639: 30 Ways to Make Extra Money for the Holidays

22:27It's like, okay, I know that's going to be like a$400 sale or something. And more overhead, more time required. I guess you could hire staff to go and do this. But there's a stand down the road from us. It's just kind of a little pop-up vacant lot in the corner of this busy intersection. And I got to imagine that they do a killing over the course of five or six weeks. Yeah, I bet they do. And it's always fun. People enjoy it. They'll go out as a family, grab a tree. I did that growing up and I have amazing memories of being able to do that. And so I don't know, I guess I'm also thinking like you get to provide that for people.

22:58You get to provide that joy and make some money in the process. Another one on the list is baking. Now I'm not a big baker, but if you do enjoy baking, this can extend beyond those just cookies, like the really beautiful cookies. I'm even thinking of like toffee, even if it's like gourmet popcorn that you make, imagine selling that to companies that are going to be hosting a party. And so everyone walks away with a bag of your gourmet popcorn that's homemade. There are so many options during this season. People are busy, They might not have time to bake. They might not want to bake, but they want to show up to parties with something in hand that tastes delicious, looks beautiful.

23:40And so this is a really great option for anyone with an oven and a love of baking. Yeah. And if you're going to want to expand that, you're probably going to need to go through some commercial kitchen license or cottage kitchen license registrations and stuff. But our friend was doing this in Livermore and she would sell out 50 bucks for a dozen cookies. You know, she got really good at the custom decorations and that was a really significant source of income. And it kind of became a little bit of a party, you know, on pickup day, right? So she'd batch process everything and then have people come by the driveway and pick them up.

24:15She's like, I can't ship. I can't do delivery. And maybe she would do local delivery, but just the way that their license worked. But if you come by my place and pick them up and Venmo me and we'll be good. Yeah. I've known people personally that have done this and they've even done the cookies that are already in the box and it goes home to the kids and the kids decorate it. Or even a cookie decorating class where you can go and bring kids or it's just people who want to learn how to decorate cookies. So there's some ideas of ways to expand that. Leaning into that, there's also like wreath making classes.

24:49I've actually gone to one where we made a beautiful Christmas wreath. I showed up, all of the supplies were there and some very creative person, more creative than me, guided us through how to hand make our Christmas wreath. I still use it to this day because it's something I created and I probably paid 60 or$70 to hang out with some of my friends and do this. I saw it as an opportunity to have a girls night and walk away with a beautiful Christmas wreath. Yeah, I really like that one. We'll call it the experience economy where it's like, hey, it's an excuse to get out in the real world, hang out with friends, do something creative, crafty with your hands like the sip and sip and paint type of places you paint this picture or make this pottery thing and you got the appetizers and the wine going we did an episode last month with an episode or with a woman who was doing these craft workshops started out i'm making earrings i'm trying to sell them on etsy i'm trying to sell them on like uh you know local market markets and stuff she's like wait a minute i can teach other people how to make these earrings you know it takes the same amount of time and all of a sudden i got 20 or 40 people paying me to come to this class and that was her thing but i really like the idea of putting a christmas spin on it, the gingerbread decorating class, the cookie decorating class, the wreath making type of class.

25:59She specifically said, I want to go after the community center type of venues because they were really cheap to rent. And you bring in your own supplies, materials, do your own marketing and get some people in the door. Yeah, that's great. We just did ours at a friend's house. A friend knew this person and said, hey, can you get, I can get 10 women to come in and do this. And so then it costs you nowhere. It costs you no money to host it. I think that the person whose home was in, like she got to do her wreath for free. So not bad. Yeah, very cool. But you know, one of the kids additions that we've added this year has been a 3d printer.

26:32And so sometimes we go to these events, like we had salmon days, is all about, you know, the return of the salmon, like it's a big thing you learn about in elementary school. But there was this booth selling like 3d printed dragons and other little figurines. And, you know, now having the printer, you know, the cost of the filament is, you know, there's like maybe$2 worth worth of material into this$25 thing that they're selling. And like, oh, I wonder if you could 3D print some Christmas ornaments or other decoration type of items and try and sell those too. Well, Nick, my son, my 12 year old son also has a 3D printer.

