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Ask HN: What are some easy ways to earn some side money?

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Re: Ask HN: What are some easy ways to earn some side money?

#31

Post by gsaines »

If you're already a software engineer earning a normal salary in the US (several assumptions there), it's really hard to find side hustles that pay at or above the hourly wage that your employer has already committed to. I personally think that it's a good idea to focus on building a small lifestyle software business over the course of several years. I wrote a long series of blog posts about this over here: https://overthinkingmoney.com/2023/05/02/start-a-business-no...

My first company (Skritter.com) fits this mold. It's been growing slowly, but steadily for more than 15 years now. In the first couple of years we were able to generate low five-figures per month, now it's substantially higher.

There are other ways to earn cash outside of tech, but most of the common suggestions (drop shipping, affiliate marketing, laundromats, etc) are mostly terrible if you really do the analysis.

For better or worse, low risk generally means low upside!

Re: Ask HN: What are some easy ways to earn some side money?

#34

Post by jimcsharp »

syndicatedjelly wrote: post #13
sudoxperteez wrote: post #6

[flagged]

That just looks like another no-code platform that's trying to get people to use them by promising riches. > Imagine being able to build an app like Airbnb in a weekend. I really doubt that's possible. > Future-proof your resume By concentrating your skills in one platform that's probably not going to exist in 2 years?

My experience with no code was it was so frustrating to work with that it was preferable to force as much as logic as possible into the database. You get pretty adept at whatever database software you're using, saying "that'd be expensive on this platform - you should settle for ", and sessions with platform support because somewhere along the way their platform stopped loading the files it saved.

I do think there needs to be fewer people who crumble when they have to write SQL so maybe it's not all bad.

Re: Ask HN: What are some easy ways to earn some side money?

#35

Post by VoodooJuJu »

syndicatedjelly wrote: post #11

Kinda meta advice, but I'd be careful about converting your hobbies into paid gigs. It's a great way to make yourself hate your hobby, especially when it turns out it's not very lucrative and the customers are assholes. I learned this the hard way with photography. People who advocate "hustle culture" tend to not have very lucrative main jobs, or no upward mobility in their current role. So they look for weird "hacks…

>People who advocate "hustle culture" tend to not have very lucrative main jobs, or no upward mobility in their current role. So they look for weird "hacks" to make a few bucks on the side

Yes. I have no promotion prospects and no new-job prospects, so I do what I have to do to survive: make my own way, with my own "side hustles".

Re: Ask HN: What are some easy ways to earn some side money?

#37

Post by [deleted] »

drones wrote: post #23
WestCoastJustin wrote: post #7

Get a second remote job. You could effectively double your salary for a few months or as long as you can handle it. Personally, this is much better than the race of the bottom of all these piece meal contracting gig sites. Youtube is likely a major waste of time in that you'd need to compete and build a profile, etc. This takes time. If you want to spend years then you might make it work. I've done this and know from…

Wouldn't multiple jobs like this make you a huge security/IP rights liability?

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What are some easy ways to earn some side money?

#38

Post by VectorLock »

CptFribble wrote: post #21
WestCoastJustin wrote: post #7

Get a second remote job. You could effectively double your salary for a few months or as long as you can handle it. Personally, this is much better than the race of the bottom of all these piece meal contracting gig sites. Youtube is likely a major waste of time in that you'd need to compete and build a profile, etc. This takes time. If you want to spend years then you might make it work. I've done this and know from…

NB: certain aspects of holding 2+ FT jobs are harder to parse out before being hired - particularly meeting times. It's not typical to ask what time morning standups are in an interview, but juggling overlapping meetings is one of the main difficulties of holding down multiple roles, so just be aware of what you're getting into.

Unethical Life Pro Tip: Get your 2nd remote job in a different geographical region (Europe vs US) so your meetings don't overlap.

Re: Ask HN: What are some easy ways to earn some side money?

#40

Post by yowlingcat »

Not sure if this is the answer you want to hear but "easy" and "side money" are diametrically opposed. Before you think about that as an avenue to increase your earnings, try and optimize your current job. A couple questions:

1. Are you doing everything you can to put yourself on an upwards trajectory towards a promotion and/or a raise? You spend most of your waking hours on your current job, and the easiest way to increase your life time earnings is bending the curve here.

2. Have you been interviewing to make sure you're getting fair market value and have? If you are not growing as well as you're capable of in your current role, a new role is a potential option. This introduces risk.

3. Have you taking a knife to your expense list and maxed out 401k and HSA contributions? Every dollar you don't contribute there is one that you're giving away to the government, so make sure you're using all the tools available to optimize.

4. Have you begun to invest in real estate? In the USA, the existence of federally backed homebuyer loans and 1031 swaps is an incredible tool to build wealth, and the leverage from the loan is even partially tax deductible on the interest side. You of course need to be careful here given the choppy state of the macro environment and real estate market so that you don't end up underwater.

5. Are you investing surplus earnings into a safe ETF? Ensuring that your earnings are working for you making passive income from the market is critical for long term earnings.

None of these approaches are quick fixes, but they're all time tested approaches than anyone can use.

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