If you’re like me and trying to stay a bit occupied with a part-time job, you might be looking for something to dip your feet in the water but not something which would occupy all of your life.
There are some general principles I’m going to offer you, and then a list of ideas that you can add on to yourself either in the comments or by dropping me an email.
Let me know what you think after you read this article, and please share this on social media if it was useful for you!
Some general principles
You should first assess what you’re already doing which could potentially make you money.
So get out some paper and make a list of all of your hobbies, no matter how silly or expensive they might be. Maybe you like painting miniature figurines, maybe you like walking your dog, maybe you really enjoy gardening. One I’ve been into recently is stenciling wood and signs.
All of these can be expensive (other than the dog, I guess), but when you change your mindset to monetizing a hobby you can start to feel the machinery working in your head.
You could buy unpainted figurines and offer a customization service through Etsy.
There are a lot of dog-walking apps out there now and you could make yourself available in your spare time to walk dogs, even bringing your own along.
For me, I actually did make a small sign-making business. I had to scale up my enterprise a bit (I purchased a Cricut cutting machine and a lot more vinyl than my partner thinks I’ll ever use, but that’s okay).
You could set up a community garden and sell a small plot to your neighbors, or offer to help them set up their own garden as a consultant.
Before the second principle, here’s a quick video to help inspire you!
(If you can’t tell, I love Ted videos)
Okay, on to the second principle.
Anything you have a passion for is a good place to start, but make sure not to corrupt what you love.
What I mean by this is, if you have something as a hobby, make sure it’s not something you want to just stay a hobby. When you bring in customers, it can bring stress along with it. You might feel the need to get things perfectly right, or worse have customers who are overly aggressive or difficult to work with.
With my stencil business, I made sure to charge enough that it would be worth my time and discourage a lot of picky customers.
It’s counter-intuitive, but the worst customers that expect the most from you are typically those who pay the least. So by charging a lot I reduce those customers right off the bat, I make sure that I’m getting compensated enough to deal with the rare difficult customer, and I limit the amount of hours I have to work. If my demand increases and I want to work less, I’ll just keep increasing my fees until it matches the time I have to allocate.
Okay, time for a quick list to give you some ideas:
List of weekend work from home jobs
These are just some I’ve come up with, but as I get more feedback from you guys out there I’ll expand the list and remove some that aren’t great so we can keep it fresh:
- Teach something you know how to do well (like music, singing, a language)
- Freelance write
- Publish books on Amazon
- Drive for Uber or Lyft
- Data entry
- Graphic design
- Photography (weddings, babies)
- Bake cookies or cupcakes
- Gardening (help other people, sell flowers or succulants)
- DIY crafts (use a Cricut like me to make stencils, sell candles, customized cards, this is a big category!)
Let me know if you have any other ideas, and please share any feedback you have, thanks!
~~Eric