Money & Career
Great tips for making more money
Money & Career
Great tips for making more money
• Clean out your closets. Rather than throwing your used clothes away, why not find them a new home, where they will continue to be loved? Smart Cookies clear out their closets on a regular basis and often sell the shoes and clothing items at a consignment store, on eBay, or on craigslist.org. One of the Smart Cookies makes about $300 at the end of each season and puts that toward new clothes. Katie sold her wedding dress for $800 on craigslist.org. You can do the same with clothes — or toys — your baby has outgrown. Some grow so fast that they never even get a chance to wear all the outfits that their parents bought or received as gifts, and a toy may hardly be used if the baby isn't interested. Another possibility? Donate the clothes or toys to charity and keep the receipt. You can write off the value of your donation when you do your taxes the next year and feel good about helping out those who are less fortunate.
• Clear out the clutter. Here’s an incentive to clean up your home: You can get rid of your junk and make money by having a yard (or a garage) sale. Team up with friends, family members, or neighbors and combine your stuff. Then you'll have extra help running the sale and extra inventory to attract more buyers. And who knows? You might end up swapping items with your friends or neighbors.
• Sell stock photos. If people regularly ooh and aah over your Flickr pictures, maybe you’re destined for photographic greatness — or at least a few extra dollars. It’s easier than ever to get your photos out in front of the public. There's a lot of competition, but there's also a lot of demand. Marketing stock photos can be a convenient way for you to build up a secondary income stream. Try Fotolia.com, Dreamstime.com, Shutterstock.com, and Bigstockphoto.com to upload and market your photos.
Page 1 of 4 — on page 2, find out how you can rent out your home as a location for a movie shoot.
Excerpted from
The Smart Cookies' Guide to Making More Dough, copyright 2008 by The Smart Cookies with Jennifer Barrett. Used by permission of Random House Canada.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced except with permission in writing from the publisher.• Rent your parking space. If you pay monthly for a space in a lot or garage, but you know your car will be gone during work hours, you can rent out your space during the weekdays to someone who works near your parking spot. Advertise the space on craigslist.org or in your local paper. Robyn rented out her space and earned an additional $50 per month.
• Rent your home for use as a location for commercials, TV shows, or movies. You can register your home with film studios, production companies, and advertising firms, which maintain lists of properties available for shooting. Check out eHow.com for tips or flip through Opening Your Door to Hollywood, a 2006 book by producer James Perry, which offers a step-by-step guide to renting out residential or business locations. Daily rates can range from a couple hundred to more than a thousand dollars (even more if your home is used in a movie shoot). Andrea's friend and her husband had just built their dream home and needed to furnish it, but they were short on cash after finishing construction. They decided to register their home with a production company for use in TV and films. After just two commercial shoots, they'd already earned $20,000! Note: Be sure to ask for a written policy on what the company does in case of any damage to your home.
• Be an extra. If you've seen the Ricky Gervais show Extras, you know that jobs for extras can range from print modeling ads to movie shoots. You don't need a Screen Actors Guild (SAG) membership or even any acting experience to qualify — just the patience to sit on a set for hours and the flexibility to try out a lot of different costumes and lines. Pay can range from $100 to more than $1,000 a day. Check your local classifieds or contact a casting agency. (For a list of agencies visit idocommercials.com
• Help friends find better jobs. Internet sites like H3.com connects employers with prospective employees, many of whom are already employed and not actively job-hunting, via networking. The rewards for referring a candidate who gets hired range from a few hundred dollars to as much as $5,000. This is a great way to break into the recruiting business, with no overhead. Andrea connected with a recruiter who specialized in marketing. Since she had a lot of connections in that field, she referred many of them to the recruiter. She earned additional money from the referrals and helped some friends land great new jobs.
• Plan that perfect day. If you love weddings, planned your own, and/or have always wanted to plan a friend's wedding, why not do it and get paid for it? Many people would hire a wedding planner in an instant but can't afford the rates that a professional charges. Find out what a beginner planner would charge to get an idea of what is reasonable for someone at your level. Once you've built up some contacts, you might also consider party planning in general — first for friends and then for bigger clients.
