making extra money

[rebuilding]

I'd like to start a thread about the things people do to make a little extra money.  I am recently between jobs. been out of work for a couple months. I have a new job I am starting in a couple weeks, but the downtime obviously takes a toll on the checking/savings account.

I have seen a few tips here and there on these forums helping people out who get in a crunch with their bills, but I know there are more out there...

trying to keep 'making money fast' schemes and politics out of the mix, lets hear what has worked for some of you to make a little extra income to help supplement your 9-5 jobs...

I recently found a bunch of junk lying around I never use and sold it on ebay....

anybody else?

[msensa]

Hmm...e-bay's great...so is having a hubby with a skilled trade

[llecs]

Outside of dramatically rebudgeting or selling stuff, we would do whatever it took to earn income.

Here's a few things we did:

1) Our biggest source was starting a franchise outside of our 9-to-5 jobs. That brought DW home from her job at a very early age.

2) Outside of that and my job, I started a traditional consulting business and picked up a few accounts on the side doing accounting and legal stuff. Doing that quickly gave me the option to quit my job.

3) I didn't quit my job, but it give me the opportunity to buy out part of my employers (small businesses times two). That created job security and created an extra income whether I worked or not.

4) During this long period, we put every penny we had back into our businesses and we didn't save at all. It wasn't until about 13-14 yrs later that we finally wised-up and started investing. We are now finding that this is an awesome way to make money. Duh moment. Better late than never.

5) I remember we joined focus groups for money and would get paid about $100/hr, but were limited to the number of times we could do it.

6) We signed on with temp agencies to do extra work whenever we could.

7) We used to play Sprint - ATT - MCI long distance(way back when) off each other and would tell ATT for example that Sprint is offering us $50 if we switched to them. ATT would then offer us $60 for example and would actually mail us a check and we would switch for a month and then talk to MCI and so on.

8) Years ago we started a biz linking buyers and sellers. Basically we were a walking talking E-bay type biz. If someone said their cell phone bill was too high and were looking to switch, we would negotiate a better deal than what they had and tell the carrier to give me a cut or percentage of their monthly bill in exchange for driving business to them. We would do that with whatever can be legally bought or sold.

Seems like there were others, but these were a few that came to mind.

[atl]

I dont know if you are talking about doing anything that makes extra money, but I got a great part time job working at a night club. I get paid $13 an hr, under the table, plus I get $10 for every fake ID/someone elses ID that I take, plus I get $25-100 tip outs at the end of each night. I easily can make an extra $300 in three days, thurs/fri/sat.

Other than getting a PT job, and selling stuff on ebay, I dont have any other advice. Also, you could cut grass or any kind of landscape work.

[Anonymous]

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llecs wrote:

7) We used to play Sprint - ATT - MCI long distance(way back when) off each other and would tell ATT for example that Sprint is offering us $50 if we switched to them. ATT would then offer us $60 for example and would actually mail us a check and we would switch for a month and then talk to MCI and so on.

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Creative and interesting.

[llecs]

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sidewinder wrote:

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llecs wrote:

7) We used to play Sprint - ATT - MCI long distance(way back when) off each other and would tell ATT for example that Sprint is offering us $50 if we switched to them. ATT would then offer us $60 for example and would actually mail us a check and we would switch for a month and then talk to MCI and so on.

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Creative and interesting.

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I don't think it can be done anymore. First off, MCI is gone. The idea came when one of them sent me a check for $25 in the mail offering to switch if I agreed to switch for 30 days. I didn't even spend $25 in long distance, but the phone company then did charge a $5 fee to switch if I remember correctly. I photo copied the check for proof and called the next long distance carrier saying that the first offered me $25. I said for $50 I would switch. I remember on the first switch, I called the one who offered the $25 and said that the other offered $50. They told me to take a flying leap so I accepted the $50 and copied that check. I switched and after 30 days, I called the other two carriers and told them I accepted an offer to switch for $50. I then negotiated $60 and held that for 30. Seems like I did it for one more time after that, but you can only go so far.

After we got married I tried again, but it seems like they wanted to offer me a long distance credit rather than send a check.

[Anonymous]

You may be surprised how much you can make throwing a paper route - and it rarely interferes with you "normal" job. I have carriers that make $1-$2K per month for about 15-20 hours per week.

[Anonymous]

I agree with msensa.

Look what you don't need around the house, even old clothes, and sell them on eBay.

[George2037]

I took my video/ computer hobbies and turned them into some extra cash flow. 

There is a friend at work that hosts and assists with EA Sports Madden (video game) tournaments and he asked me to shoot a highlight reel so he can promo his next tourny.  After I did his I picked up two more and there are 6 more that have requested pricing info.  I've shot a couple of them so far not a lot of cash yet but enough to make a differance.  The footage serves double because there are gaming web-sites that buy copies of my raw footage.

I've also taken my limited knowledge of Flash Web Design/ HTML/ XML and picked up a few small websites (5-6 page average) to layout and manage, these are nice because of the fact I can work on them after work, and on the weekends (plus if I do it right, only time I should touch it is when they make product changes) as long as I keep with the small sites.

Neither one effects my regular job, and nice $1000-1500 a month extra, once my names out there I can possibly get into the $5000-6000 extra...but again that's dreamin and would take from my 9-5's  

[soylentorange20]

have a yard sale is another good way