Money On The Side

First, for those who don't enjoy Christmas - this is not a Christmas post!  Just a post about making money on the side any way you can.   I have one expensive hobby and that is traveling.  Even if you travel cheaply (usually we travel moderately but not cheaply due to our time constraints) you still need cash to make it happen.  Out of our regular paycheck we do contribute to our travel fund but in order to do the amount of travel we tend to like to do in a year I am on the constant lookout for ways to make money on the side that will not take away from our business and contribute to the travel funds.

Bought for $2 (missing one, pulled a pink one from my collection to make a set) sold for $8

This year that involved temping part-time at the company I used to work at before I joined hubby at our own company full-time.  I managed to make $1165 before tax but in the end had to say no when they asked me again in September as it turned from temping into regular part-time work and was definitely starting to interfere with our business.    That was enough after tax to almost cover one plane ticket to Greece!

One year ago we had a federal election and I worked the advance polls making just over $500 for the travel fund which went to our trip to Spain this past Spring.  That covered our very nice hotel in Madrid plus a couple of days meals and groceries.  I likely will apply to work our Spring Provincial election as depending on your position and whether you get hired for advance polls or just the day of I could make another $200-$500.  Working elections is extremely tiring work as they usually mean 12 hours on your feet with almost no breaks - but it is a fast injection to the travel fund so I am willing to do it.

In the mean time I keep purging possessions no longer needed like our DVD collection which 10 years ago hubby was very proud of but now has a ton of dust on it and is little used since we now use Netflix to meet our movie needs.  This is slow going but all of the money that goes from selling off little used items goes into our weekend away fund.  Sometimes I get sick of selling stuff so I take a break, because frankly, there are a lot of flakes out there who don't show up when they say they are going to or don't message back in a timely fashion.  The Facebook 24 hour bidding site still has some of that but is much better than the Craigslist route.

Bought for $2 sold for $8 (might have even cost $1, will keep better track)

I have another hobby, collecting vintage Christmas crap and now I have figured out how to make a little money on the side doing it. I am not sure what this specific money will go to but for now it is the "whatever in Greece fund".  I have a great eye for spotting vintage Christmas.  The money maker?Buy it for a buck or two and resell it.  Last year just before Christmas I found several types of ornaments(thrift store) of which I don't collect personally or have too many of already.  I put two sets of ornaments up for sale this weekend to test the water with a minimum bid of $8 each (bought for $2 each or cheaper, need to start keeping better track of that) and they both sold for the minimum bid.  Normally I would not put such a high bid on but I would rather keep these than see them sell any lower.  So, the total cost for the ornaments were $4 (max) and I sold them for $16 so $12 profit into my "whatever in Greece" fund.  That will buy us at least a bottle of wine or two so I am happy.  I still have a bunch of loose ornaments to auction and that is best done in November.  This may not make me a lot of money this year but I intend to buy stock in the next two month to sell in November 2017.  Finding stock is the hard part but I shall drag Mom along for the fun as we both loving hunting in thrift stores.   Now I no longer have to pass on something when I clearly see the value but it isn't to my specific taste.  Woohoo!  A hobby that pays!