Kids are growing up and I've recently dropped a few other volunteer responsibilities so I have a bit more spare time. Thinking about what to do and not adverse to trying a earn a few more ££ to set aside for future hobbies. Therefore looking for inspiration.
What are people up to to earn a bit extra? I'm not so much thinking about a second job (but open minded to this), thinking more along the lines of a micro business type thing of my own, perhaps some online selling. I've discounted drug dealing as I'm not intimidating enough. I don't have any actually talents so busking or selling art is not an option.
Inspire me!
Bicycle courier! then you'll be super fit.
Gentleman burglar?
Only fans?
Middle class drug dealer?
Obviously no need to associate with the oiks, but you could earn a tidy sum selling coke to bankers and local politicians.
There's always this option...
Have you thought about music?
I sell a few of my own 3-D printed designs on ebay, but it makes only a few quid.
I think so far it has just about paid for the cost of the 3-D printer, so happy with that.
I'd like to create more designs - stuff for the home, garage, bike etc. but I don't really have the time to do this, so it never actually happens.
You see a lot of peopls on Etsy just nicking designs from Thingiverse & flogging those, but I don't really wanna get involved in that.
All grand ideas.
Not much demand for a bike courier in Scottish Borders. I'd happily take on my kids paper round if they would let me. £35 for 20mins bike riding , Mon - Sat. I love doing it with them
I quite like the idea of being a gentleman burglar, will look into this.
Still struggling with the drug dealing idea. I get scared easily. I watched Outlaws recently and was a nervous wreck.
Only Fans probably not really going to produce a great income. I'm all for body positivity and stuff but I'm not going to get many fans.
Do they still do sex phone lines?
Beer Taster?
https://www.cheshire-live.co.uk/news/chester-cheshire-news/wanted-congleton-ale-taster-towns-22970182
Casting Couch?
https://www.castingcollective.co.uk/artistes/urgent-casting-calls
Gigolo?
All depends on what your main work is, and hobbies, and can you monetize them?
Main work I can't monetize unless if I was to contract, but that would involve working during work day (rather than posting on STW, I see the irony)
Hobbies are riding bikes and procrastinating.
Depends on your areas of knowledge/expertise, my step-dad used to buy old lathes off ebay, tidy them up repaint and sell them on for a profit (often at a great margin), he was an engineer though so knew what he was buying and how to re-furbish them.
Dry Stane Dyker
Street Artist
Hired Assassin (evenings)
Pole Dancer
Stalker
Lego Bricks (cleaning and sorting)
Cat Herder
Political Activist
Buy stuff from Ali Baba in bulk and sell on Ebay and try to ride waves of whatever the latest crazes are (like loom bands and fidget spinners in the past). Failing that, play safe and sell on things like phone cases.
Procrastinating - sounds like a good candidate for local politics......
Using the 'go with what you know' - Side hustle fixing bikes? Buy and sell used bikes, bike tours, etc etc
Another side hustle i commonly read about is people who write short stories for magazines etc/copyreading (proofreading).
Its what ive read so ive NO experience in that however.
Travelling knife sharpener, but also sell crystal meth under the counter.
Talking for myself but, before hitting aliexpress for the latest gadget, i could probably spend much of my spare time just selling on eBay & other sites all the crap we've accumulated over the years....from toys, to sports gear, to antiques and so on. But its easier to hoard it and procrastinate on dealing with it
Property?
Handyman
Landlord
Air and b cleaning/ managing for someone else/ yourself
If your work is flexible times sign up as film extra? Tend to be weekday daytimes though so would need current work to cooperate
Only fans?
I'll be honest, FatMiddleagedBlokeinLycra hasn't been the success I'd hoped.
MCTD - did you advertise your niche site in the classifieds?
Talking for myself but, before hitting aliexpress for the latest gadget, i could probably spend much of my spare time just selling on eBay & other sites all the crap we’ve accumulated over the years
This is true. I had a big clear out over lockdown and shifted around £2000 worth off stuff. Not tat, but really stuff I was unlikely to use. There's 80% off selling fees this weekend if you want to get going. I also have a small side hustle selling some parts I get made in China but it really only makes pocket money once you allow for selling fees and a bit for the tax man.
I’ll be honest, FatMiddleagedBlokeinLycra hasn’t been the success I’d hoped.
Do you do STW members discount? Asking for a friend
I’ll be honest, FatMiddleagedBlokeinLycra hasn’t been the success I’d hoped
Persevere. Rule 34 of the internet.
Further to the Ebay idea - rather than buy stuff to sell you could just register with all your local Freegle groups and grab anything that is saleable (stuff like power tools, hosepipes, bikes etc are often gifted on the group I am in and they all sell easily). Perhaps it is a bit disingenuous but I know lots of people do it (they are usually the ones that ask for loads of stuff all the time then don't collect if they subsequently check Ebay out to see if the item sells for decent money.
