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.
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!
Source: biblemoneymatters.com