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Making a little extra money.....
ross1979
Posts: 18 Forumite
Things are going really well for me at the moment so I thought I would take a second to write down what I’ve been doing to bring in a little bit of extra cash. My aim here is hopefully to give people ideas, and secondly I’d like to pick all your brains too!
Before I get started I want to get a few things clear, as I know the sort of responses this post may create:
1) I admit that I am a workaholic. As a Scotsman I had to be addicted to something. It could have been sugar, alcohol or anything but I’ve chosen work. I don’t mind working 60+ hours a week and feel lazy if I take a day off.
2) Some of the jobs I mention below may lead people to believe that I am a thug. I admit that I look the part (I’m just short of 6ft tall, 18 stone and have a scar above one eye) but I couldn’t fight sleep never mind another human.
3) I am doing all these little things with a purpose in mind. I want to relocate back to Scotland after being away for 5years. When I get back home I’ll be scaling everything down and enjoying life.
To start with then, here is a brief review of what I’ve been doing to bring in the pennies in the last 15 months:
· The first little thing I tried was delivering leaflets. I gained three clients pretty quickly. One was an Estate Agent I knew, another was a client of mine (I was working as a Mortgage broker at the time) and the third client was found via an advert on Gumtree. Much later I contacted all the local leaflet companies offering my services and I’ve picked up a few shifts here too. I’ve found the job very enjoyable and an excellent way of making a little pocket money.
· The Estate Agent I knew decided to open a Lettings Department and I offered to carry out the inventories and check in for him. I did this for about 3 months until he took on a permanent member of staff. Once again this was a great little job which provided a some pocket money. This was a job that could be picked up really quickly indeed. More importantly I got to see the inner workings of a letting agent, leading me to further work that I’ll go into later.
· Some of the work I’ve been doing is a little controversial, and now I’m going to tell you about the first of these. Last year I made £3000 on Betfair. I’m not clever enough to trade odds or anything like that. I just have a simple, little routine that I do. When I try to explain to people what I do they think I am making it up but I can assure you that I’ve made a few thousand every year since 2006. This year I am £460 up already (the bank gains pace as the year goes on). As a pre-response to the inevitable questions that come up whenever a betting system is mentioned: i) I don’t do it full time because I haven’t got the balls! ii) I’ll sell the system to anyone who offers me enough money!! I plan to continue with this little sideline for the foreseeable future.
· An easy little number that I’ve been doing was born from this forum - for the day I found the competitions thread is a red-letter day on my calendar. For about six months I entered every comp available. I was lucky enough to have quite a few wins. The prizes were mostly books, which of course I immediately listed on Amazon. I really believe that a dedicated comper could live from prizes if they were adventurous.
· This is a hard one to replicate, but last year I did fantastically well from tips! Back in 2007 I went out and bought half a dozen thank you cards which I displayed on my desk at all times. When clients commented on them I would tell them of how I was always getting bottles of whisky etc. This then became a self-fulfilling thing as people didn’t want to be the odd one out. I amassed dozens of bottles, hundreds of cans and a lot more cash gifts than you would ever imagine.
· Throughout the year I received a steady stream of income from selling books on Amazon. I made sure that I let everyone know that I would take any books that they didn’t want. I would then list these on Amazon. I managed to sell about 40% of the books I brought home so I made good money; however I now have a library instead of a garage! To a much lesser extent I also made a little money on Music Magpie.
· In the early summer of 2008 I made a little cash by writing a book. As things were quiet at work I used my time to write an instructional manual on how people could pay off their mortgage as quickly as possible. I then added in some pictures, transformed it into a PDF and listed it on EBay at £10 per copy. Amazingly it sold 15 copies! This may seem small fry but I was very pleased indeed with the result. On the negative side of things though, I got carried away with the success and got a mate to build a website for me to use as a platform for selling the book. I paid him £300 but never sold another copy of my masterpiece!