Delivery cyclist for Uber Eats/Deliveroo etc?
My wife is currently in to listing stuff on Vinted instead of ebay. You set a price instead of auction style but seems a lot less hassle. They sort all the postage and you just print a label and drop it at the nearest newsagent/drop off. She's had no issues with it so far.
Do they still do sex phone lines?
know a woman who did this! Pay wasn’t great apparently and we’ll yknow it’s pretty weird. She did have a great sex voice though
also knew a guy (lived in the flat above a good friend of mine) who composed lift music for fancy hotels. He freelanced for Otis and part of the deal to install lifts was having your own music. He also taught guitar and piano, but the lift music gig pretty much kept him going otherwise. He hated it though
Dog sitting? Maybe dog walking? Seems like there are a lot of people out there with lockdown dogs that now want to go on a foreign holiday and don't have anywhere to leave their dog.
Not sure where you are, but last time I was up, Innerleithen was in desperate need of a bike wash. Rent a hose pipe out?
Do they still do sex phone lines?
I used to work with a girl who used to write adverts for them – she was filthy and absolutely loved making up all the characters and their respective kinks.
Have a look at the flip bike series by berm peak on YouTube, probably be quite easy to buy badly advertised/not cleaned semi decent bikes that need a bit of maintenance and some cheap parts replacing for a profit.
I sell a few of my own 3-D printed designs on ebay, but it makes only a few quid.
I think so far it has just about paid for the cost of the 3-D printer, so happy with that.I’d like to create more designs – stuff for the home, garage, bike etc. but I don’t really have the time to do this, so it never actually happens.
A colleague of mine does this, he just happened to design the right part at the right time and it took off massively, enough to buy a Tesla... And he can have his machines running printing stuff all day while still doing his day job.
I've got a 2nd job in TV (it was my only job for quite a while too). It works out well for me although I'd give it up if I hit the 40% bracket unless they were prepared to drop the requirement for everyone to be PAYE*.
Depends how much you've got to invest in it and your morals. I imagine the borders is popular for airbnb, but you're also contributing to the housing crisis by doing so. At the cheaper end flipping bikes for profit seems like the obvious choice for a cyclist. You know how much stuf is worth and how to maximise the values. You could re-invest any profits into buying on-trend bike stuff from China. Like superstar did with brake pads, on one-up did with range extenders, neither was original. Just keep an eye out for the next cycling fad. I'd bet on hidden multitools (a £5 tool for £30).
*Not tax dodging, but I could then buy kit to rent back to them etc from the gross pay. Being PAYE I'm stuck buying things at effectively a 50% markup over the .ltd guys.
Oh, is there a factory in your town that you could place an order with, slap a margin on their stuff then proclaim to have saved the factory?
I will cut you 20% on any of my art you sell : NicksArtStuff.com *
🙂
*20% discount to all STWers
. I imagine the borders is popular for airbnb, but you’re also contributing to the housing crisis by doing so
If I lived anywhere popular for mountain biking I'd seriously look into Airbnb with an annex or segregated area of the house, with proper MTB facilities like bike storage, wet room with a shower etc - even in places like the tweed valley finding somewhere with basic secure bike storage is an effort.
And the money isn't bad either, Airbnb charge 3% after a quick look, so 80-90 quid a night soon adds up.
Completely understand about the housing crisis mind you, hence I'd only do it within my own home not with an entire 2nd house.
Expert witness in doping cases*. Pro bono thus far, but like all drug pushers, the first doses are free...
*One was quite well known 😉
the first doses are free…
I’ve been offered drugs a great many times. Not once has it been for free, despite claims from teachers etc that they would be.
Buy and sell stuff......ive got a load of stuff you can buy...lol
I think the best options are
1. Make something that isn't custom but you can charge hand made perimim and you know how to make it fast and easy. Custom work takes to long.
2. Rent something out. House, flat, camp, small plant (last one you are in The easily stolen category).
3. Import / repackage something. Probably got to be niche as you can't compete on Bluetooth speakers etc.
Basically something that you can stop start easy. You can do without it being mega physically or mentally taxing.
Mrs K makes celebratory cakes for people for cash, she’s quite good at it an only works through recommendation. Not enormous but gets us about £100 a month.
Being the taste tester is at odds with my cycling w/kg ambitions though.
What about creating a dull calendar, inspired by “Best of British Roundabouts”.
Nice coincidence that there are 12 sprockets on my bike…
@fasthaggis if you add in market research interviewer, cheeses turner, gravedigger and failed TV news reader that would be my cv.
I’ll be honest, FatMiddleagedBlokeinLycra hasn’t been the success I’d hoped.
