Creative Ways to Make Money Part 4: Miscellaneous Jobs

This final installment of Creative Ways to Make Money explores more traditional jobs as well as some non-traditional jobs.  Please see important information following the job sections.  There you will find some tips for making money on your own, a warning about scams, and some good resources!

As always, I’d love to hear your experiences or your favorite ideas.  Disclaimer: I’m not responsible for any money made or lost trying any of the ideas, that is a risk that you alone take.

Working for Someone Else

• Deliver pizzas. Evening weekend hours are probably required, but think of the tips and possibly free pizza.
• Wait tables. You’ll make the most tips during nights and weekends. You’ll probably make more if you work at an upscale restaurant.
• Be a bartender. Another nights and weekends job, but tips can be great!
• Teach swimming lessons at the local Y or municipal pool.  You’ll have to be knowledgeable, work well with kids, and have CPR and safety training.
  

Miscellaneous Jobs

• Join a focus group. Pay is usually pretty good and you may get free drinks or lunch out of the deal. Go to Find Focus Groups to find a listing of focus groups near you.
• Become a mystery shopper, merchandiser, auditor, or product demonstrator, and get paid doing surveys. A post dedicated to this topic is in the works.
• Make money by taking online surveys.  Many of them are now going by a points system instead of paying cash.  Here are a couple to get you started: Greenfield and Pinecone Research.
  
• Sell yourself… no, I’m not encouraging you to go get naked in front of a bunch of people.  But if you are interested in that, there’s probably a strip club near to you.  Or an alternative would be modeling naked.  One of the college’s I attended hires students (all shapes and sizes) for $10 per hour to model for design/art majors.  You can make about $30 each evening you do this.  Otherwise, there’s donating sperm, donating eggs, being a surrogate mother (you carry someone elses baby/babies), donating plasma, and donating hair.
  

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Tips for making money

• Start networking through family and friends.
• Use classifieds and flyers at local stores to advertise.
• Purchase some business cards and start networking.  A Google search for business cards brings up many options.  VistaPrint is well known and offers 250 free business cards.  If you’re talented, have a nice printer, and decent design software, you can create your own business cards and print them out on card stock.
  
• Really think about what you’re passionate about and what you are good at… then make some money out of it!
• Attitude counts.  Be hard working, personable when needed, and punctual in what you do whether it’s delivering pizzas or making a blog post.
  

Beware of scams:

• Opportunities where you have to spend a lot of money to get started
• Envelope stuffing – oftentimes you have to recruit/trick others to do envelope stuffing in order to make money
• Craft assembly – would be nice if your assembled product was ever good enough for them to accept
• Contact your local US Postal Service or police if anyone sends you a money order to wire to them.  When the M.O. they send you shows insufficient funds, you get slammed with fees and have to pay the full amount back.  The same consequence for those who deposit money from fake (although it looks real) M.O.  Craigslist explains some common scams in plain English.
• One thing about Paypal.  I have lost my Paypal account due to someone hacking my account.  I also know of A LOT of people who have had this done to them.  When you get an email from Paypal asking you to click a link to update your information, don’t click it.  Open a new browser and manually type in Paypal’s address, then update your information from there.  Hackers have figured out a way to make Paypal website and URL look-alikes.  Once you’ve fallen victim, Paypal will not let you reopen your account or even open a new account – this pretty much renders you useless on eBay and with many mystery shopping companies who send payment via Paypal.
  

Resources

• How to Write for the Web
  
• 52 Ways to Make Extra Money
• 13 Ways to Make Extra Cash
• Fabjob.com has a large list of “dream jobs” that you can start.  You can get a idea of things you need to know to plan your business.  To get even more details and specifics, you have to purchase their guides.
• See a listing of over 1300 money making jobs and opportunities at WalletBoosters.
• Check out hundreds of small business ideas in many different categories at MySmallBiz.
  
• BizyMoms also has a list of business ideas.

Creative Ways to Make Money Part 1: Selling
Creative Ways to Make Money Part 2: Start a Service
Creative Ways to Make Money Part 3: Computer Work
Creative Ways to Make Money Part 4: Miscellaneous Jobs