In this blog post, I wanted to discuss what I thought were three unique ways to work from home that I found out about when I read the book “The Side Hustle Path,” by Nick Loper. These aren’t the only three that Nick discusses in the book, but I thought they were worth mentioning. The three ways are by driving people where they need to go, renting out a room (or rooms) in your home, and by buying and refinishing or repurposing items that you find on Craigslist.
Driving for Dollars – You can make extra money by driving people where they need to go – you’d more or less have your own taxi. You can do this by signing up to be a driver for Lyft and/or Uber. If you want to sign up with Lyft, you can do it directly from the app on your phone, or you can use the link provided above. If you use the application on your phone, it will take you through several screens where you’ll provide information about your car, such as what year, make, and model it is, and how many doors it has – it needs to be year 2006 or newer vehicle and have four doors. After that you’ll do a “mentor ride” which is like an in-person interview. If you pass that, you’re good to go. I’m not sure what the process is on Uber, and the book didn’t go into any detail about it, but I imagine it’s probably similar. Whether you work for Lyft or Uber, or both, you’ll be working as an independent contractor, so you’ll be able to write off a lot of expenses, such as mileage, gas, and maintenance, among other things, so if you choose to work for either of these companies be sure to save your receipts!
Rent out a Room In your Home (or your whole home) with Airbnb – Another side hustle that Nick discussed was renting out a room in your home with Airbnb. The company provides the booking interface and takes care of payments, so you don’t have to handle any of that. It takes about 30 minutes to get started when you sign up on the Airbnb website. Some of the tips that Nick mentions are to make sure you have nice pictures of your place to put in your listing – Airbnb will send out a professional photographer to take photographs. Keep in mind that you’re competing with super-clean hotels, so you’ll want to make sure your place is spotless and looks as nice as possible. You’ll want to schedule the photo shoot on a day when there’s good natural light coming in. On the day of the photo shoot you’ll want to open all curtains and turn on all lights. If you want to rent out a room in your home (or even rent out your whole house, which you can do too) using Airbnb, be sure to check the laws for your city or town to make sure you’re not breaking any of them.
Buy Low and Sell High on Craigslist – Another way to make extra money from home is to find undervalued items on Craigslist and resell them. The key to making money with this strategy is knowing what the items are worth – you may want to spend a few days looking at items on Craigslist, Amazon and eBay to get an idea what they sell for. If you’re an expert in a specific area and you know what certain items sell for, that’s even better. If you find an item that’s attractively priced, you want to call the seller instead of emailing them, otherwise you can send the seller an email with your price and see if they bite. If you’re looking at large items, make sure you have some way to get item back to your home, otherwise you’ll be limited to what you can carry in a backpack, bag or in your hands. You can also find items by looking in the “free” section on Craigslist.
These are just three of the side hustles that Nick Loper talks about. Other side hustles include:
- Selling a Skill or Service
- Investing in Real Estate
- Teaching Online
- Writing eBooks
- Selling on Amazon
If you’re interested in finding out more about any of these side hustles, I definitely encourage you to pick up The Side Hustle Path.
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