27:05When you said the dragons, I'm like, I could probably walk in the next room and grab one. He sells those at school, in middle school. He walked around with a backpack full of 3D printed dragons and other things. He takes special orders and he's literally selling them. and someone came in and started selling them for a lot more. And then Evan got more business because everyone was like, you're expensive. We're going to go to Evan because he's cheap. And so, yeah, I mean, he's selling these dragons. And then I said, what are you doing with your money? And he said, I'm buying candy. So we have some work to do for using that money for good purpose.

27:38But you would be surprised at what a 3D printer can print. I was surprised to see the type of quality things that he's coming out with. And like you said, the cost of filament. And then obviously the 3D printer to start up is another cost. But if you have one already, that's awesome. Yeah, I don't know. It's really cool. It's creative to see what they can come up with in terms of the design. In terms of the designs that are even already out there that you can go out and create. We've created the Razer scooters are always just all over the garage. And so we ended up looking first on Amazon. Is there like a little stand you could stick that front wheel in?

28:13And then, of course, the thing is like, shoot, that looks like something we ought to be able to print. And sure enough, like, oh, it works pretty well. So it's become a practical addition rather than just a fun educational type of thing as well. The next idea that I want to throw out is maybe a little bit more practical hours for dollars type of thing. And that's to pick up just additional shifts. There are a bunch of like odd job apps or shift work apps or gig apps that, you know, as companies look to ramp up retail staff, restaurant staff, warehouse staff during the holidays, it's an opportunity to come on board and pick up some extra hours if you have the capacity to do that.

28:48Wanolo is one that has been reasonably high. I think it's work now locally, wanolo.com, but you can check that out. We've got a few others that we can link up in the resources there. Generally, hourly rates can vary based on where you live, but usually in the$15 to$20 an hour range. So not super, super high earning power, but definitely an option for low barrier to entry. And I got to make money quickly. Another one for a low barrier to entry and I think guaranteed money. When we talk about all of these creative ideas, sometimes you're wondering, is that actually like, how am I going to find people to pay me for this stuff?

29:23But one that you will not have trouble for is donating plasma. Have you ever donated plasma, Nick? Yeah, I haven't either. I was tempted to in college, but I didn't actually cross that barrier. I have known people who did, but that's one of those ways of doing it once, getting 20 to 50 bucks in your pocket and being able to say, okay, this is going to help just offset the cost of some of those expenses for Christmas. Like you said, people are spending about$1 ,000 on average. And any way that you can just make a couple$50 here,$200 there just helps offset that cost so that you don't end up in credit card debt and dreading the day after Christmas when you have to deal with all these financial choices.

30:06Yeah, exactly. If you can find ways to offset the cost as those costs are coming in. And this is one, you know, from what I hear, relatively painless, as long as you don't mind needles too much. And a lot of the new, or rather a lot of the plasma donation centers have this like new donor incentive program, where it's like, if you make four donations in your first five weeks or something, we'll give you this bonus. And so it could be a good time to get into that. Of course, do your own due diligence on long-term benefits. My understanding is your body regenerates the plasma relatively quickly. So you can donate more often than you could donate blood or something like that.

30:38It's like, well, it takes a while to recoup that loss. But in this case, sounds like it's pretty quick. So we've got that idea for you and a bunch more coming up right after this. Are you still overpaying for wireless? It's time to say yes to saying no. At our partner Mint Mobile, their favorite word is no. No contracts, no monthly bills, no overages, no hidden fees, no BS. And here's why I said yes to making the switch over five years ago and yes to getting premium wireless for 15 bucks a month. I really liked being able to keep my existing phone and my existing phone number when I switched over.