· The biggest success of the year was my property purchases. This may also be considered as a controversial one as I bought these properties using “no money down” methods. I’ve been very lucky as all the houses have been consistently tenanted and have had no major issues. Never mind the Credit Crunch I would heartily recommend the life of a landlord to anyone who fancies it. I myself am still buying, as long as the price is right.
· As my portfolio grew (I now have 6 properties), I became more interested in the management side. I hadn’t used a Letting Agent to find my tenants and I was managing them myself. The Estate Agent where I worked opened a Lettings Department so I got to see firsthand what an agent actually did for their money. I became convinced that I could offer a mini- letting agent service of my own. I approached a few landlords that I knew (ones that weren’t in competition with my agent friend) and I’m happy to say that three of them handed over the keys. I don’t charge nearly as much as an office based agent but I have found this to be an enjoyable income stream.
· The least inspiring income stream of the year was completing online surveys. I completed about 2000 surveys for the princely sum of c. £20. The one thing I would say is that I found Pinecone to be supremely more reliable than any other company.
· I now found that I had no less than 18 properties under my control by own way or another. This made me more interested in the Utility Warehouse opportunity. I signed up as a distributor, and although the money hardly gushes in, I don’t regret it one bit. I can see this being a low-management residual income stream for a long time to come.
· As things were quiet at work I decided I would pull double shifts, and work for Royal Mail in the sorting office during the night as well as do my Mortgage Broker job during the day. This didn’t work out as I almost killed myself. I was only getting 1 hour’s sleep a day.
· As the Credit Crunch ran on I realised that I was now making more money on a Saturday and Sunday than I was being tied to a desk 60 hours per week. I resolved to find a job that would give me the freedom to explore opportunities every day rather than clock watching and waiting for something to happen in the mortgage market. I applied for 3 jobs which I thought would fit the bill and I was lucky enough to get the one I wanted the most. I won’t go into it too much here as i) it is a job which is regularly mocked on this site, and ii) I thoroughly enjoy it and want to keep it. The most important thing to note with this job is that all I need to do is clock in 37 hours per week. I have total freedom on the actual spread of these 37 hours. This freedom allows me to keep all the plates spinning.
· Having the ability to shift my hours to suit began to make me think that there could be other jobs that could bolt-on to my main work. The first bolt-on that I have been doing is collecting for a doorstep credit lender. I didn’t think I would like this job but over time it has grown on me. The pay is remarkably good per hour.
· As another bolt on I also started working as a debt collector for a national firm. Once again this job has been fine too. The commission is not quite as good as the doorstep credit collection; however this income is a lot less “involved”. If, for whatever reason, I couldn’t get out of the house for a week, the money would still keep rolling in.
· A friend of mine recommended poker “propping” as a potential money-spinner. For those that don’t know, this is when you are paid a commission or enhanced rake back for playing on a certain website. Propping didn’t really work out for me – I just wasn’t good enough. The introduction to the game was good though as I have since (luckily) won a number of tournaments with prizes of well of £500. Before anyone asks, I was good enough to win this money as it was via tournaments (where a certain element of luck is involved) as opposed to propping which involves open ended cash games.
Please feel free to contact me if you are interested in learning more about any of the things I have been doing. I’d like to help people as much as I can.
There are a number of smaller “irons in the fire” that I have just started over the last month or so, so it is too early to make a judgement on their success. Namely:
· I have started a dating website. Rather I’m promoting a “business in a box” dating website for which I’ve bought a catchy domain name.
· Another controversial one I’m afraid! I’ve started a premium adult SMS service.
· I have enrolled with a number of online affiliate programs.
My real question to everyone reading this is: do you have any suggestions as to any further jobs or opportunities which could be bolted on to my working day without too much disruption? In my mind I foresee the best opportunity as being something that could be promoted via leaflets. I’m knocking on 100 doors a day with my job so shoving leaflets in would be no hassle. 100 doors a day doesn’t sound much but this equates to 20,000 per year without using 1mm of extra boot leather.
