If this is against rules then feel free to remove, I'm going to avoid a typical rant in explaining my current situation and keep it as short as possible. 1) A year of ill health left me and my partner heavily reliant on credit. our prior usage was relatively (and unnecessarily) high so we did have existing debt. 2) She's back to work now but we're still left with historic debt we want to clear to get our lives back. 3) Its a slow process, resulting in a lot of stress and general dissatisfaction with life scrimping to get by month by month and we've both had enough. 4) Our working patterns suit childcare (I.e my day off consists of chasing a child around the house rather than feet up) 5) We make every payment to all bills every month but we'd like to be hitting it harder! In spite of this I do have spare time on my hands now and then and 'time is money' I'd like to be making a small additional income to supplement my existing income so we can start hammering the debt even harder than we currently are. I'd be satisfied with anything at the minute but ball park £150 per month would be ideal. I'd estimate with the evening shifts my partner works and weekends I have 15 hours of spare time I could be putting to earning money I'm jack of all trades, master of none so not sure on the idea or consistency in free lancing any talent I may possess. I'd quite happily do most things although picking up a second legitimate job is not possible due to lack of consistent hours and job confliction Do you or relatives supplement your income on the side? Am I missing a trick? Disclaimer: I'm aware of paying relevant income tax on any additional earnings and do intend to play by the rules!
Tbh being a jack of all trades is actually a hinderance these days. What do you work as? Any potential for overtime, 15 hrs would easily net you the £150.
I was looking at doing something similar, with a baby on the way and my normal job being flexi-hours, I could quite easily do a couple of night shifts a week in a warehouse or something to build up some buffer. Problem is, nobody would get back to me for those kind of shifts. I had a few offer me full time work, but I can't quite manage 70 hour working weeks all the way to December... Luckily, I have been able to do a few weekends in the meantime.
If your available hours were regular, and especially if they come at evenings or weekends, then get yersen a job in retail. Shelf-stacking, till work, places are always crying out for people to work unsociable hours. Sadly, after writing that bit, I spotted the 'lack of consistent hours' bit. So, alternatives - ranging from easiest to hardest. Overtime As others have mentioned, if you've already got a job ask for a few extra hours - worst they'll do is say no! Mechanical Turk Fancy earning literal pence helping dodgy companies astroturf their way to the top of the Amazon rankings and steal ideas from their competitors? Sign up for Amazon Mechanical Turk! It's basically the sort of thing you should really have AIs doing, but it turns out AIs are more expensive than people so they just throw people at it. You ain't going to get rich, but you can do it whenever and for as long or as little as you like. Survey Sites Get paid cash for your opinion! As above, we're talking pennies - think £150 a year, not £150 a month - but it all adds up. Affiliate Marketing Sign up to Amazon Associates and you can get up to five percent cash back from people's purchases at absolutely no cost to them. Ask friends and family to use the link; next time you see something cool use an affiliate link when posting it to Twitter; even set up a blog and shove the links in there. Lots of other sites do affiliate schemes, too: you can get cash money by pushing people to Quidco and other cashback services, and I've seen a couple of people in this 'ere forum with affiliate links in their signatures (which is not against the spirit of the rules, so long as it ain't obnoxious: think "no larger than the non-link parts of the signature and no more than a couple of links.") Cashback Scamming Sign yourself up to a cashback site, then wait for the silly offers to land - things like "deposit £20 into Gambling Site, get £20 cashback and a £20 free bet". Do it, gamble your £20 on an odds-on favourite, then withdraw it again if there's anything left - and lose your login details so you're not tempted to go back and gamble actual money. Worst case outcome: your bet loses and you break even. Best case outcome: you're up £20 - or £40 if it lets you withdraw the free bet too. I made a couple of hundred in a single month doing this, but once you've soaked up all the offers it all goes away... Gig Economy Sign up to Fiverr - or any of the