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32:59Terms and conditions apply. Hiring indeed is all you need. All right, we're back with Allison from inspiredbudget.com with more money making ideas for the holidays. We talked about some low barrier to entry types of side hustles. Another one that is going to make just about everyone's list is to do the delivery game or the ride share game. This is, look, I, you know, maybe not the most lucrative long term type of side hustle, but it is hours for dollars. It is something that you can start relatively quickly. This, of course, is Instacart. This is Uber Eats. This is Lyft. These are, you know, plug and play type of things where if you don't mind driving around and you've got the time and capacity to do that, absolutely a way to offset some of those holiday costs.

33:42One that I will never be doing because I live in Texas is snow removal. I am not familiar with this, but I am assuming that in areas where it does snow a lot, people have to get to work. And I'm guessing there is definitely a pain when it comes to early morning snow removal. So snow removal, great idea. You can go in low cost by doing it all manually, I'm assuming. I have no idea how much it costs to purchase a snowblower. I don't even know how it works. But what I can say is I know people and I know that people don't necessarily like doing chores like this. And so this is a really great option specifically for the winter time for you to go around, help neighbors out, get some money intern for it, and good old manual labor.

34:32Good old manual. Yeah, you could shovel the driveway. You could do it the old-fashioned way or get that snowplow attachment for your truck. It reminds me of Mr. Plow from The Simpsons back in the day. We had some friends that lived up in the mountains or had a second home up in the mountains. And they would call the guy on their way up if they knew it had snowed and he'd come make a special trip. I think it was probably 40 bucks per shot to just clear the berm off of the driveway because the city plow would come in and do the road. But then of course they would pile up this like four foot thing of snow.

34:58So we can't get it to the driveway. It's like, okay. So the other guy would come out and clear out the driveway. And so you get a recur, especially if you have that winter climate where it makes sense, you could have 20, 40, 50 bucks a job, I imagine. Yeah. And people that want to use you over and over again, you You could be just be on speed dial, be the snow person. Yes. Okay. I've got one that you could do while you're out and about doing your Christmas shopping and might not, might not make a special trip for it, but while you're out about, and this is field agent, which is a mystery shopping app or kind of like a, sometimes a product display checking app.

35:29You pull it up, they'll give you which gigs are nearby. And if you could stack up three, four or five of them in, in proximity, maybe they're at their same store or nearby stores. And it's like, go check this product display or go test out this product. sometimes. We'll reimburse you. You got to tell us what you think. Most of these are not huge, like, you know, three to 10 or 12 bucks a piece. But if you could stack them up on top of the errands that you're already running, the shopping that you're already doing, it's a fun little, fun little extra side hustle. One that I actually came up literally today, I went and got coffee with my friend this morning.

36:01And when we were driving back, she said, Allison, I wish I kid you not, she said this, I'm not making this up for the podcast. She said, I want to hire someone to come clean my house just before the holidays. Like do a deep clean of her house. She doesn't want to hire someone necessarily every other week or once a month, but she wants some extra help with getting her house clean, ready for company right before the holidays. So residential or commercial cleaning service, this is a really great opportunity because people want to put their best foot forward when it comes to the way their house is presented and they also want help in the process.

36:35So it looks like Anthony and Janilka grew their Dallas area residential cleaning service to$25 ,000 a month in revenue. And I'm guessing they hired out other cleaners to do that for them. But some people like cleaning. I mean, I get myself stuck on like the cleaning TikTok videos, and I don't even enjoy it. But I definitely would be willing to hire someone to come do that for me. Yeah, they're probably over 100 grand a month now. That was several years ago. And we'll do another upcoming episode on how to start this cleaning business without having to do the cleaning yourself. It's one of these column, like a super fragmented market where if you if you look, you think about your local area, or even nationally, there's no dominant player that has more than just a sliver of market share.

37:20And so that spells an opportunity to kind of create a branded custom, not custom, but like, you know, a professional presence that a lot of these, you know, solo operator type of businesses don't have, they rely on word of mouth, they don't have a huge digital marketing presence. And so if you can come in and provide that and then go find people to do who know how to do the cleaning, you know, help them. Hey, we're going to help you get more business and fill up your calendar. It can be a win for everybody. So that's kind of the game that they were playing and the way that has been presented on the show in the past.

