Hi there, Mrs. 1500 today, asking about Side Hustles. But first, let’s go back to last week, and see what you have planned for 2015.
Mr. and Mrs. PoP from Planting our Pennies are doing their kitchen this year. We did that last April – so worth it but such a pain in the backside… Good luck!
Mr. Frugalwoods wants to learn to play the banjo. Hmmm…
Reader Frankie’s Girl is going to retire! WooHoo! So happy for you! I would love to hear how that goes!
James over at Starting Negative would like to switch to the positive net worth side of life. Best of luck, James!
Harmony from Creating My Kaleidoscope has a baby on the way, so does Frugal Buckeye – yay babies!
Steve from Chatting Finance would like to bring in $100 in side-income, also known as side hustle. Fitting segue…
In the movie Risky Business, Tom Cruise has to come up with a get-rich-quick scheme to quickly come up with enough money to replace his mother’s expensive piece of art. His risqué side hustle nets him the cash to fix his problem, right before his parents get home.
Our personal side hustles have been way more tame – we used to know a woman who had a side job of her own, filling focus groups with people who fit certain criteria. She would ask us questions, and when we answered incorrectly, she would ask us if we could answer this or that way instead. We would, and miraculously, we would be chosen for the focus group. $100 to taste flavored vodka for an hour is a pretty sweet way to make money.
Tomorrow, I will share with you the salty story of our neighbors’ side income. But today, I would like to hear about your creative ways to make money.
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I know of a couple good ones:
* A guy who referees youth soccer matches. $50/game, 3 games a saturday. Plus sometimes others in the evenings. And it keeps him in great shape.
* Another friend refurbishes old axe heads and fits them to new handmade handles for a hipster outdoors store in Portland OR. He buys the rusty heads at garage sales and flea markets for $5-10, and sells the finished product for $150 or more.
* A lot of folks around here buy up older furniture in surrounding towns, paint it a bright color, and sell it for 10x as much to city hipsters. The hipster geography arbitrage is a strong and lucrative market. 🙂
Mr. Frugalwoods recently posted…Unicorns, Soviets, and Compound Interest: Demystifying Personal Finance Part 1
I love the axe handle deal. I think that is awesome and so creative!
We have had a few side hustles over the years, but nothing major. Mostly hobbies that could result in a few extra bucks.
The best was my short lived business, Nintendo Entertainment Paintings. Yes, I made paintings of scenes from Nintendo games in all their 8-bit glory. I did it mostly for fun, and for the joy of imagining someone hanging up my pictures of Super Mario Bros. 2 and Metroid in their homes, but it did make some cash. Then I was featured on the gaming site Kotaku, got too many requests, and lost interest in it.
My wife has made cake pops for parties and weddings, before cake pops were cool. Right now she does an antique style of embroidery work called crewel, only for gifts so far, but I am encouraging her to try selling it when all the gifts are done.
I have a few old Schwinn bicycles, which I am slowly repairing. I dream of buying old bikes like that, fixing and re-selling them for untold amounts of cash to hipsters in cities that are cooler than where I live. Mr. Frugalwoods is completely correct about the hipster arbitrage play! I have seen my exact same 1972 Schwinn for 10x what I paid for it in Brooklyn.
Norm recently posted…Ridinkulous Finance Goals
I would LOVE to see a Nintendo painting!
Mr. 1500 had an Apple Krate Schwinn that we moved around forever. We finally decided it wouldn’t make the trip west with us, and sold it for more than $900 in really crappy but rust-free condition to some guy in Michigan who fixes them up and sells for big dollars. I would love to get my hands on more of them…
If you’re talking strict “creativity” then I’ll give you two–one I’ve been successful at, and another I haven’t (yet).
The successful one involves eBay and Chase Bank promotional coupons. We live in an apartment building, and when Chase periodically (every month or so) sends out their “We Have $500 For You” coupons for opening and funding a checking account, many residents just throw them away or put them in this recycling bin next to the mail area. Yes, this is almost like dumpster diving, but it’s paper and there’s no other garbage. I have been selling these on eBay for anywhere between $0.99 and $25, with an average at around $15.
