It seems most people could use additional money on the side so I wanted to share with you a few things I have done to give you some part time money making ideas. What are the two things we never to seem to have enough of? Money and time. I believe this is why many people look for ways to make as much money on the side as they can.
If you are a stay at home mom, college student, or the bread winner of the family there always seems to be a need for more time to do the things you want to do and more money to afford to do them. I am no different which is why I have a few irons in the fire that I want to share with you.
Making Products To Sell Online
My first experience making money part time came in high school when I made products and sold them on Ebay. At the time I was into paintballing and had purchased a paintball gun that came with a silencer. I decided I wanted to know how the silencer worked so I ripped it apart and figured out how to make them for my friends and I. That lead to selling them online and equated to a $240/h rate. Now, I only sold a few silencers but the money to time ratio was great. Little did I know selling such items is frowned upon so the experience was short lived. If you have the talent and tools to produce a simple product you can probably make a few bucks selling them online.
Making products is one of my favorite methods for making money. It is what lead me into engineering and offers a very tangible means to provide value. This is by no means passive but if you can find a good niche and provide a decent product I guarantee you can make some good money.
Buying Domains
I began buying domains in 2008 as I could see that the finite availability of Dot Coms implied value. I currently have 98 under my belt and have developed a handful of them. Each runs $7 to $12 dollars a year to hold onto so you can see how that can get expensive quick but once liquidated that $7 or $12 dollars a year can turn into thousands. I purchased one domain for $7.95 and was offered 12,000.00 for it the following week. Talk about a good return. Now, this is the exception not the rule. If you want to invest into domains understand it will take a good deal of time and effort to land a decent one. It cost me a lot of money to find out most domains have a gestation period. Additionally the changing landscape of the internet could have adverse effects. The “semantic” web could discount a domain portfolio. If you do decide to go forward with domains understand the return will be slow. My preferred registrar is GoDaddy.com
only because it was where I started. There are many other great options out there.
Rental Property
While another long term investment, rental properties can offer great part time revenue. This of course requires a good deal of cash up front and usually a good deal of work but it can be worth it. Real-estate is one of the few things you can purchase that generally increases in value. This is because of the finite availability of homes and lots. That said real-estate also demands a long term strategy. It is possible to flip properties but you need to be on your toes if you are going to go that route. Additionally rentals require to deal with renters. For me this is no big deal as I grew up working on rentals with my parents but for other it could be a game changer.
Developing Online Properties
The most notable effort is the site you are reading. ShyEntrepreneur.com came out of the efforts in my master’s program to provide small, young, and home based businesses owners/ entrepreneurs with exposure to the formal ideas I have picked up along the way. The site is young yet (a little over a year old) and is positioned for growth. With the help of a small part time team I have compiled some resources that were designed to edify the reader base. To date the site is still in the red but our breakeven is just around the corner.
Total time invested: not sure, a lot at first to get it up and going then roughly an hour or two per article. With 64 posts that is roughly at least 120 hours. This doesn’t include the 7+ years of school or personal experiences that preceded the site just the time put into making it happen.
The Common Thread
I don’t know if you have picked up on it yet but in short there is not easy get rich quick program or model that works. Everything that has ever brought in money for me has required hard work and time. Even so called “passive” investments require a good deal of attention to perform well. Don’t get stuck in believing you don’t need to work, you do and you should. The neat thing is a little bit of hard work can go a long way. All businesses require someone behind them strategically directing the organization and pushing the people to make each day a success. If you are your first business you need to accept that you will need to put in hard work to make any king of money either part or fulltime. I believe it is David Ramsey who said “to get to where few are tomorrow you must do what few do today. ”