37:52On the commercial side, it was going after, you know, restaurants and offices. And the side hustle appeal there is like, well, it's got to happen in the off hours. It's got to happen after the restaurant closes. It's got to happen after people go home for the day from the office. And so I made a good side hustle on that front. And similar, like the people that we talked to started off, I'm going to do it myself, make extra money. And then as it starts to scale, well, I can't be three places at once. So I got to hire a team to go do this and kind of elevate yourself to that CEO or, you know, chief operating person level and you're managing schedules and everything else.

38:25And I love how you said when it starts to scale, because the people who are doing this maybe one-on-one don't know how to scale, but they want to be able to fill their calendar. They want to be able to have that consistent income. So like you said, if you were to kind of become like the person that's in charge of this area of housekeeping or cleaning services, then you are also providing that opportunity for people to have that consistent income, which I think is great, like within your community. Yeah. And definitely one that has legs beyond just the holiday season, where a lot of the times the bread and butter is that recurring weekly, bi-weekly, monthly type of service where it's like, if I get a client and they like what I'm doing and they grow accustomed to having their house cleaned at a regular frequency, they're likely to stick around for a long time.

39:08So it can be a pretty sticky business in that sense too. One fun one that we've done in the past, a little bit less so recently, is this print-on-demand type of side hustle where if you have a family gathering and you want everybody to have the matching shirt that says, you know, Friendsgiving 2024, or, you know, family reunion, you know, something like that, you know, some fancy Christmas saying, you know, maybe pull something from a from a movie, movie Santa, I know him, or something like that, you can absolutely make this you do Amazon merch, you do Redbubble, you could even, you know, I'm thinking of just like selling it to your family or, you know, having everybody contribute the cost, but you can also put it out to a much broader market and see if anybody else likes your design, typically make four or five bucks per shirt.

39:52So kind of a volume game, but it's kind of a fun one to play that creativity card. And I just I enjoy people watching, seeing what people have on their shirts, knowing that, you know, somebody on Etsy might have sold that or somebody on Amazon might have sold that, you know, six months ago. Yeah. Speaking of clothing, a mobile laundry service, clothing and cleaning, where you run by, pick up laundry for people who are really busy, Maybe they don't have an in-unit washer dryer if they live in a very urban area. You can do laundry, return it all folded. It's a great way for you to make extra money by literally just washing clothes and doing something else in your off time.

40:36Heck, you could be washing clothes and then doing some online surveys and making money, doing online surveys while you're making money washing people's laundry and doing this mobile laundry service. Yeah, that's right. The machine is doing the work for you most of the time. And then, yeah, you got to fold it when it comes out. Because, of course, there's got to be a gig app or a peer-to-peer app for everything these days. The laundry app is called Poplin or one of the laundry apps. They're probably not everywhere just yet, but they seem to be doing a little bit of a marketing push. They sent me, you know, one of these, you know, if you want to cover this story, had some people earning up to$6 ,000 a month, which is probably a lot of laundry.

41:11And I don't know what that works to on an hourly basis and the wear and tear you're putting on your own washing machine. But still, like that's, you know, it's not nothing. It can add up if people in your area are starting to use this type of app. We had even a listener in Australia send me a note. She's like, I, you know, because I think I put on my about page or something like I just hate ironing and I'm very grateful to have a job where this is not required anymore. I was just like, you know, this is a pet peeve of mine. She's like, hey, I love the show. I love your site. I actually love ironing.

41:37It actually turned that into a side hustle. And now I get paid to watch movies. You know, I sit here and iron other people's clothes and stuff. I was like, oh, OK, three, four hundred bucks a month doing something. So that mobile laundry service is another good one to add to the list. And it's something you can do after work. So you can have a regular nine to five, come home, do that at night. And you don't have to be out of the house, which I think is great, too, because a lot of people don't necessarily want to do that if they don't have to. So it's another option for that. Yes. Oh, we've got one that the it's usually like the Boy Scout troop does.