Do you do STW members discount? Asking for a friend
Even when there was a member of our cycle club who openly worked in world of niche online entertainment, it never occurred to me to ask if there was a club discount....
Even when there was a member of our cycle club who openly worked in world of niche online entertainment, it never occurred to me to ask if there was a club discount….
You know what they say - shy bairns get heehaw. Or rather pay full price
I’m a “beer educator”* once a month, earns me a few quid and I get free beer and some people that pretend to like me for an afternoon.
*I present beer tastings with a ridiculous quiz alongside.
also knew a guy who composed lift music for fancy hotels.
Tough game to be in. Always up and down.
OK what I want is app or service which connects people with stuff to get rid of to people who like going to boot sales. I like the idea of boot sales but cannot be bothered to do it myself.
So I put a job lot of stuff on the app, you come to my house and collected it agreeing a minimum price I want. The boot seller can agree or disagree to take the stuff if the price is too high.
Then they get x% PLUS anything they make on top of the minimum agreed.
So can you provide this service? Or write me the app called "BootSaleMyStuff"?
also knew a guy who composed lift music for fancy hotels.
Tough game to be in. Always up and down.
I tried to get into that once, but apparently I wasn't at the right level....
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also knew a guy who composed lift music for fancy hotels.Tough game to be in. Always up and down.
I tried to get into that once, but apparently I wasn’t at the right level….
It's a long way to the top if you want to rock n roll
My mate (who built my bike frame) designed a bike set-up tool, for replicating bike set-ups across multiple bikes. He 3d prints the bits at home and wrote the phone apps it uses to make the calculations.
It's done quite well - he also has people printing the parts and selling in the US and Europe.
This is some guy reviewing it:
I've done promotional work on day rates for big consumer brands, free samples at festivals etc. Pay is good, you get free entry and it's fun/easy work. Downside is travel costs not always paid.
There's a constant need in my industry for (good/reliable) video editors, and also very much so motion graphics people
Easily bill yourself out at 300-500/day
Metal detecting.. once you've spent around 100 hours figuring out how to use it properly there's bound to be gold just lying around all the beaches and Roman hoards in the fields. You'll be rich in no time.
Metal detecting.. once you’ve spent around 100 hours figuring out how to use it properly there’s bound to be gold just lying around all the beaches and Roman hoards in the fields. You’ll be rich in no time.
Ring pull. 83. Tizer.
Used to 3d print some stuff and sell it. Can't be arsed now, my standards are too high and the market's standards are too low and that makes it all very hard work. You can make good money selling shite but I don't want to do that.
But out of that, I became a nerf gunrunner- I buy big bundles, split 'em, tidy them up, fix broken ones if I can (or bash differently broken ones together into one) and sell them individually. It's kinda ideal for me- I have the time, I mostly enjoy it, but also it's not really scalable- there's no temptation to try and go bigger, I've got it at a natural sustainable size and that's easy to sustain.
Had a couple of other things like that over the years- basically any time something annoys me that I can't get it easily, I put that in the back of my brain and see what happens. Some product that doesn't exist, or that's in some way stupid to obtain (like, for years my best ebay seller was something that I wanted 2 of, that cost £8 to buy 4 of in Maplins, or £8 to buy 70 of online. So I bought 70 and sold packs of 2 for £3. Eventually someone noticed and copied me, and so we price warred a bit and he got to the point that he was making literally no money but apparently hadn't realised so I dropped out)
I tried to get into that once, but apparently I wasn’t at the right level….
Your problem was trying to walk in on the top floor. You need to work your way up from the bottom.
Is that talking about OnlyFans again? Can't tell for sure...
A mate of mine used to play online poker as a side hustle, was very good at it so made a decent amount of cash and ended up becoming a pro and his full time job. BUT... The market for him was the US and it really forced him to play at their peak times if he wanted to earn money. It really hurt his relationship. I think it was also a late 90's/early 00's phase. so not sure how much money he actually makes from it now.
I don’t do but pay for:
App Translation - just checking that Google translate is correct / co text is right for buttons etc.
Content writing for Apps
Help page and instruction writing
App video guide creation
App creators are terrible at the above. Dev agencies offer the above but charge £££ and are useless at it. Most freelancers are overseas and also terrible despite 5* reviews on various platforms.
Side hustle? There’s not enough time in the day. Plus, the tax would make any return negligible. 🙁
Plus, the tax would make any return negligible.
Only if you have a very successful side hustle.
The flip bike video to me almost proved the opposite of what it was meant to.
Bought bike for $800 and sold for $900.....after spending hours meticulously cleaning, bleeding brakes, servicing gearing, changing grips, getting up for golden hour to photograph, post process photos, doing a better job on the description and then driving to a shop to do the deal.....for $100. Who's the mug - the dude 'missing out' on $100 sale price by putting minimum effort into the bike advert or the one valuing his time at a lot less than minimum wage to extract every last cent?
