Earn Extra Money

Though Earn Extra Money is most often about how to earn extra money by starting a part time business, this post is about how you can get paid to do nothing (well, almost nothing).  I wrote this post with the idea that if you’re getting paid to do nothing, you can use that time while you’re technically “on the job” to start a small business (or, really, to do whatever you want).  Remember, the aim is not to just do very little, but to earn money for doing things you already have to or want to do (like starting a business, doing your homework or even playing video games – and yes, you can make money playing games).

Sometimes you stumble across excellent “get paid to do nothing jobs.”  In college, a friend of mine found a job during his freshman year that he held all the way through graduation.  He was in charge of overseeing the campus’ toilet paper rolls (not kidding) and he got paid to do nothing!  Most college suites had shared bathrooms outside of the suites that were cleaned and restocked by paid janitors.  However, students in suites with internal bathrooms were responsible for cleaning their bathrooms, but the university provided toilet paper.  That’s where my friend came in: He got paid to open up and serve as the attendant in the campus’ toilet paper room, a room that few visited and a job that required my friend to do nothing at all (besides his homework).  That’s what I’m talking about when I say you should look for a job where you can get paid to do nothing.  If you’re a college student and want to see if your college has any similar part time jobs available, start with your student employment office.  For folks who aren’t enrolled in college, the following are suggestions for part time jobs that pay you to do very little.

• Late night motel attendant (a friend had this job during college and used the many hours during which he wasn’t required to do anything to do his homework).
• Library attendant (particularly for niche libraries where no one ever shows up or late night shifts).  Make sure to look for jobs at front desks and information desks and not jobs where you’ll be reshelving books.
• Retail assistant at a store with infrequent customers (like an art gallery, high end boutique or niche store).  Have you ever walked past a store and wondered “Who goes in there?”  Well, if that’s the case, you should go in “there” and look for a job, as it is likely there won’t be too much actual work to do.
• Late night security (indoors).  In this case, look for security jobs in very safe areas/buildings – jobs where the primary requirement is to sit at a desk (as opposed to actively patrolling the building or outdoors).
• Computer lab attendant (especially early in the morning or really late at night on a college campus).  This is an ideal job because you essentially get paid to be on the computer.
• Parking garage ticket taker (late night shift).  Find a 24 hour parking garage and bring all of the extra work you have to do.  How many cars really come through at 3AM anyway?
• Babysitting young children late at night.  If you babysit young children late at night and can get them to go to sleep, every hour after they go to sleep before their parents get home is yours to do whatever you’d like.

I’ve also profiled some small business ideas on this blog that would afford you a lot of free time (as, for instance, a machine does most of the work for you).  Consider these part time business ideas if you want to get paid to do nothing (well, again, almost nothing).

• Waiting in Line for People
• Start a Laundry Service for College Students
• CD and DVD Copying

Believe it or not, there are plenty of college students who don’t know how to turn a laundry machine on.  When I was in college, one of the fraternities on campus offered a laundry service to college students, but it was far too expensive for most students to afford.  This is where you come in; you can earn extra money by doing college students’ laundry.

You can pick the dirty clothes up at their dorm rooms or you can request that college students drop their clothes off at a certain location and time on or off campus.  You can have a van waiting at a popular spot on Friday afternoons, for instance.

Why college students?
Two reasons: (1) There a many college students who don’t know how to do laundry and many parents who will pay almost anything to make their college student(s) happy and (2) because advertising on a college campus is so easy – all you have to do is put up flyers wherever student groups put up their own flyers (you can even hire a college student to do this every so often for you).

Why this business?
You can work from home and you can work part time.  This small business is remarkably easy to run.  All you really need to do is pick up laundry, wash it, fold it and return it.  While the clothes are washing, you can do other things (like run another part time business).  You could even find a laundromat that has industrial washing machines and dryers, which will allow you to wash and dry large amounts of clothing at once.

Grow your business:
Consider adding dry-cleaning services to your list of offerings.   You wouldn’t have to do the dry cleaning yourself, of course; you could just partner with a local drycleaner, negotiate a lower price to capture more profit (your angle in that negotiation would ideally be that you’ll bring the drycleaner a lot of business) and drop off and pick up the clothes at the right times.

Watch out:
Make sure you know a lot about washing clothes so that you don’t accidentally ruin anyone’s clothing.  Also, keep clothing separate so that you don’t lose people’s clothing.  There are mesh bags that you can use to wash clothes that can be filled with clothes and placed directly into washing machines and dryers, keeping clothes separate.  They are available here.

Good luck earning extra money!

You can make money waiting in line for people.  I came across this idea years ago while working in Washington, D.C.  Reporters at the time would hire people to wait in line for them in order to get a seat at a Congressional hearing, events that are generally open to the public but in very high demand.  The best part about this way to make extra money is that you can run another small business from your telephone while you’re waiting in line.  Or, you can bring your computer and get paid to write (copywriting) while waiting.  You can even play video games and, yes, there are even ways to make money playing games.