Food for thought:
· Would it be possible for me to do taxi driving on a Saturday night peak time only, or will most firms look for me to commit to more hours than this?
· Does anyone work as a passenger chaperone for their local council, taking disabled kids to school for example?
· Is anyone on this site making any money from Day Trading?
· With all these cars lying for sale at the side of the road, has anyone thought about squeezing the sellers and passing the motors on to guaranteed buying firms (such as webuyanycar.com) at a profit?
· Does anyone here write articles for profit? (I got to number one in a couple of sections on Ezine last year but I never quite saw any cash from it)
· This may sound weird but are there any “Kevin Ashman” types here who are sitting at home swatting up with the sole intention of winning a big TV cash prize?
· Is anyone doing anything that some may consider “dodgy”? I don’t mean illegal before I get kicked off. If you are not happy to talk about it in open forum then please pm me. I was seriously considering buying a load of modafinil and then selling it at the local university campus.
· Has anyone set up their own leaflet distribution company? How did it go? Where did you find your clients?
· Finally, has anyone worked for one of the big doorstep credit collection agencies, and then set up on their own?
I very much look forward to hearing from anyone who is doing a similar job(s) to me. I look forward to hearing responses and I very much hope I can help anyone who is looking for little things they can do to bring a wee bit of extra money in.
Before I get started I want to get a few things clear, as I know the sort of responses this post may create:
1) I admit that I am a workaholic. As a Scotsman I had to be addicted to something. It could have been sugar, alcohol or anything but I’ve chosen work. I don’t mind working 60+ hours a week and feel lazy if I take a day off.
2) Some of the jobs I mention below may lead people to believe that I am a thug. I admit that I look the part (I’m just short of 6ft tall, 18 stone and have a scar above one eye) but I couldn’t fight sleep never mind another human.
3) I am doing all these little things with a purpose in mind. I want to relocate back to Scotland after being away for 5years. When I get back home I’ll be scaling everything down and enjoying life.
To start with then, here is a brief review of what I’ve been doing to bring in the pennies in the last 15 months:
· The first little thing I tried was delivering leaflets. I gained three clients pretty quickly. One was an Estate Agent I knew, another was a client of mine (I was working as a Mortgage broker at the time) and the third client was found via an advert on Gumtree. Much later I contacted all the local leaflet companies offering my services and I’ve picked up a few shifts here too. I’ve found the job very enjoyable and an excellent way of making a little pocket money.
· The Estate Agent I knew decided to open a Lettings Department and I offered to carry out the inventories and check in for him. I did this for about 3 months until he took on a permanent member of staff. Once again this was a great little job which provided a some pocket money. This was a job that could be picked up really quickly indeed. More importantly I got to see the inner workings of a letting agent, leading me to further work that I’ll go into later.
· Some of the work I’ve been doing is a little controversial, and now I’m going to tell you about the first of these. Last year I made £3000 on Betfair. I’m not clever enough to trade odds or anything like that. I just have a simple, little routine that I do. When I try to explain to people what I do they think I am making it up but I can assure you that I’ve made a few thousand every year since 2006. This year I am £460 up already (the bank gains pace as the year goes on). As a pre-response to the inevitable questions that come up whenever a betting system is mentioned: i) I don’t do it full time because I haven’t got the balls! ii) I’ll sell the system to anyone who offers me enough money!! I plan to continue with this little sideline for the foreseeable future.
· An easy little number that I’ve been doing was born from this forum - for the day I found the competitions thread is a red-letter day on my calendar. For about six months I entered every comp available. I was lucky enough to have quite a few wins. The prizes were mostly books, which of course I immediately listed on Amazon. I really believe that a dedicated comper could live from prizes if they were adventurous.
· This is a hard one to replicate, but last year I did fantastically well from tips! Back in 2007 I went out and bought half a dozen thank you cards which I displayed on my desk at all times. When clients commented on them I would tell them of how I was always getting bottles of whisky etc. This then became a self-fulfilling thing as people didn’t want to be the odd one out. I amassed dozens of bottles, hundreds of cans and a lot more cash gifts than you would ever imagine.