As for a side hustle - if your grammar and spelling are better than mine copy checking / proof reading can be an option and you can do the work at a time to suit.
MrsL marks GCSE exam papers at this time of year. It's a lot of extra work for a few weeks but pays reasonably well. I couldn't do it as I suffer from procrastination too!
If you've got a degree in a relevant subject (you might not always need a degreee, I'm not sure tbh) then I think most exam boards are always looking for people.
The flip bike video to me almost proved the opposite of what it was meant to.
Bought bike for $800 and sold for $900…..after spending hours meticulously cleaning, bleeding brakes, servicing gearing, changing grips, getting up for golden hour to photograph, post process photos, doing a better job on the description and then driving to a shop to do the deal…..for $100. Who’s the mug – the dude ‘missing out’ on $100 sale price by putting minimum effort into the bike advert or the one valuing his time at a lot less than minimum wage to extract every last cent?
4hrs work total, maybe - £80 profit. Minus a little for fuel. Since when was £20 an hour minimum wage?
The flip bike video to me almost proved the opposite of what it was meant to.
Completely agree, it was desperately tedious video spam to keep 2.4m subscribers clicking.
TBF, I think a lot of people who flip things for money basically don't do all the maths, or ignore the risks. It only takes one expensive broken part, or one item that sells for a low price, to wipe out some people's profits I'm sure and others will be optimistic, or forget about storage or opportunity costs, or consumables ("I already have it so it's free") or the fact that they've got money tied up for long periods sometimes, or overlook things like postage or ebay fees.
I mentioned up the page but I used to have an item that I sold regularly... I was priced out of the market by someone like this, who hadn't done the maths properly and after fees would be selling for a very small loss. It's so easy to do. My own thing is about as safe as it gets but it took effort and care.
I think copy reading etc you need the exact right sort of brain. I have the skills, and I have whatever it is that makes mistakes jump off a page like a missed note, but I haven't got whatever the bit of brain is that puts that all together and turns it into useful output. I've done it for pocket money but it's way harder graft for me than it is for people with the full combo and that made it not a great option. People who can do it tend to assume that everyone can but it's a real skill.
(and so I became that guy who looks at the galleys, declares it all fine, then once the final printed copy arrives can glance at it for 2 seconds and instantly see the one mistake in the whole document. Most rightly hated of all error spotters)
4hrs work total, maybe – £80 profit. Minus a little for fuel. Since when was £20 an hour minimum wage?
Minus a pair of grips (and a touch of mineral oil). And all the nonsense with the multitool, gloves and bottle - but I guess that was for the vid so maybe can be ignored.
The stripping it to clean it, spanner it, photograph it and advertise it is just the start. 2 hours driving to buy the bike. No idea how far to sell the bike, but more time. Then the hours spent answering and sifting through the other potential buyers. That's more than 4hrs all up.
Yep - I'd say under minimum wage once you take all that into account.
But as Northwind suggests, there are enough innumerate folk around who can't appreciate the full picture of many a 'flip'.
^^ As Northwind says, I have an online business plus I sell at local markets as well as doing some B-2-B stuff. Knowing how much my stuff costs to produce, I’m staggered at how little money some people are prepared to make on places like Etsy or eBay, particularly when you consider the costs of fees, postage, breakages.
Look, it's an idea - obviously if you buy crap 3 hours away then it's not going to be profitable, but buy cleverly and locally and I'm sure you could make a bit extra. Much like every other home business you can do in your spare time, there's no easy money options, if there was everyone would be doing it!
Amazon flex might be worth looking into as well OP, I think you choose the hours you want to work and pay doesn't seem too bad.
I’ve recently built 2 hifi stand things out of new scaffold planks.
The finished articles have the bonus of being sold as ‘rustic’ and as such you can get away with rough cuts and edges.
I was quite amazed that the £40 per unit I spent on wood from Facebook marketplace, legs from Amazon and some stain and about 2 hours to build per unit could actually sell for £300 ish on Etsy and the like.
Have no real intention to do anything myself, but there has to be a good return for something so easy to make.
Only advice I’d give (if anybody fancied a go) is to make sure the wood is inside and shrunk all It’s going to before building.
could actually sell for £300 ish on Etsy and the like.
Have no real intention to do anything myself, but there has to be a good return for something so easy to make.
So did you sell the crude scaffold plank stuff or not?
Advertised price does not equal sold price. There is loads of upcycled rubbish for sale on gumtree near me, but it never seems to shift.
Nope, made them for my own use with no intention of selling.
Have no doubt they do sell for a fair chunk though. There are loads for sale and the chap I bought the wood from says he can’t get enough of it and sells mainly to furniture makers.