Washington, D.C. is probably the best city to make money waiting in line for people, but many opportunities abound outside the Beltway.  Here are some places that might be options if you are considering waiting in line to earn extra money:

• Product releases (just think about the hype surrounding the original iPhone release)
• Concert ticket releases
• Sports ticket releases (some Duke University students camp for weeks to get high-demand basketball tickets)
• Opening night of movies (think about the lines to get tickets for movies with huge followings, like Harry Potter)
• Congressional hearings
• Tourist sites (sometimes you have to get to a certain location very early in order to get one of a limited number of tickets)

Another way to make money waiting in line:
There is another way to make money waiting in line for product releases.  When demand for a certain product is so high that people are beginning to hire line waiters, that is a clue that the product is probably not efficiently priced (basically, that demand for the product is higher than supply and thus the product would sell for more on the open market than it is being offered by the store).  Thus, you don’t need to be hired by someone to make money waiting in line; if you can wait in line and get your hands on the coveted product, you can sell it seconds later in an auction on Ebay (this process of buying lowing and selling high in a short window of time is called arbitrage).  Don’t think you can make money doing this?  When the PlayStation 3 came out, it was hard to get and selling for about $600 per unit in stores (if you were willing to wait in line).  At the same time as the PlayStation 3 launch, the video game console was selling for as much as $2000 per unit on Ebay, meaning that anyone willing to wait in line for a Playstation 3 could make about $1,400 per console before fees and taxes.

For more information on waiting in line and product arbitrage, see this Youtube video.

Unlike most of the posts on Earn Extra Money, this is not a small business idea, but a thought experiment that should help you uncover marketable skills you didn’t know you have.

Some people reading this might think that they don’t have any marketable skills; however, if you think about what skills you already possess from a number of different angles, you’ll come up with some skills you can offer your people in your community to earn extra money.

Be sure to think about this in a number of ways:

1. Ask yourself the very general question, “What marketable skills do I have that people might pay for?”
2. Think about what makes you different: Are you stronger than average?  Do you enjoy working with computers?  Do you love animals?  It is in your differences that you’re likely to find your comparative advantage, a situation in which an entity (a person, company, country, etc.) can produce something more efficiently than its competitors (in this case, your clients).  For example, would it take you ten minutes to download and install anti-virus software for someone, when it might take that person two hours to do the same?
3. Ask your friends what marketable skills they think you have, as they see you differently than you see yourself.
4. Ask yourself, “What skills do certain people lack?”  Be sure to think about people who have different lifestyles or are in different situations than you (like recent immigrants or senior citizens)?  Could you help people with their English or do manual labor that senior citizens can’t do?

After considering these questions, please post your thoughts below, so that others can learn from your experience working through this thought experiment.

Help people prepare their Christmas cards by running your own Christmas cards business.

Growing up, a neighbor of mine who was well into her eighties once mentioned that she sends out about 2,000 Christmas cards every year.  That’s quite a project.  Think about it: If she were to work on this project everyday, she’d have to complete 5-6 cards per day in order to finish by December 25th.  While most people don’t have that many cards to send, it can be a difficult task to prepare and send even 100 Christmas cards.  Many people would like (and would pay for) help addressing, stuffing, sealing and sending Christmas cards.  This leaves a large opening for a Christmas cards business.

As you consider what Christmas card preparation services you’ll offer, consider that you can either stick with just adding addresses and postage to envelopes or you can offer to actually write the cards.  You can even offer to purchase Christmas cards for your clients and complete the entire assignment from the comfort of your own living room (assuming they lend you their address book).  The best part about this is that you can think ahead and buy cards right after the previous year’s Christmas at huge discounts (they occasionally are marked off by up to 90% the week after Christmas and they’re just as good as Christmas cards you’d buy at full price before Christmas).  You can then charge your clients full price for the Christmas cards the following Christmas season, keeping that 90% for yourself before you’ve even lifted your pen.

To make your job especially easy, print return address labels to avoid having to write the same address hundreds of times.  And, if you’re a quicker typist than writer, print recipient address labels as well.  You can buy blank address labels that come with printing instructions (you can print them out on nearly any home printer) at any office supply store.  Also, buy self seal envelopes to make your Christmas cards business even easier on yourself.

To advertise you Christmas cards business, consider these suggestions:

1. Create a basic webpage.  Use DevHub.com for a non-technical solution that does not require hosting.  This service is completely free and no harder to use than editing an email.  Click here to get started.
2. Create an attractive flyer that describes the services your Christmas cards business offers.  Post that flyer around town and hand it out at local events (including at churches, if such promotion is permitted).
3. Put your web address and other contact information on business cards (you can get them free at Vista Print).  Hand your free business cards out at Christmas-centric places.  Again, handing them out after church is your best bet.  You can also try handing them out in malls in mid-November, but check to see if there are anti-solicitation rules at your local mall.
4. Advertise your Christmas cards business on Craigslist.org for free.
5. See if you’re able to announce your Christmas cards business in the announcements at church services, as your business would obviously appeal to many churchgoers.

Outside of the Christmas season, you can focus on writing wedding gift thank you letters and preparing party invitations.