Page 2 of 4
Excerpted from
The Smart Cookies' Guide to Making More Dough, copyright 2008 by The Smart Cookies with Jennifer Barrett. Used by permission of Random House Canada.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced except with permission in writing from the publisher.• Get paid for your opinion. Companies often need focus groups, and market researchers need consumers, to test new items or to share their ideas about new products, shows, or ad campaigns. You can earn $25 or $200, depending on the project and the amount of time required. (Check out research firms in your area for upcoming panels and focus groups. Greenbook.org has a large database of market research firms and focus group facilitators, searchable by area.)
• Reap rewards for research and writing. You may have grown up taking the Internet for granted, but there are plenty of people who aren't familiar with it or are too busy to spend time on it. If you're skilled at extracting information through a web search, you can hire yourself out as an Internet researcher for professionals like lawyers and writers. Why not make extra money at something you are already doing?
• Be an undercover consumer. Sign up for a secret-shopper program, where you can eat or drink out for free while rating the restaurant, or shop and rate the retailer. You can often bring a friend as well. Three of the Smart Cookies are secret shoppers and have found it to be a great way to eat and drink at some fabulous restaurants for free! Check out sensusshop.com for more information. There are no membership fees.
• Consider contract work. If it won't conflict with your full-time job, seek out freelance or contract work in the same field. By networking, Katie was able to get additional contract work providing public relations services for clients outside her full-time job, earning an extra $2,500 a month! (Eventually, as we mentioned earlier, she was getting so many referrals and requests for her services that she left her job to open her own PR agency.) Robyn learned about a project seeking registered social workers through the Board of Social Workers newsletter in her area. She was hired on contract for a project in which she made extra money meeting with and interviewing people who wished to adopt children — on her own time, outside her regular job.
Page 3 of 4
Excerpted from
The Smart Cookies' Guide to Making More Dough, copyright 2008 by The Smart Cookies with Jennifer Barrett. Used by permission of Random House Canada.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced except with permission in writing from the publisher.
Turn your pastime or your passion into a paycheck
Do you spend most mornings exercising? Take a basic trainer's course and start training friends and family at your local gym or at home, where you can charge hourly. Not only are you keeping fit, but earning extra money while you're at it. Andrea's friend Erin, a preschool teacher struggling on a low salary, turned her passion for fitness into extra earnings by becoming a personal trainer. In a year, she was able to increase her income by 20 per cent and stay healthy and fit.
Of course, you don't need to be a fitness trainer, but chances are you already participate in some pastimes that could make you money. In your notebook, make a list of at least five activities that you really enjoy doing, like shopping, knitting, walking your dog, or even drinking wine. Now spend some time brainstorming about ways you could make money doing any of these activities.
If you like shopping, for example, you could earn extra money working as a secret shopper on the weekends. Or you could take a part-time job at your favorite store — many retail stores hire extra employees to help out during the busy holiday season between Thanksgiving and New Year's. Not only will you earn more money but you'll get employee discounts on items you'd probably buy anyway (and save money on holiday gifts).
Like knitting? Why not knit sweaters, scarves, or gloves and sell them to friends or give them as gifts on birthdays to save money. If you enjoy walking your dog, ask around to see if your neighbors need their dogs walked. You can make extra money walking theirs as well. Enjoy wine? Look for part-time work at your local wine store, or sign up for wine-tasting classes and see if the instructor needs an assistant at future classes. Many wine shops offer tastings and classes and might be able to use an extra pair of hands in exchange for free wine or a little money. That's exactly what Andrea did. One of her former colleagues started a business that offered wine tastings at company events. Andrea offered to help out. It was a great opportunity for her to make extra cash, sample some wine, and meet new people.
If you enjoy playing basketball or soccer, consider coaching. If you are already taking classes in yoga or Pilates or dancing, consider training to become an instructor yourself. Or see if there are jobs available at the studio on the weekends or evenings — manning the front desk or helping to set up equipment, for example — in exchange for free classes. With a little effort and ingenuity, it's possible to turn almost any pastime into a paycheck.
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Read more:
• 7 ways your home can make money for you
• Quiz: Is money coming between you and your honey?
• 10 ways to save money on gas
Excerpted from The Smart Cookies' Guide to Making More Dough, copyright 2008 by The Smart Cookies with Jennifer Barrett. Used by permission of Random House Canada.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced except with permission in writing from the publisher.
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