Makingmoneyfromhome

Here are a few ideas that you or your children might use to make some extra money at home.

1. Car washing (door to door, or apartment house to apartment house, you can carry your own hose and supplies, use the car owner's water faucet, and earn as much money in a day as you can stand to scrub.)

2. Service jobs around the house, such as mowing, raking, cleaning out garages, sweeping gutters, washing windows etc.

3. Sit with the elderly or a handicapped person. Offer to read stories, help write letters for them, shop for them. (There are an increasing number of people who need a sitter for a loved one, but their ability to pay for this service is dwindling. You can provide a very kind and valuable service to a family by offering to work for less than the going rate of $8 per hour. If you can sit and do some work of your own while you take care of your client, it can be worth it to you to charge only $4 or so an hour.)

4. Run a shopping service in your neighborhood, or for large offices in the city. Leave flyers or a card with your phone number at houses and businesses. Buy gifts for their loved ones, or pick up needed groceries to drop off to them before they get off work, saving them much time to spend with their families at home.

5. Special cleaning jobs. Advertise by word of mouth, and by flyer, ads if you can afford it. Spring cleaning, fire damage, animal clean up, blood stains (may require special permit to hire out for this), or for motor homes, semi trucks and even apartments in between renters.

6. Gardening, landscaping, indoor herb gardens, creating decorative ponds (arranging stones and plants in beds with a fountain or pool), etc. You can also grow and rent out office greenery, with a monthly maintenance contract to keep the plants watered, pruned and pretty. Or just do the maintenance on their own plants.

7. Bake sale. You can make unusual goodies or traditional. Set up by stores or hand out flyers that you'll make special cakes on demand. You can turn a nice profit on this enterprise, and if you like to cook, can keep it going. You can even provide snacks and lunches to office workers. If you can set it up, sell hot dogs on the street for busy workers at lunch. This will require a permit, but the bake sale and individual sales won't in most places.

8. Party planner. Design themes for birthday parties, office parties, graduation and wedding parties. Be a clown for hire, deliver singing telegrams, or if you're good with words - poems, special prayers etc.

9. Tutoring. Whatever you know well, and enjoy doing, can be taught to someone else for a price. Crafts, cooking, art, general education, etc.