Supplemental income...

[Bronn]

Anyone here do any side businesses such as eBay or anything to supplement/generate extra income?

As I indicated in another thread, we're expecting our second child in September, and I can feel the financial knot tightening as we speak.

It doesn't help that my wife's been out of work since last May, nor the fact that I can't add her to my health insurance until this May (which won't be effective until July 1st) and all of her OB/pregnancy appointments are basically out-of-pocket expenses.

We're doing fine and all that jazz, but I just see the imminent need for some extra dough in the coming months.

If you make money on the side, what do you do?

I'm thinking about a few ideas, which basically involve modifying and up-selling items I can get for free or at a very low cost for a decent profit margin.

Also, another thing we probably need to do is have a garage sale, etc. and de-clutter some of our junk to make room in the nest anyway. I don't know how much I could make via that route, though.

Ideas?

[Scrumtrilescent]

"Modifying and up-selling items I can get for free."

We call that stealing and pawning.

[Guest]

[Happy Panther]

Maybe you have done this already but I look for savings opportunities before I look for income opportunity. Do you have cable and do you need all those channels, are you getting the most reasonable groceries (shop at target or walmart before you shop at Harris Teeter) do you eat out too much etc...

If you have already done that i would avoid the eBay/flipping market as people don't seem to make much money for the profit involved and it's flooded. Margins are thin so you need to sell thousands of items not just a few here and there. But if you do find a niche where you can make decent profit margins by all means do it.

If it were me I would deliver pizzas a few hours a week...say 5:30 to 7:00 M/W/T and then a few hours on a Saturday. You can make decent cash (maybe @15 an hour at a good store) and be home for a late dinner. I think there is almost always a need for the busy rush.

[Scrumtrilescent]

Man, they're paying that guy a lot of money to recycle that paper bag.

[Jase]

done this before

http://www.lionbridge.com

but the work is boring as hell

wife's been doing some mechanical turk stuff for amazon.com for some extra book money

https://www.mturk.com/mturk/

but the pay on a lot of it sucks

[Hawk]

develop a written budget and try to track every dollar you spend for a couple of months.

when you look back on it afterwards, you'll find plenty of savings I bet.

[Jase]

After my second was born, we made a budget and cut just about everything out.

With his health problems, we still ran a deficit for something like 7 consecutive months

Had to choose between bills several times.

It sucked.

The good news is while you're poor, sitting in your house with nothing to do because you have no money, there's plenty of time to play with your children and admire their beautiful faces.

[h0llywood]

Estate sales are pretty good to turn things around for a profit.

I heard of people going on craigslist picking up broken vacuums, spending 3 dollars to buy the belt and voila, you have a $20.00 vacuum you can sell.

[PhillyB]

try bartending a night or two a week. you'll love it and it's generally excellent money for what you're doing

[Bronn]

try bartending a night or two a week. you'll love it and it's generally excellent money for what you're doing

I've thought about this, but I know absolutely nothing about alcohol... I guess I could teach myself?

[Bronn]

Estate sales are pretty good to turn things around for a profit.

I heard of people going on craigslist picking up broken vacuums, spending 3 dollars to buy the belt and voila, you have a $20.00 vacuum you can sell.

Yeah this is kinda what I was talking about with some of the ideas I have...

My dad goes around to pawn shops all across the state and looks for musical instrument related items (namely guitars, etc.) and buys deals and resells them for profit. He gets absolute steals sometimes...

jasonluckydog's thrift shop threads have kinda inspired me to stop by my local ones any chance I get.... you can find some decent things there that you can totally sell for profit...

Craigslist "free" sections can turn up some items that, with a little TLC, can be sold for nearly 100% profit.

The biggest things holding me back on all of the above is making the actual time for those things. Also, timing is a factor and sometimes you'll waste time and gas trying to get such deals.

I'll probably start doing a good bit of all of the above in the coming weeks, though... Thanks for the input, everyone!

[Mvp2014]

Have you tried pimping? Its easy

[PhillyB]

I've thought about this, but I know absolutely nothing about alcohol... I guess I could teach myself?

bartending school is a good investment... it's a trade skill that's almost universally applicable. if you land the right spot in a bigger city like charlotte you could easily make $400 a night