42:06It's the Christmas tree pickup service after the holidays. And so$10 donation,$20 donation. They'll come by with this big truck with kind of a flatbed trailer with walls and stuff on the side. And they'll take your tree away afterwards. It's like, okay, you could do something similar. Or you could take a page out of the 1-800-GOT-JUNK playbook. Probably better for after the holidays where people get new gifts and they're like, well, we got to get rid of this old stuff. What should we do? Maybe you could sell it on consignment. Offer to do that in your neighborhood. Maybe you could do the junk removal service like Brian was doing with 1-800-GOT-JUNK.

42:38But other ways to take advantage of that decluttering trend. Okay, I have to do this one. I have to say it, caregiving. I personally used to make a lot of money as a teenager, just whenever parents were wanting to go out to their Christmas parties, friend parties. So caregiving, you don't have to be a teenager to do this. I would actually prefer an adult, maybe come into my home and watch my kids versus a teenager. There are so many sites, care.com, Sitter Cities. You can even do caregiving for older people who need help. I have one of my really good friends. Her mom suffered a stroke and she hires a caregiver to come in.

43:15And this is a consistent caregiver that just comes in once a day and makes sure she can do her dishes and has taken her medicine. It's a really great way for someone who enjoys being around others and has an empathetic heart to make some money in the process. Yeah, and consistent demand for it. You know, sometimes the schools are going to have, you know, their charity auction fundraiser. You need a babysitter for the night. Again, if you can become the go-to person for that family, likely to add up to more than just one gig over time. Exactly. I actually, when my kids were younger, my husband and I would go to an event, a church event every Wednesday night and go on a date.

43:56And we paid someone$50 every Wednesday. Every Wednesday, she came over at 6 o 'clock or 6.30. And it was this consistent income for her. And it was a really great way for her to just make extra money. And we were happy to be able to just get out and have a date night once a week. Yeah, it's hard. Whenever we hire a babysitter or used to, it's like, well, now we got to go to Taco Bell because we're paying the babysitter like 70 bucks. It ended up being an expensive outing sometimes. Yes. Yeah, it can get expensive. Thankfully, we were going with a group of people to like a friend's house and we took weeks providing dinner.

44:28So our dinner was free. That helped. Yes, that's a good way to do it. along those lines of providing some kind of meal service, there are, you know, there's like private chef apps, or there's eat with, which is kind of like a hosted dinner type of app. I think this might be interesting for people, you know, who want to have a holiday party, but don't want to do it themselves. Like, is there an opportunity to serve those people? Oh, well, I'll host your meal. I'm a really good chef. This is what's on the menu, find a venue, host at your place. We've seen some people doing pretty well with that type of thing.

44:57And, you know, given the number of holiday parties that happen around this time of year, I think that could be a really interesting one too. Okay. I'm looking at this list and I'm like, we've gone through a lot of them and I'm not sure what we haven't covered. Nick and I have been kind of jumping around the list, which makes it both exciting for you to stay on your toes here. Lots of fun. The one that I know we haven't talked about yet is this storage rental type of side hustle. And the holiday spin on it, I see is like, if somebody has Snoopy kids and you're like, I know it's not safe to keep presents around here.

45:33So I need them out of the house, but I don't need a full-time storage unit. There is a site called neighbor.com, which is like peer-to-peer storage. And it is primarily geared at, I need a place to store my RV. I need a place to park this car for a month. I need, you know, like bigger stuff. But in the case of Christmas presents, like, oh, could you keep them in your closet? Could you keep them in your attic? Could you keep them in a corner of the garage? And something like this, you know, kind of maybe a temporary thing. But looking around, I do see rates anywhere from like$50 to$200 a month for varying size of storage spaces near me.

