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Are there simple ways to earn a few extra bucks as a developer in your spare time? Or is it just down to 'invent some SaaS offering and hope people like it'?
What simple things have you do that have brought in a small bit of extra income?
Still, it's probably a more efficient use of time to either work towards a better paying career move for long term income, or just cut expenses.
Another side of the coin is at $100/week that's $5k a year. What if you 'worked on your career' and got a $5k raise? Do that once and that $5k will be there every year from that point on.
As for "dumb" things you can do: cook more at home, pregame before going out, do activities that are cheap or free (eg bike rides instead of theaters), bike more instead of driving everywhere, read library books, etc
(The benefit of these over "do consulting" answers also lies in the added quality time with family rather than more work.)
In my experience if you are a pretty good developer and good at communicating, you can find small bits of work without much effort. Now I'm doing a lot of consulting so charge more, but previously I would pick low stress / low mental fatigue projects, with people I enjoy working with (often pre funding prototypes), and charge between $65-$85/hr which could be another $500-600 / month at 2 hours per week.
I also never used any of the freelancing sites, and always found work through personal connections, since it dramatically lowered the risk of getting a bad fit for me.
Another side of the coin is at $100/week that's $5k a year. What if you 'worked on your career' and got a $5k raise? Do that once and that $5k will be there every year from that point on.
On the other hand $100/wk now + interest is worth more than a $5k bump some months from now distributed over the following 12 months.
1. Consulting
2. Small SaaS (few hours per week for maintenance, bug fixes & new features) - more challenging than (1)
3. Teaching - only if you're naturally inclined/extrovert (this is a big space and I'm starting to believe that even a medium resume is enough to teach to people who never saw a command prompt before)
4. Blog in a semi-professional way (requires passion/research)
5. Write a book (novel, howto or technical). This is probably the most challenging and less profitable solution, but IMHO it could be something that matters (if you're going to novels, theatrical plays, etc.)
Aside from the extra cash, it's a good way to mentally decompress away from tech, and to get the sort of exercise you tend not to get in an IT job.