Side Hustle ideas?

Anything to do with the traditional world of get a degree, get a job as well as its alternatives
Frugalchicos
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Side Hustle ideas?

Post by Frugalchicos »

Hi there,

I’m asking for some brainstorming about which are the best side hustles to make that extra money. We already rented our second beedroom, did airbnb and babysit. Considering Uber, but hate driving in Chicago and I am not sure if you really make money when you substract the gas and vehicle wear and tear.

Thanks!

Jason

Re: Side Hustle ideas?

Post by Jason »

We have been enjoying The Chi which is as the name indicates, is about Chicago. A sub-plot is the competitive nature of food truck vendors. Not the roach coach variety. But real chefs going out on their own and selling their specialties. Gourmet food trucks. I would think with your culinary gifts, you would mint money. There is capital outlay and licensing issues, but compared to Uber? Too much bad/weird shit happens driving strangers.

Kriegsspiel
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Re: Side Hustle ideas?

Post by Kriegsspiel »

Walking dogs with one of the dog-walking Ubers?

Frugalchicos
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Re: Side Hustle ideas?

Post by Frugalchicos »

The food truck seems quite amazing, but it would probably mean a big initial investment.

Dog walking could be pretty cool too!

I am also considering buying and selling Mac laptops on Ebay. I learnt quite a lot fixing and refurbishing my laptop. I think it is something I can be good at and make like $100/laptop.

I an also considering doing Spanish conversational classes online? Idk, ton of ideas, but need to take action :lol:

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Sclass
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Re: Side Hustle ideas?

Post by Sclass »

I would suggest using your strengths and passion. You can get a second job, but there is no angle there.

I know an older landlady with low CA prop 13 taxes for example. She just rents a house and the $100 a month property tax she pays stomps all the competing landlords in the neighborhood. It’s a crude angle.

If you really make good food, why do you need a food truck? A few years ago there was a park in SF I wandered into where young talented cooks would bring their food in wheeled ice chests, backpacks and bike panniers to sell. And they used social media to alert their regulars they would be showing up with hot items ...like now. They’d sell out in half an hour if they truly had good stuff. It was an amazing sight to see and I hope it never got regulated away by the city.

My first major side hustle was a small electronic device to measure vehicle emissions. I just happen to know how to design this kind of stuff well enough to make a marketable product. It was my angle. I could beat out my competitors because my device used a mathematical algorithm that came out of a book found in a library. Luckily I’d wasted half of my life learning how to find stuff in the library. :lol:

So my suggestion is make sure you have a competitive edge. Even if it’s passion...at minimum you’ll be able to outwork the guys doing it for money alone.

Jason

Re: Side Hustle ideas?

Post by Jason »

Man this Uber thing is really taking off. Do they have "TV Watching" Uber? Or "have sex with your girlfriend" Uber? Or "yell at strangers" Uber. Or "be an asshole on the internet" Uber. Cause at that point I gotta seriously consider it.

Edit: In "The Chi" the character took an abandoned ex-ice cream truck, painted it, refurbished it, added the kitchen amenities and it was good to go. Now understandably, life is not a montage scene with hip hop music, but it seemed eminently doable.

Paula
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Re: Side Hustle ideas?

Post by Paula »


SavingWithBabies
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Re: Side Hustle ideas?

Post by SavingWithBabies »

Frugalchicos wrote:
Sat Jun 09, 2018 10:00 am
I am also considering buying and selling Mac laptops on Ebay. I learnt quite a lot fixing and refurbishing my laptop.
A friend of mine buys and parts out Mac laptops and sells all the parts on eBay. I think they are tested to confirm working which is not always super easy. I don't know if they completely avoid dead ones or buy, part and use another machine to test the individual parts. I think they source most of the hardware from Craigslist but if you pound the pavement enough, there are other places that end up with equipment that you can buy and flip for higher (ie recycling centers, pawn shops and that kind of thing -- not referring to hoodlums). Interestingly, you can get most logic boards repaired by sending them to China. It takes a while but it's cheaper than USA options.

I did inquire if my friend was worried about the long term direction that Apple is going with reductions in parts and difficulty in disassembly (ie gluing in batteries, etc). But they seemed to think they would have a good thing going for quite a while longer. I hesitate to mention this as I don't want to give my friends gig up but they are nowhere close to your market and it requires enough dedication, effort and skill that I think most would not follow this path. But by what you said above, it sounds like it might be something you'd find interesting?

@Sclass That is awesome about the emissions device. Really neat to have made one and a great idea. I think you might get more of a hassle in Chicago with under the table food though (food trucks already get a raw deal unless things have changed for the better recently -- restaurants don't want competition and lean on their alderman and then you have to be X feet from any restaurant and in the loop, it rules out almost all the potential locations). And the customers might not have the munchies as much (if we're talking Dolores park) :).

BlueNote
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Re: Side Hustle ideas?

Post by BlueNote »

One idea is to buy a website that has long term earning potential off of Flippa or EmpireFlippers or some other broker. More of a risky side hustle but something to check out if you want to sort of mix investing with work. At first glance a lot of those sites seem to have low multiples compared to earnings. However this could be due to the risks and work involved in owning them so due diligence would be critical to success.

Write a book called 101 ways to Uber. Start off by explaining how @Jason can Uber having sex with his SO, boom just landed you customer#1! :lol:

Jason

Re: Side Hustle ideas?