The unsuccessful one, so far, is what I call e-tailer arbitrage. This might be more widely known about, but it essentially is identifying products that are cheap on one (perhaps lesser known) e-tailer, and putting those products on your storefront at another e-tailer for a higher price. The higher price obviously has to account for commissions, etc., but we’ve had some small successes in goods where there isn’t as much price hunting–like kids toys or baby items. There is also no inventory; when an order fills, you just purchase from the other retailer and send it to your buyer, collecting the spread.
–I’ve not done full research on the legalities of these operations, but I’m sure they fall firmly in a gray area.
I didn’t know you could sell those coupons! I have purchased 10% off coupons from big box home improvement stores on eBay, allegedly. I get those things all the time.
I don’t have a side hustle yet, but I got plans for one in the future. I love crocheting silly hats (aimed more for toddlers and little kids then adults). Silly like penquins, and tigers and funny little creatures. But I see on Etsy how these things sell for like $30 a pop, and I am thinking I could totally get a little scratch turning what I do just for fun to relax into some money.
And a “Yeah!!!” for Mr Frugalwoods learning to play banjo! Mr. SSC has been playing one his whole adult life – I have to say I thought it was a little bit odd at first, but the music has really grown on me!
Mrs SSC recently posted…Lifestyle creep: Is it killing your early retirement?
If you can crochet, I have seen crocheted last names using very fine yarn or heavy thread. And if you are going to do that, I want to place an order…
I love those silly hats. And more importantly, kids love them. And they are so cute!
They have crochet patterns for Star Wars themed hats…
My side hustle is pizza driver. Nothing fancy but its one of the easiest jobs I’ve ever had and its helping me payoff my student loans much faster
Be careful!
How much does one tip a pizza driver, usually?
The other day I read about a side hustle on Club Thrifty, I believe. It was how you could get paid to cuddle with people. Haha!
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Hmmm. I have heard of that, too. Not sure how I feel about that. What if they don’t smell pretty? Or get grabby? If it were an infant, I would be all over that.
My side hustle is eBay, buying gently used and new Men’s clothing(stick with what you know, size Large versus size Petite Small). An example of something I bought recently was a gently used Abercrombie Flannel Shirt, I bought the item for .33(3 for $1 on Sunday’s) and sold the item for $15 today. Not every single item happens like this, but it’s basically buy nice brands for cheap and look for items in great condition and sell them for a profit.
I also used to buy Cubs tickets for the rivalry and major holiday games and sell them on stubhub for a profit. Since the Cubs weren’t doing as well I have a taken a pass, might have to start up again. I also tried this for Spring Training in AZ and took a loss, so I wasn’t to happy about that.
Even Steven recently posted…Eliminate Your Mortgage……We are Mortgage Payment Free!!!
I have bought and sold on eBay before, with hit or miss results. I sold a Baby Gap jean jacket for $15 that I purchased for $1-$2. But after that, not much luck. Maybe I will pick that up again. There are lots of expensive kids clothes in my area at thrift stores for super cheap…
One of the guys at Mr PoP’s office knows the luxury sports car market so well that he plays the geographic arbitrage game with them, buying them all over the country, driving them to S Florida, and reselling them locally here after driving them around for a few months himself. I don’t know if he earns a ton of money on it, but he’s at least breakeven on it from what I understand, and is driving around expensive cars like Ferraris.
Mrs. Pop @ Planting Our Pennies recently posted…Happy Friday – Happy Retirement!
Nice! What a sweet gig. And you are right, even if he breaks even, he gets to drive Ferarri’s around all day.
One of my buddies is a youth pastor, and as a side hustle he reviews Applebees and other chain restaurants. It’s a pretty sweet gig for him since so much of his job is meeting up with teenagers, and there’s no better place to meet up than a place that provides generic but plenteous (and comped) food. He’s mostly in it for the free food (2 meals and 2 soft drinks per review), but he makes a little money on it.
I got into the rotation of reviewers but I just did not like the food enough to keep it up.
I have not had good results with that gig. I was driving far distances for a free meal, spending more in gas than the meal was worth to me. But good for him that he has made it work!