· Throughout the year I received a steady stream of income from selling books on Amazon. I made sure that I let everyone know that I would take any books that they didn’t want. I would then list these on Amazon. I managed to sell about 40% of the books I brought home so I made good money; however I now have a library instead of a garage! To a much lesser extent I also made a little money on Music Magpie.
· In the early summer of 2008 I made a little cash by writing a book. As things were quiet at work I used my time to write an instructional manual on how people could pay off their mortgage as quickly as possible. I then added in some pictures, transformed it into a PDF and listed it on EBay at £10 per copy. Amazingly it sold 15 copies! This may seem small fry but I was very pleased indeed with the result. On the negative side of things though, I got carried away with the success and got a mate to build a website for me to use as a platform for selling the book. I paid him £300 but never sold another copy of my masterpiece!
· The biggest success of the year was my property purchases. This may also be considered as a controversial one as I bought these properties using “no money down” methods. I’ve been very lucky as all the houses have been consistently tenanted and have had no major issues. Never mind the Credit Crunch I would heartily recommend the life of a landlord to anyone who fancies it. I myself am still buying, as long as the price is right.
· As my portfolio grew (I now have 6 properties), I became more interested in the management side. I hadn’t used a Letting Agent to find my tenants and I was managing them myself. The Estate Agent where I worked opened a Lettings Department so I got to see firsthand what an agent actually did for their money. I became convinced that I could offer a mini- letting agent service of my own. I approached a few landlords that I knew (ones that weren’t in competition with my agent friend) and I’m happy to say that three of them handed over the keys. I don’t charge nearly as much as an office based agent but I have found this to be an enjoyable income stream.
· The least inspiring income stream of the year was completing online surveys. I completed about 2000 surveys for the princely sum of c. £20. The one thing I would say is that I found Pinecone to be supremely more reliable than any other company.
· I now found that I had no less than 18 properties under my control by own way or another. This made me more interested in the Utility Warehouse opportunity. I signed up as a distributor, and although the money hardly gushes in, I don’t regret it one bit. I can see this being a low-management residual income stream for a long time to come.
· As things were quiet at work I decided I would pull double shifts, and work for Royal Mail in the sorting office during the night as well as do my Mortgage Broker job during the day. This didn’t work out as I almost killed myself. I was only getting 1 hour’s sleep a day.
· As the Credit Crunch ran on I realised that I was now making more money on a Saturday and Sunday than I was being tied to a desk 60 hours per week. I resolved to find a job that would give me the freedom to explore opportunities every day rather than clock watching and waiting for something to happen in the mortgage market. I applied for 3 jobs which I thought would fit the bill and I was lucky enough to get the one I wanted the most. I won’t go into it too much here as i) it is a job which is regularly mocked on this site, and ii) I thoroughly enjoy it and want to keep it. The most important thing to note with this job is that all I need to do is clock in 37 hours per week. I have total freedom on the actual spread of these 37 hours. This freedom allows me to keep all the plates spinning.
· Having the ability to shift my hours to suit began to make me think that there could be other jobs that could bolt-on to my main work. The first bolt-on that I have been doing is collecting for a doorstep credit lender. I didn’t think I would like this job but over time it has grown on me. The pay is remarkably good per hour.
· As another bolt on I also started working as a debt collector for a national firm. Once again this job has been fine too. The commission is not quite as good as the doorstep credit collection; however this income is a lot less “involved”. If, for whatever reason, I couldn’t get out of the house for a week, the money would still keep rolling in.
· A friend of mine recommended poker “propping” as a potential money-spinner. For those that don’t know, this is when you are paid a commission or enhanced rake back for playing on a certain website. Propping didn’t really work out for me – I just wasn’t good enough. The introduction to the game was good though as I have since (luckily) won a number of tournaments with prizes of well of £500. Before anyone asks, I was good enough to win this money as it was via tournaments (where a certain element of luck is involved) as opposed to propping which involves open ended cash games.
