income projects and making money... both are functions that break that loop to varying degrees out of necessity. Not to say that trying to be more environmentally friendly in the process isn't a good thing, but you're simply not going to be able to get close to competitive pricing doing everything from scratch.

Well to be fair you asked, and he told you why he does it that way.  His response to the thread was simply to explain what his particular side gig is, not to insist this was what the op ought to do or the only way to do it.  As for competitive pricing, I'm sure with the right ad copy you can find someone willing to pay a premium for pure, from scratch material.

And I simply pointed out the incongruity of his original post on soap making where he stated he was looking into making soap for money, and then detailed out the complexities of how to make homemade potash followed by instruction steps requiring and a comment about using pre-rendered tallow. I wasn't trying to pick on him, I was just pointing out that he was adding unnecessary complexity and that his logic might be flawed.

"Closed-loop" sustainability and commerce simply cannot be reconciled without including the entire planet in that loop... at that point, you might as well utilize the more sensible and less bastardly parts of modern industry to provide those raw ingredients for production if that goal for production is to turn a profit.

[Bakari]

Become a nude model for art classes. The rate was $15/hour for a 4-hour session last time I checked.

Become a guinea pig! If you volunteer to become a test subject for new pharmaceutical drugs, you can make $10,000 or more. (Safety not guaranteed.)

Grow your hair out, then sell it to one of those creepy "natural hair" companies.

Me and my ex went a step further, straight to amateur porn.  Worked with each other only, $500 for an hour, (plus a free copy of the video we were in). 

Also was a medical test subject twice, one all I had to do was sit in an MRI machine for an hour for $100 (2 times), the other was a sleepy study, 24hrs once a week for 5 weeks, for $2000 I believe.

I started a posting on craigslist as having a truck to do little deliveries and hauling for some side income 6 years ago, and that turned into my primary source of income.  Now the jobs that have regular paychecks (bikeshop once a week and coast guard once a month) are the side jobs

[sheepstache]

"Closed-loop" sustainability and commerce simply cannot be reconciled without including the entire planet in that loop.

Actually then I think you run into the second law of thermodynamics :)  I just think the fact that his (/her) preference is not to make his own tallow doesn't negate his stated philosophy.  The intent can be there even if it is not followed to the last letter of the law.  He did originally point out that you could be consistent and make your own oils, it's just not what he personally does-- probably he's got wood ash sitting around as byproduct that would otherwise be thrown out.

Plus I will say again from a marketing standpoint that being the unique soap that can say it has handmade lye is going to make your product stand out, whether it's meaningless or not (we here know how much people love meaningless product copy).

*probably why you put closed loop in quotes.

And I simply pointed out the incongruity of his original post on soap making where he stated he was looking into making soap for money,

I think it's okay to suggest a way to make money without being required to offer a method that would make the most money, is all.

I think this might partly be slow-living philosophy and the dude just enjoys making potash.  In which case the freedom to do as he likes without having to worry about pursuing the most efficient profit model seems mustachian to me.  That you drew this philosophy out of Tuyop and indicated to the OP, who probably is interested in efficiency, that there is a shortcut, is of course great, but there seemed to be more to your response than that.

If you are a soapmaker yourself and y'all are just talking shop I will stay out of it :) 

[Daley]

Sheepstache... re-frame my posts as responses not to Tuyop actually making soap, but as someone who stated they're looking into making it for profit, listing an overly-complex way to do so with homemade lye but using pre-rendered fats, and then passing it off as not very lucrative due to the labor involved.

Right now I'm looking into craftmaking as a way for my partner and I to make some money. Soap is a very interesting one, since as far as I can tell, making it is as simple as:

-snip-

Now, I understand that it doesn't sound that lucrative.

That is why I posted what I did. As for soaps, the ex used to make soap. There's a bit of an art to it, and Swick's right... you need consistency in the quality of lye used to make good, sellable soap. That's why boutique soap makers who may even render their own fats will still use commercial lye and potash, it's far cheaper and one of the most crucial ingredients to the process.

[tuyop]

Credit where credit's due, and none is due here: I don't actually make my own soap yet. My lifestyle is in fact pretty unsustainable and evil. I commute 45km a day, regularly eat vegetables that traveled very far to make it to my plate (though all my meat is from <100km away), use too much electricity because I pay flat-rate utilities, and the like.

The only remotely closed-loop things that I do are garden herbs, greens, beans and edible flowers in my 350 sq foot apartment using a 40w grow light and potting soil, and recycle a portion of my kitchen waste using vermiculture. I'm working on it and acknowledging that you suck is important!

I do have great plans for recycling gray and blackwater, vermicomposting on a larger scale, self-sufficient dairy and vegetable production, beekeeping and the like, but great plans are cheap.

[StarswirlTheMustached]

Inspired by another thread: mine bitcoins?

[sheepstache]

Sheepstache... re-frame my posts as responses not to Tuyop actually making soap, but as someone who stated they're looking into making it for profit, listing an overly-complex way to do so with homemade lye but using pre-rendered fats, and then passing it off as not very lucrative due to the labor involved.

Thank you, my brain was nagging at me to figure out what it was we were seeing differently.  I interpreted that line as, 'it's not terribly lucrative but it will make you _something_' which seemed consistent with the other ideas on the thread. 

I didn't at all read it as ''passing it off as not very lucrative due to the labor involved' but I can see how you could.  Now my brain can rest easy.