alternative freelance sites - and whore out your talents in drawing, singing, animating, whatever. Don't have any talents? You've got ears and fingers, so offer to transcribe recordings. It's a super competitive industry, though, so expect to be at the very bottom end of the earnings ladder if you want to drum up business. If you've a full, clean driving licence you could also look at services like Uber, Lyft, Deliveroo and what have you. FleaBay Have a look around: I'm willing to bet there's a bunch of stuff you never use. I know there is here! Instead of having it clutter the place up, stick it on eBay: you won't get much, but you'll get something. You can even throw some really odd things on there: rebrand the inside of your bog rolls as craft supplies and people will actually pay real money. Same goes for jamjars and other reusable containers, too, if properly cleaned. Old electronics are also a good earner, as are console games you don't play any more. Flipping Related to the above: head to a car boot sale and keep an eye out for bargains, then polish 'em up and list 'em on eBay. I once bought a Commodore 286-16 computer for £1, brightened the case with Retrobrite, threw in some extra RAM, a soundcard, and a network card I had lying around anyway, replaced the RTC for £3 or so, and it sold for north of £200. Look for things collectors might like: for me that's vintage computers, electronic calculators, even typewriters. Foraging It's the right time of year for this, so get out the house - take the family, it's fun - and head to the wilderness to see what you can find. Take a basket, fill the bugger with blackberries, bilberries, crowberries... well, just berries in general, really. Wild cherries. Wild garlic. In a month or so, hazelnuts, walnuts, beech nuts... In half an hour you can easily end up with a kilo of blackberries (and a bunch of scratches for your trouble): buy a bag of sugar, boil the buggers up, and throw 'em into sterilised jam jars. Let them set, stick a label on, sell 'em to friends and family for a quid a pop. If you don't fancy making jam, freeze the berries and while it won't give you any extra income it'll mean you can have tasty berries all year 'round for free. Can Collecting Kinda-sorta related to foraging above, but not as much fun. Take a plaggy bag with you when you're out and about, and pick up every dropped drinks can you see. Take 'em home, crush 'em, and store 'em somewhere until you have looooots of them, then weigh 'em in at a local metal merchant. Mate of mine does that in the back of his Transit. Takes a while until you have enough to weigh in, but in the short term it also makes your neighbourhood cleaner. Rent a Room Got a spare room in the house? Rent it out, either temporarily via AirBnB or more permanently. Better still, the income is tax-free up to £7,500 a year. Don't have a room, but have a garage? Rent that out instead - same tax-free allowance applies. Writing This can be a side hustle, or - like me - it can be your full-time job: making words happen. If you have expertise in a particular area - whether that's woodworking, computer games, accountancy, or beer - you should be able to find someone willing to pay you to write about it. Not much, I'll grant you, but still. If you have the typical problem of nobody wanting to pay you 'cos you have no experience, don't fall into the trap of writing for free: sign up to Medium and write stuff that fits in with its category-of-the-month: if the editors choose to promote it, they'll throw cash at you. My piece on Benchmarking the Raspberry Pi 3 B+, for instance, has earned me $240.38 to-date - of which $140.38 is from "applause" (which give you a percentage of paying members' monthly subscription fee based on how much applause they gave your story compared to others) and $100 from being picked by the editors. Photography Got a decent camera and a bit of skill? Take some photos, shove 'em on a stock photography site, cross your fingers. This is super, super competitive, so there are absolutely no guarantees you'll actually make any money, but it's worth a short. Try to think of things people might want to use in news articles, rather than pretty landscapes.
Thanks for the comprehensive response Gareth, unfortunately as suggested overtime is a no-goer. My employer doesn't have the workload to offer it to me I'll look at some of the stuff you've suggested Is Mechanical Turk available to the UK? I've signed up and just looked at some info, seems like a perfect fit. potential for minimum wage per hour (Or so some say in reviews, Its almost a pot of baby milk!) but some say its only available in the UK, the reviews are fairly old though so not sure if that's changed.
