How can I earn £300 / month?

[e-rider]

Bearing in mind that I already work 40 hours per week and have 2 children to look after; how can I earn an extra £300 each month? This extra money would really help.

I have a few hours spare, so any great ideas? There must be something web based that can bring in this kind of money? Keep it clean too!

 

[swee'pea99]

Friend of mine earns pretty decent money proof-reading.

 

[Wednesday]

Keep it clean too!

Well that rules out the only ways I know!

I can tell you how now to go about it: giving people money. Have you heard of that model scam where someone is told that s/he has what it takes to be a model, but s/he needs to pay for some portfolio pictures first? I mostly come across fake escort agency versions of this (who often promote non-existent markets such as non-sexual work or services for female clients), but there are also versions for work-at-home schemes, so if someone tells you that you can make good money as a virtual secretary or something just as soon as you pay to be in their database, don't be tempted.

If you don't have a specific skill you can market, the only non-sexual ways I know of that might bring in that kind of money online are:

Online gambling. Not a good idea to dabble in; you need to know what you're doing and treat it as a business.
Essays on demand for lazy students; not very ethical and you need an area of knowledge to work with, but I think there's some money in it.

A couple of things my mum's tried are:
Mystery shopping. Some of it's online and you might also be able to visit shops in your lunch break (then you write a report). Won't bring in that much but might be worth a go.
Affiliate schemes. There are various sites (she uses hubpages) where you can write articles about stuff and include some affiliate links (e.g. amazon, google adsense) in the hope that people will find your article and then click on one of the ads so you get a little money. It took her a long time to get enough money from that to get her first payout. Her existing articles have started to generate more over time, but still not a lot. (You can also do this on your own by setting up a blog with ads, so you don't have to pay a commission to hubpages etc., but they do provide ways to help get your pages in search engine results which you'd also have to do on your own too if you went without them.)

Have you looked at the moneysavingexpert forums? They might have some ideas. Good luck.

 

[calibanzwei]

Envelope stuffing... have done it in the past and earned a hundred quid for or so, but bear in mind that you may need to do it within a set time limit with maybe a couple of thousand to do (it took me 2/3 days, 8 hours a day), but between you and a partner it'd take less time.

 

[Ludwig]

If you all send me £10 I will tell you how to make £300 a month without really trying

 

[ColinJ]

Several times a year, my sister makes a few hundred pounds a time doing local directory and ad. deliveries. Those little 64 page booklets full of ads for local shops, hotels etc. While she is delivering them, she also delivers ads for local tradespeople (plumbers, electricians, handymen ...) so she gets paid 3 or 4 times over per house. The people paying her to do it have some say in what she does - one plumber isn't going to like you delivering another plumber's ads alongside theirs for instance.

You need to be organised and reliable - they do check that you are actually making the deliveries! In my sister's case, the leaflets and directories are delivered to her house.She puts the one-page ads inside the directories at home, reboxes them and uses a trolley to take them from house to house after driving to the delivery area. Obviously, you don't want to do much driving or your fuel costs would bite big chunks out of your pay.

She quite enjoys it because it is about the only time she gets any exercise. She worked out that she makes about £10-11/hour doing it.

If you get any of those directories or ads delivered to you, contact the people in question and ask if they have any 'rounds' in your area.

 

[calibanzwei]

Now theres a use for panniers right there!

 

[themaverick]

Takeaway delivery driver
shelf stacker in a supermarket
Cutting peoples grass for a tenner a pop
Proof reading -need to be smart though not that I'm saying you're not but you know what I mean
Mini cab driving
Leaflet dropping


There are loads of stuff you can do

 

[numbnuts]

Security work, but you would have to work 12 hours shifts on minimum wage and have a clean checkable record, I used to do it a long time ago at weekends when there was no overtime at main job.

 

[Chilternrides]

Another option is to go to your local Job Centre and ask if there are any job-share schemes.

Bar / hotel work (not for everyone, I know).

Private cleaning.

 

[asterix]

Set yourself up as fortune-teller. Send loads of letters to old folks telling them you know what the future holds and the information is theirs for £30. When you get replies record the name and address on a list and after a bit you will have a valuable 'sucker-list' that can be sold on to other con merchants. For some reason it doesn't matter if the future doesn't fit the prediction as the client's 'faith' will override such minor details.

I believe that Royal Mail offer a special service to this sort of industry.

p.s. if you don't the fortune-telling bit, just sell them lucky bits of crystal they can hang in their window. Or maybe tell them they have won a huge prize that will be theirs for a small consideration.

Alternatively, if you know a bit about PC's you can offer to set people's up or maintain them (someone I know does quite well out of that).

 

[annedonnelly]

Bearing in mind that I already work 40 hours per week and have 2 children to look after; how can I earn an extra £300 each month? This extra money would really help.

I have a few hours spare, so any great ideas? There must be something web based that can bring in this kind of money? Keep it clean too!

There are a few market research companies that send you surveys to fill in on-line, e.g. Global Test Market, Ipsos, Toluna, Honest Rewards. Most pay via vouchers for High St stores but at least one pays cash.

They claim that you can earn up to £80 an hour. That's not my experience but I screen out of a lot of the surveys and get bored part way through others.

As it's online it doesn't interfere too much with reading Cycle Chat!

 

[Archie_tect]

Bearing in mind that I already work 40 hours per week and have 2 children to look after; how can I earn an extra £300 each month? This extra money would really help.

I have a few hours spare, so any great ideas? There must be something web based that can bring in this kind of money? Keep it clean too!

£300/month extra: so, working around your existing day job say 2 hours per night Mon-Fri after your children have settled down for the night between 8 and 10pm, you need to earn £7.50 an hour working from home, either using a computer or using the phone or doing administration. But don't forget you'll be taxed on it as additional income.

You could set up a book-keeping service filing in monthly accounts, either using traditional income/expenditure ledgers or using a cheap, off the shelf Sage software package, working for local businesses or shops. You'd only need one or two businesses at first and soon be able to cope with more as you gain confidence if you enjoy it. Within a few months it will become so routine it'll be easy. Never know you might end up packing the day job in.

Good luck!

 

[biggs682]

thats a toughie , no quick answers , but keep looking you might find it soon

heres hoping you do

 

[buggi]

It's a tricky one. how about child minding? you need to get registered at the local authority and you have to do a short course with them (i think it's only one day but certainly no more than 3 or 4), but it pays quite well and some parents work shifts and find it hard to get a child minder for "out of hours" so you could rake it in. definitely worth looking into.

ps. be careful of paying for training unless they are a reputable company, either local business that you know, recommended by a mate or local authority or local college. as said, some of those adverts can be dodgy. i did a nail training course, and my course was fine and well known, but a lady came to me after for my help coz she had done one and got ripped off.

i woudn't recommend doing people's nails. i found there to be too much competition and work was sparodic and not reliable. came in spits and spurts and on top of my other job was very tiring with not much reward. if you do beauty, massage is a good one, it will cost you the price of a portable couch (£100) and towels (£20) and then the only thing you ever need to replace is oil and that's cheap as chips. some of the short massage courses are good but check them out carefully. waxing and tanning are the other lucrative beauty services.