46:06So that may be another option too. I found another one that I have personally paid money to have someone do this for me. And it is handmade crafts or gifts. Obviously, we all know that Etsy is a wonderful place for creatives to get in front of people who want to buy their work. And I have personally purchased from Etsy probably every year. I buy gifts from Etsy and I will purchase handmade ornaments for my children that have their name and year on them. I've done this from Etsy. I've also done it from friends. I had an old coworker that put on Facebook, hey, she does hand lettering, just beautiful handwriting.

46:46And so it was just a very simple ornament that she got from Michaels probably for 50 cents. And she would use a paint pen to write people's names and the year and those things she would sell them for five bucks. But if you think about it, it took her maybe a minute or two minutes to make it probably a dollar total in cost. And so that's$4 per ornament. She was selling them like crazy on Facebook to people that she knew who wanted this creative, beautiful, memorable ornament on their tree. So there's likely something that you can make if you're that creative type that you can sell to other people and make some good money around the holidays with that.

47:29Yeah, for sure. Somebody, I don't know if this will be visible, but this is a 3D printed thing. You can put it up to the window and it's a picture of me and my dad skiing and because of the different depths of the print, like the light shines through it and it looks really cool. Somebody sent me that a few years ago, but lots of different craft ideas and maybe something that you already know how to make or other people have found value in. It kind of goes back to that crafting workshops or cookie decorating type of thing, but lots of opportunity there either to sell locally or through Etsy. But tons of fun.

48:04Love the ideas on this list. If you have your own money-making ideas, absolutely. You can hit us up by email, hit us up on social media. Inspiredbudget.com is where you can find more about Allison. Check out the book, Money Made Easy, subtitle, How to Budget, Pay Off Debt and Save Money. And of course, the Inspired Budget podcast, almost 200 episodes to binge on over there if you want to get better with your money. And Allison, what's going on these days? What are you excited about? Oh my goodness. I'm excited about the new year. This sounds crazy, but Nick, I don't know if this is going to be a shock to you, but people tend to not care about budgeting around like November, December.

48:40Until January rolls around. Actually, Nick, one year, the highest amount of traffic ever on my website, InspiredBudget.com was Christmas Day. Christmas Day. I got a huge spike in traffic and I realized that it's all of these parents. They are sitting there, maybe in the afternoon, they're seeing all of the money that they have just spent spread out, right? In one place. Because when you're buying gifts here and there, you're not always aware of what you're doing because it's just every now and then you're buying, things are coming in at different times. It's all in their eyesight. And they look at that and they say, what have I done?

49:16What have I gotten myself into? And I'm not here to judge. I have been there. I know that feeling. And so I'm looking forward to the new year when people are getting to that point where they say, okay, I've seen what I've done and I don't like the way this makes me feel. I'm ready to learn how to write a budget. I wanna focus on paying off debt. I wanna feel better about my money. And I'm excited to be that person to say like, yeah, let's do it. Like I'm here, let's go. We're gonna talk about how to make this work without hating your life in the process. So that is what I am looking forward to.

49:49It's just post-Christmas when people are excited about taking actual steps to manage their money better. Yeah, that's like your opening day. You're like, hey, game on. I've been here for years helping people. Let's get a new crop of people in here. It's interesting. I see a spike in January as well and maybe immediately post-Christmas. This is going to be the year that I start my side hustle. Maybe it's New Year's resolutions. maybe it's that similar feeling of like, oh, we just spent how much let's figure out a way to offset some of that cost. But definitely interesting inspired budget.com. Check her out over there.

50:21Check out the podcast. Big thanks to Allison for sharing her insight. As I mentioned, we've got links to all the different resources, all the different ideas that we talked about in this episode in the show notes, you just follow the link in the episode description, and I'll get you right over there. Big thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone. As always, you can hit up side hustle nation.com slash deals for all the latest offers from our sponsors in one place. Thanks for supporting the advertisers that support the show. That is it for me. Thank you so much for tuning in.

50:48Until next time, let's go out there and make something happen. And I'll catch you in the next edition of the Side Hustle Show. Hustle on.