Well if you get 2 jobs, 14 hours a day you need to clear $11 an hour to make it.
And minimum wage in my state is currently $15/hour, so you can even do that after-tax.
Ask HN: If you needed to make $1000 in a week, what would be your strategy?
11–17 of 17 posts
Re: Ask HN: If you needed to make $1000 in a week, what would be your strategy?
#12> If you had no connections, money, investments, or any property/possessions to sell, what would be your first steps? That'd a harsh set of constraints. I think the only answers remaining with those in place are "prostitution" and "crime", aren't they? Ditch a digit, $100 in a week, and you could do it with any normal job, stack shelves or whatever, but I don't see that getting you to $1k. $500 perhaps, from what I h…
The median income in the US was $83,730 in 2024
https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2025/demo/p60-28...
Now in some cases that is two or three people working, but a $52,000 a year job is not impossible to find for many people.
Re: Ask HN: If you needed to make $1000 in a week, what would be your strategy?
#13> If you had no connections, money, investments, or any property/possessions to sell, what would be your first steps? That'd a harsh set of constraints. I think the only answers remaining with those in place are "prostitution" and "crime", aren't they? Ditch a digit, $100 in a week, and you could do it with any normal job, stack shelves or whatever, but I don't see that getting you to $1k. $500 perhaps, from what I h…
The median income in the US was $83,730 in 2024 https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2025/demo/p60-28... Now in some cases that is two or three people working, but a $52,000 a year job is not impossible to find for many people.
Sure, but with:
> no connections, money, investments, or any property/possessions
You're not going to get median, you're getting what you can reach on foot. Informal day labour, not median salary.
Re: Ask HN: If you needed to make $1000 in a week, what would be your strategy?
#14Manual labor work. I think in the US this is achievable although maybe not exactly easy. Mowing lawns, gardening, shoveling snow, cleaning, odd jobs, etc... It does depend on your location but this is still a fairly common thing in some places. Knock on doors ask people if they need work. Point out things that they could use help with weeding trimming mowing all of that. But if you take an average of $40 a job spread…
Your calculation assumes an overhead of zero: for example you assume that knocking on doors takes up no time.
Plus: is knocking on doors obsolete? I'm not sure you'd be able to get a response in my suburb (not that I've tried - too many gates - too many suspicious people).
And prep, traveltime and cleanup all take time too. for example a mower doesn't magically get to a house and it needs time and expense to run (and where I live you'd often be expected to dispose of clippings - costing time or money or favours).
Trite answers are cute, but they are not helpful.
Re: Ask HN: If you needed to make $1000 in a week, what would be your strategy?
#15Get a resource extraction job.
Re: Ask HN: If you needed to make $1000 in a week, what would be your strategy?
#16Manual labor work. I think in the US this is achievable although maybe not exactly easy. Mowing lawns, gardening, shoveling snow, cleaning, odd jobs, etc... It does depend on your location but this is still a fairly common thing in some places. Knock on doors ask people if they need work. Point out things that they could use help with weeding trimming mowing all of that. But if you take an average of $40 a job spread…
Your calculation assumes an overhead of zero: for example you assume that knocking on doors takes up no time. Plus: is knocking on doors obsolete? I'm not sure you'd be able to get a response in my suburb (not that I've tried - too many gates - too many suspicious people). And prep, traveltime and cleanup all take time too. for example a mower doesn't magically get to a house and it needs time and expense to run (and…
I did mention it does depend on location, which you just ignored. In your paranoid neighborhood maybe not viable but that's not most of the USA. I mentioned this from practical experience, not of me doing it but of hiring people this way.
There's an aging population that appreciate this because not everything is on an app. Really just seems like the fear of hard work.
Re: Ask HN: If you needed to make $1000 in a week, what would be your strategy?
#17Get a job.
Violently tangential:
Lol-inducing article+comments not from the Economist that I'd soft-promised