Post by Jason »

If you can explain how this can happen while she's making money driving strangers to the airport, I'll give you a great book jacket recommendation.

jay
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Re: Side Hustle ideas?

Post by jay »

I've only listened to a few episodes, but it looks like this podcast might provide some food for thought: https://sidehustleschool.com/podcasts/

LandOnMyFeet
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Re: Side Hustle ideas?

Post by LandOnMyFeet »

Frugalchicos wrote:
Sat Jun 09, 2018 10:00 am
The food truck seems quite amazing, but it would probably mean a big initial investment.

Dog walking could be pretty cool too!

I am also considering buying and selling Mac laptops on Ebay. I learnt quite a lot fixing and refurbishing my laptop. I think it is something I can be good at and make like $100/laptop.

I an also considering doing Spanish conversational classes online? Idk, ton of ideas, but need to take action :lol:
I'm a truck driver and thinking about buying an electric cooler filling it with Red Bulls and such. Selling it on those hot days for $3.00/cans maybe some other non-alcoholic libations. Probably get some big boxes of snacks and sell them for a $1.00/each

I'll have a menu for people to pick from then I'll offer the goods to other drivers when sitting in line to be to be unloaded or unloaded. I'll just walk the line of trucks and see what happens. Initial investment of ice-less cooler and some product. Low risk high reward.

Frugalchicos
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Re: Side Hustle ideas?

Post by Frugalchicos »

@Landonmyfeet.

You can even have some tamales or tortas that you can buy on the side of the road for $1 and resell them to other drivers.

I see tamales stands all over the place in the industrial area of Chicago (where I work) and the Mexican ladies sell them for $1/piece and are amazing.

SustainableHappiness
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Re: Side Hustle ideas?

Post by SustainableHappiness »

RE: On owning a food truck.

I'm here to shatter a dream. Managed trucks with my parents growing up as well as 2 beach based fry and ice cream huts. Owning a food truck sucks ass for all the same reasons owning a restaurant sucks ass and maybe more.

Cons
- You work when everyone else plays, say goodbye to weekends in the summer (all of them)
- You work long hours, especially if you don't have a good manager (oh and you can't pay them well because margins in the food business are not that high unless you sell ONLY french fries and coffee) or child labour (a la my story)
- It's greasy and hot if you make anything on a grill or in a fryer. Imagine living in a heated tin can with oil coating the sides
- Bullshit and potentially wierdo adult staff, OR highschool students who stay on for 2-3 years before leaving for school OR college students who may stay on for a couple more years
- Inventory management sucks for a lot of personalities and is crucial to keeping margins up and sales flowing

Pros
- Food trucks are trendy which means facebook might think you're cool
- You can make a decent yearly salary (>60K) in 6 months of the year if you do it well

You better have real passion because it (like most small business ventures) is much harder than watching reality TV and you'll miss a lot of family and friends events to spoon out another bowl full of gravy covered cheese and fries for those damn carnies.

theanimal
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Re: Side Hustle ideas?

Post by theanimal »

Fingerprinting services

I just had to get fingerprinted and the only person in town is just some guy who offers it at his house. He retired from his job and is now a stay at home dad so he is around anyways. $25/card and he said he does about 30 people a week. Not bad for 10 min work per person.

chenda
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Re: Side Hustle ideas?

Post by chenda »

I believe in the US you can sell blood (and eggs or sperm) for profit ? I'm not sure about the ethics and it makes me squeamish just thinking about the mechanics of it all but...it's an idea

SavingWithBabies
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Re: Side Hustle ideas?

Post by SavingWithBabies »

One hustle I heard about that sounded possible was on demand mobile notary but the key was advertising direct on Google for local area (you can target by geolocation). If I was going to try this hustle, I'd first search in my area for notaries and see if there were any google ads. If not, then go do some basic research on buying google ads and whatever it takes to become a notary. Supposedly, it was a fair number of things like real estate closings and such. I think there was a limit on the fees you can charge for being a notary however something about the mobile aspect allowed adding a service fee. I did a quick google and here is one blog hit (no idea if they are legit or trying to push something):

https://www.sidehustlenation.com/mobile ... -business/

Seems like enough hassle to stop casual attempts which might be a pro if you want to avoid competition.

ertyu
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Re: Side Hustle ideas?

Post by ertyu »

More for the benefit of those joining at a later date than OP, as I believe Ubering no longer applies to their particular situation: studies have been done which shows that when one does Uber, one essentially extracts the depreciation value of one's car and converts it into cash. Margins are squeezed to such an extent that you're essentially just running down your vehicle. Bad side hustle. As frugalchicos correctly surmised a couple of years ago, you do not indeed make any money beyond vehicle wear and tear.

Gilberto de Piento
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Re: Side Hustle ideas?

Post by Gilberto de Piento »

I've seen sharpening be a good side hustle. It has built in repeat business because knives and other tools go dull with use. It is not scalable though because you can only interact with so many customers and sharpen so many knives in a day. I could see some basic marketing on nextdoor, Facebook, or Instagram working.

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canoe
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Re: Side Hustle ideas?

Post by canoe »

I've been trying out online tutoring lately, specifically coding/computer science. I find it enjoyable enough and I can charge more per hour than I make at my main job.

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