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My income from my current job is okay (IT consulting), but I'm always wondering if I can do better and speed up the time it would take to reach my financial goals by having a 2nd income. So, I brainstormed up some of the ways that people could make money during their free time (after work, on weekends, etc.)
- Flipping houses - Housing is a cyclical market, so you can buy when its low, sell when its high. Another alternative is to buy a fixer-upper, fix the house, then resell the house.
- Flipping cars - buying cars for cheap and reselling them for a higher cost or fixing up an old car and reselling it.
- Flipping in demand video games (Nintendo Wiis/SONY Playstation 3s) - The proper financial term for this would be arbitrage. I have heard of people waiting in line for periodic store launches and then reselling enough ps3s to produce roughly $24,000 worth of income in a matter of weeks. When PS3s first came out, you could buy it for $600 and resell it for $1300 on ebay. Wiis currently go for about $350-$400 (not including ebay/paypal fees) for a $250 investment.
- Playing poker - Signing up for rakeback sites and taking advantage of casino bonuses.
- Web design - Lots of people/companies need websites
- Starting a totally new business from scratch
- Sign up for holiday part-time jobs at UPS or at the mall
- Doing surveys (Pinecone Research comes to mind, $5 a survey for 10 minutes of your time) - I did this until Pinecone kicked me out of their program for being related to someone in a consumer products company. (Note to self + readers: Next time don't put that down.)
- Rental income - Rent out an apartment to someone, sit back and collect the $
- Babysitting - Not for me in particular
- Medical transcription work - I've been interested, but haven't followed through on it.
- Dropshipping business - Interested, but haven't followed through on it either.
- Franchising - Startup costs are too much for me
Of the ones I've listed, I personally do the following: 1. Poker - I don't claim to be an awesome poker player, but I am a consistent player. All you need is discipline when playing and you can easily rake in some cash from the loose internet players. When i'm bored, i'll play a little bit. I use Pokersavvy as a bonus earning site. My goal is to play about 10-30 minutes a day in 2007. If i'm up by a lot by half way during the year, i'll probably move up in stakes and that should increase my earning rate at the risk of higher swings/variance. Earning potential: My earning rate has been approximately $10-$60+/hour. Time taken: I generally play only 10-30 minutes a day, so i'm not making big bucks or anything.
2. Web Design / Developer / Consulting - I do part-time web design projects since I like coding and doing graphic design. Projects come in from friends and I work on them in my spare time. If any of you need any web sites done, let me know.  Earning potential: Ranges between a couple hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars a project. Time taken: I generally work on this on weekends or weeknights when i'm bored.
Perks: I can start a SEP-IRA and pay less taxes on my earnings by contributing to it.
3. Wii/PS3 arbitrage - A few weeks ago I managed to buy a PS3 for $642 after tax and resold it for $700 cash. I definitely could have sold it for more, but I wanted to cash out before x-mas arrived, whereby demand would drop precipitously. This kind of opportunity only comes once a year as you can imagine. Earning potential: Ranges between $10/hour to $50/hour Time taken: A few hours spent standing in front of a store at 3 am.
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