Bob McCarty Writes

I came across a news release this morning from a consumer credit counseling organization sharing their clients’ second-job ideas to help consumers deal with ever-increasing food, fuel and living expenses. Those ideas appear below:

• Use your talents — Take in sewing projects, tutor local students in math or other subjects, or use your love of cooking to make extra money. Offer to cook for co-workers for a fee or find a local construction site and seek permission to sell plates of food to employees. If you are an animal lover, offer dog walking or pet sitting services in your neighborhood.

• Love the outdoors? — Make up and distribute a flyer offering to mow lawns in your neighborhood. If you are a sports lover, train to serve as an umpire or official at youth sporting events in your community. One client suggested stenciling house numbers on the curb for extra money. He suggests putting out a flyer and asking people to hang the flyer on their door on the day you will return. You can stencil even if they are not home and come back and collect payment. At $10 per house, you can easily earn $100 or more on a weekend morning.

• Clean up at night and on the weekends — Many cleaning services have flexible evening and weekend hours for people interested in cleaning office buildings. If you prefer working for yourself, you might consider looking for a few clients and striking out on your own.

• Retail flexibility and more — Retail work offers lots of flexibility for people who already have another job. You can look for work in merchandising, where you restock shelves after normal hours. Many inventory companies also use temporary and part time employees to conduct regular inventories of grocery stores and other retail outlets.

• Love to shop? – Use your love of shopping as a mystery shopper or as a critic for movies, restaurants or retail stores and get paid for your opinion. Shoppers might also consider a second job at their favorite retailer. The discounts for staff at many clothing and other retailers can be considerable. Be careful that you don’t spend your entire paycheck and more shopping for things you don’t really need.

• Benefit from the barter system — If you pay gym fees, perhaps you can get them waived by working a night or two a week at the front desk. Have lots of pets? Working at a veterinary clinic might get you discounted services for your furry friends.

• Sell, sell, sell — Many clients offered stories about earning extra money by selling items on Ebay. Some seek items at local yard sales and shops to resell at a profit; others clean out items from their home. One family sells their used clothes to earn money for new clothes.

Regardless of the approach you take to landing a second job, I suggest you don a Will work for fuel t-shirt so that anyone who sees you will know you Will work for fuel.