Please feel free to contact me if you are interested in learning more about any of the things I have been doing. I’d like to help people as much as I can.
There are a number of smaller “irons in the fire” that I have just started over the last month or so, so it is too early to make a judgement on their success. Namely:
· I have started a dating website. Rather I’m promoting a “business in a box” dating website for which I’ve bought a catchy domain name.
· Another controversial one I’m afraid! I’ve started a premium adult SMS service.
· I have enrolled with a number of online affiliate programs.
My real question to everyone reading this is: do you have any suggestions as to any further jobs or opportunities which could be bolted on to my working day without too much disruption? In my mind I foresee the best opportunity as being something that could be promoted via leaflets. I’m knocking on 100 doors a day with my job so shoving leaflets in would be no hassle. 100 doors a day doesn’t sound much but this equates to 20,000 per year without using 1mm of extra boot leather.
Food for thought:
· Would it be possible for me to do taxi driving on a Saturday night peak time only, or will most firms look for me to commit to more hours than this?
· Does anyone work as a passenger chaperone for their local council, taking disabled kids to school for example?
· Is anyone on this site making any money from Day Trading?
· With all these cars lying for sale at the side of the road, has anyone thought about squeezing the sellers and passing the motors on to guaranteed buying firms (such as webuyanycar.com) at a profit?
· Does anyone here write articles for profit? (I got to number one in a couple of sections on Ezine last year but I never quite saw any cash from it)
· This may sound weird but are there any “Kevin Ashman” types here who are sitting at home swatting up with the sole intention of winning a big TV cash prize?
· Is anyone doing anything that some may consider “dodgy”? I don’t mean illegal before I get kicked off. If you are not happy to talk about it in open forum then please pm me. I was seriously considering buying a load of modafinil and then selling it at the local university campus.
· Has anyone set up their own leaflet distribution company? How did it go? Where did you find your clients?
· Finally, has anyone worked for one of the big doorstep credit collection agencies, and then set up on their own?
I very much look forward to hearing from anyone who is doing a similar job(s) to me. I look forward to hearing responses and I very much hope I can help anyone who is looking for little things they can do to bring a wee bit of extra money in.
0
Comments
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Ross - please see private message.0
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Wow- that took some reading! Don't you ever sleep?I like cooking with wine......sometimes I even put it in the food!0
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Ross, you deserve to be a millionaire! I'm full of admiration - I feel inspired to try harder to increase my own income. Thanks.0
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That took a while to read haha. It has given me ideas, but I like my sleep too much
Comping again0 -
Wow Well Done !!
I think you should of gone on the appentice lol
:T0 -
wow worlds longest post, you don't seem to do anything by halfs :-)
How about match betting, playing bingo (get more cashback than what you have to deposit) and you could win.Mortgage Start jun 2007 £88500 Outstanding Balance £51000
Overpayments 2007 Nil 2008 £1040 2009 £7853 2010 £10000 2011 aiming for £18000 (6k so far)
The Early Bird Gets the Worm, but the Second Mouse Gets the Cheese!!0 -
how about avon/betterware.
have you tried quidco/daily clicks.0 -
Great thread! I could do with some of your motivation :jThis is a system account and does not represent a real person. To contact the Forum Team email forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com0
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Hi, I am exhausted just reading this!!
Just a thought, have you thought of doing mystery shopping or mystey phone calls? What online surveys are the best ones to deal with?0 -
A little worried about this.
The OP starts by saying:
I admit that I am a workaholic.......
Then goes on tell us in detail about his betting system he'd like to sell on.
Yet last year he tried this, but told us slightly differently:I am a lazy so and so and like most people on the forum I want to earn enough to quit my day job. If I can do that by selling my system instead of doing it myself then all the better.
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=11430401
That thread was locked within a day!
There is something not quite right about this one either!0
This discussion has been closed.
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