Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Ways to generate income when you're at home without pay?

news.ycombinator.com

271–280 of 296 posts

Re: Ask HN: Ways to generate income when you're at home without pay?

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That brings up a question: What can you do to earn $50 in 24 hours? Unless you already have mturk the waiting period is days to weeks if you're not rejected. Fiverr/Upwork would all require a large amount of luck to make $50 in one day as communication with client and turn-around time could take 12-24 hours before even starting a small one hour project. CL might be the best way to make that money in that time period…

People Ready (aka Labor Ready). Be there early before they open, and if you're lucky (because I'm sure they're swamped these days) you'll get a full day's work. You get paid that evening.

I've always been pretty nomadic, and one trick I was taught long ago when you need cash in a hurry is to go stand outside a self-storage facility and look for people that need help moving. I was able to make $50-$150 a day when times were tight.

I bring this up because people actually do call day labor companies for this all the time.

Re: Ask HN: Ways to generate income when you're at home without pay?

#272
post #95
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Daycare may require state certification (just beware). With so many kids homeschooled, tutoring the last couple of months was probably a gold mine. Many parents run into a hard wall with respect to math and science and can no longer help their kids.

Watching the kids of a single family is being a nanny, not a daycare, and at least in the US doesn't require a license or certification.

That also comes with a huge amount of liability.

Re: Ask HN: Ways to generate income when you're at home without pay?

#273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Word of warning on Ebay tho, and this comes from someone who's been flipping stuff there for 20 years: There's a hold on your funds for around 21 days, depending on how fast the item is shipped out, and registered as delivered (hint: Always use tracked shipping) Second, there's a limit on how much you can list / sell as a beginner. So don't count on being able to liquidate collections or extra stuff in a flash. And t…

Also: Ebay takes 10%, paypal takes 4%. Shipping and tax aren't free either. If you sell something expensive, ebay will usually give you a "5 listings with halved or waived final value fees" a few weeks later. Strategize accordingly.

Ebay does not offer 10% of value. Other than because they're basically a monopoly, I'm surprised no one's been able to undercut them.

Re: Ask HN: Ways to generate income when you're at home without pay?

#274
post #50

There is shortage of 3D printing filament because of virus, so I've been creating filament and selling it. https://medium.com/endless-filament/make-your-filament-at-ho... This activity also help recycle waste plastic. Production cost of filament is $7.5 per 5kg and filament roll has 850 gram filament and can be sold for $20-30 per spool It's trivial to get the quality right. You can sell rolls on Amazon, eBay and Ets…

In 2 weeks time: There is a shortage of Extruders because of the people making 3D printing filament at home. So I've been creating Extruders and selling them. :-)

You're all good until somebody starts selling a pre-packaged Extruder factory.

Re: Ask HN: Ways to generate income when you're at home without pay?

#275
Go to suburban neighborhood. Offer to clean the garbage roll out barrels.

Tether yourself and go up on customer's roof and blow off the leaves and debris.

Weed the flower beds. Wash windows. Detail cars. Play with kids outdoors. Clean and polish the brass fixture exterior lights.

Use customer mower to cut the lawn.

My friend does Concierge errand services and he makes $50 a day.

Re: Ask HN: Ways to generate income when you're at home without pay?

#276

not stay at home but donate plasma. upwork probably is another avenue.

You should not be getting downvoted for this. Where I live, our plasma center is offering $450 per month because supply is so low right now. I've heard it can be as high as $600 per month for new donors. I feel that it's maybe morally questionable to donate during the lockdown, but, my city has allowed bars and gyms to reopen. So that sentiment is probably no longer true at this point. I do live in a relatively spars…

> I feel that it's maybe morally questionable to donate during the lockdown

There hasn't been much about covid-19 spreading by blood, and I assume places buying plasma use masks and distancing, so it's likely pretty low-risk on both ends.

If we do find that covid-19 can spread through blood, the likelihood the donor has an active case is low. Most people who need plasma products don't need them for fun, so even if there's a risk, the benefits probably outweigh it in those cases.

Re: Ask HN: Ways to generate income when you're at home without pay?

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of a laser gauge, you could try using a camera hooked up with some edge detection software and use that to estimate the width. It probably wouldn't be as accurate, but it would definitely be cheaper.

You'd be looking at very subtle variations in the color of single pixels, so you might as well just use a single optical sensor and light source into a single high res adc, using intensity to measure thickness. At some point dust in the air will be a limiting factor.

You'd make the filament go slightly diagonally across the field of view of the camera, and then you'd have thousands of part-filled pixels.

As long as your material is consistent (no bubbles, shiny spots, etc.), You should be able to build a very accurate sensor this way.

Re: Ask HN: Ways to generate income when you're at home without pay?

#278

There are some truly awful suggestions here. The question isnt about changing his life by learning to code or setting up a plastics machine (which is pretty cool but takes investment) or starting an affiliate site and then generating traffic, it's about generating income during a global pandemic. 1. Fiverr 2. Mechanical Turk 3. Craigslist Gigs 4. UpWork Can generate $50 by dinner time if you're willing to focus and p…

That brings up a question: What can you do to earn $50 in 24 hours? Unless you already have mturk the waiting period is days to weeks if you're not rejected. Fiverr/Upwork would all require a large amount of luck to make $50 in one day as communication with client and turn-around time could take 12-24 hours before even starting a small one hour project. CL might be the best way to make that money in that time period…

Language learning tutoring. You can be a "community tutor" no diploma required on platforms like iTalki, Verbling, etc.

Re: Ask HN: Ways to generate income when you're at home without pay?

#279
post #5

DoorDash, GrubHub, Uber Eats, and the like make pretty decent money. About $7 per order before tip and in a busy area you might be able to snag two or three orders going the same direction making the $/hr a little better. It's basically the definition of not great money but it's not very difficult, not physically straining, and you don't have to interview or whatever for it. Grocery stores in my area are also hiring…

None of those suggestions are compatible with "stay at home" for real. I'm assuming we all understand that "stay at home" really means "don't go to your regular job, but essential services such as food delivery and grocery store assistant are allowed". But quite a lot of people are being told to stay at home for real , or advised to, on grounds of health risk or risk to someone else in their household. That excludes…

Tutoring via Skype. Many people are willing to pay for a private tutor to learn a language, guitar, graphics design, etc.
Post reply on HN