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Ask HN: How can I add 10-15k to my annual income this year?

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Re: Ask HN: How can I add 10-15k to my annual income this year?

#31

Post by BruceIV »

I don't know why you want another 10-15k, or what your current situation is (though it sounds like you're a programmer making okay money), so this might not be useful advice, but you can get a surprising amount of mileage out of a good budget, with surprisingly few trade offs.

Cars are often huge money sinks. Also, people tend not to examine their housing situation for efficiencies (I have a number twenty-something friends in small towns who own houses with rental properties that cover nearly all their mortgages) - also, you can generally move closer to work and bike or take transit (assuming you're not a consultant and "work" is a fixed place); this goes back to cars being money sinks and commuting really being terrible. You can eat really well quite cheaply if you want to put in some time and make your own food (a bagged lunch over eating out at work could save you $1000 a year, and that's just one thing). Anyway, the Internet is full of useful tips to save money, but you can get a bunch done by just mapping out your monthly spending and looking for places to trim the fat. Maybe that won't cover the whole 10-15K you're looking for, but it's a good start.

Re: Ask HN: How can I add 10-15k to my annual income this year?

#32

Post by tomek_zemla »

swframe wrote: post #25

1. Switch to technical sales (typically you get a bonus based on the sales quota; downside is you travel a lot) 2. Post your resume and ask for 15k more 3. If you're not in the SF Bay Area, move there but note your cost of living will probably go up by 20k so you need to ask for $35k more than you currently make. 4. If you're in the SF Bay Area, see if your company will let you work remotely, and move to a state that…

#5 Since when dating somebody saves you money...?

Re: Ask HN: How can I add 10-15k to my annual income this year?

#34

Post by xauronx »

It's not always easy/fun, but I've found that a) working like a fucking maniac (12+ hours a day), b) never turning down a chance to talk about a job, seem to help. You brothers girlfriends aunt wants a website for her garage sale this year? Yeah, not going to get you $10k, but talking to her, being awesome and giving some advice (even if you don't actually help, and do a "favor" by pointing her to ebay or something). You'll end up making a connection, and she might tell her wealthy relative about a really awesome developer (you). I've gotten a few well paying jobs this way. For me, it seems that not being a greedy presumptuous asshole seems to have paid off well. Also, did I mention working really hard?

Re: Ask HN: How can I add 10-15k to my annual income this year?

#35

Post by corkill »

johnrob wrote: post #23
threetincans wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remote freelance work is a race to the bottom. A better way to earn some extra money is to build a small service (SAAS) like OLark, or, Launchrock, and charge $10/month. Support your customers with a passion, add customers slowly, and before you know it, you will have 100 customers. That will earn you $12K every year forever. It is far better than doing odd programming jobs for others, there is no capital required, a…

If getting 12k/yr in annual in revenue is easy, then getting 1MM/yr is also easy (after going from 0->100, just make two more hops: 100->1000 and 1000->10000). Since we know that building a MM/yr business is anything but easy, one of our assumptions must be wrong. Which one is it?: a) 0 -> 100 users is easy b) 100 -> 1000 users is easy c) 1000 -> 10000 users is easy My gut feeling is that a) is actually the hardest s…

Yes a) as that requires the largest amount of new skills that you likely did not have before (ignoring repeat successful founders).

e.g. customer development, sales, marketing.

Once you have 100 there will be new challenges like recruiting, managing people etc. But it won't be as hard as going from 0 - 100.

Re: Ask HN: How can I add 10-15k to my annual income this year?

#36

Post by lgas »

lnanek2 wrote: post #28
threetincans wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. 1 is the easiest. See my more detailed comment below.

You have to multiply by the chance of it working to get the expected value. It's easy to write an app or a service and just never get the customers to even break even on your time. Contracting is much more likely to pay back since you just have to complete the project and the employers has to keep their word to pay.

Yeah, if you're going to talk about what's easiest in the "whats the least work" I'd say #9 would be the easiest. Chances of it working are probably pretty low for most people though.

Contracting at $100/hr will gross you $10k in 100 hrs (or about 2.5 weeks worth of work). You probably meant net so double it and you're somewhere in your ballpark.

Almost anyone that is a competent professional programmer should be able to find and execute on this much side work at a similar rate. If you're particularly good, have a particularly specialized skillset, a clearence, etc you can easily command a substantial multiple of this rate and accomplish your goal in even less time.

And you're chance of it working are very high.

Re: Ask HN: How can I add 10-15k to my annual income this year?

#37

Post by swframe »

tomek_zemla wrote: post #32
swframe wrote: post #25

1. Switch to technical sales (typically you get a bonus based on the sales quota; downside is you travel a lot) 2. Post your resume and ask for 15k more 3. If you're not in the SF Bay Area, move there but note your cost of living will probably go up by 20k so you need to ask for $35k more than you currently make. 4. If you're in the SF Bay Area, see if your company will let you work remotely, and move to a state that…

#5 Since when dating somebody saves you money...?

The 'up' part is the key. If the person makes more than you do, I think it should save you money. It does for the people I've dated anyway :).

Re: Ask HN: How can I add 10-15k to my annual income this year?

#39

Post by jyothepro »

hodgesmr wrote: post #16

1. Build something on the side that creates recurring revenue 2. Build something on the side that you can sell for $10-15k 3. Build multiple things that, when combined, sell for $10-15k 4. Negotiate a raise at your current job 5. Start doing freelance work 6. Get lucky in the stock market 7. Get lucky in a casino 8. Get lucky in a lottery 9. Inherit some money Why do people in tech think we work in some magically bel…

If you already have a job, then most companies have some clause that will not allow you to create new software that can generate revenue. Atleast this is my experience.
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