Group fitness instructor: several different formats, certified through Les Mills. I teach 4 mornings per week, and it works out to about USD $7000 before taxes.
Ask HN: What is your money-making side project outside programming?
371–380 of 744 posts
Re: Ask HN: What is your money-making side project outside programming?
#372I raise bees and sell the honey. Good for a few thousand a year and the money makes up for the stings. I have a couple of dozen chickens and sell the eggs, but this makes very little money since eggs are so cheap in the super market. It pays for the feed and that's it. I wrote an Amazon book on how to play harmonica in the style of Sonny Boy Williamson II that sells steady and makes me beer money. I sell a couple of…
This one sounds fun - just out of curiosity, how many times a year do you get stung?
Re: Ask HN: What is your money-making side project outside programming?
#373Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is called "manufactured spending" and there are people who do this big-time, if you look into the credit card churning/points area.
Yep, the standard practice nowadays is buying Visa gift cards and then using them to purchase money orders. It’s usually only worth the time and effort if you have a good sign up bonus on your credit card. However, I’ve also been looking into some creative and profitable ways to utilize the “float”—the pile of cash you’re sitting on for 4-6 weeks until the bill is due. It’s definitely worth my time if I can use that…
Ally Bank offers 2.2% interest, which is not huge but involves minimal effort to set up.
Re: Ask HN: What is your money-making side project outside programming?
#374I buy cars, repair them and recondition them to my level of satisfaction, and send them back out the door, typically targeting 55-65 year olds. I focus mostly on entry level luxury crossovers around 7 to 10 years old, though starting to also do hybrids since there’s more profit in it since everyone is seemingly allergic to batteries and pack replacement/rebuilds. Parts are cheap, I listen to music or a podcast, I do…
Do you live in the US? In my state (wa) you need to be licensed as a dealership to do this legally and I hear this is the case in all the other states too.
I find it surprising that the US is seen as strongly free market when things like this crop up all over the place.
Here's a video of someone failing to get pricing in advance for a medical procedure and an article about how many simple tasks need licences.
The fact that a lot of areas only have 1 broadband provider blows my mind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tct38KwROdw
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/02/17/america-should-...
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/06/50-mi...
Re: Ask HN: What is your money-making side project outside programming?
#375Earlier quoted context omitted.
I use a super cheap hand grinder I bought off amazon (the stainless steel one that there are 100 different variations of on amazon). There is a plastic part that breaks after about 6 months of usage. Someone modeled and uploaded a replacement piece to Thingiverse. The grinder is cheap enough that it is disposable, but since it is so easy to print a replacement piece with my $179 3D printer, I haven’t needed to throw…
Who you mind sharing what printer make and model you are using?
Another random datapoint. I have been using a Monoprice MP Select Mini V2 [1] for a couple years (similar price point) and am extremely pleased. After leveling the bed the first time I've done no maintenance and it seems to print when asked with no trouble. I typically use it not at all for a few months, then up to multiple times a day when working on something.
Re: Ask HN: What is your money-making side project outside programming?
#376Earlier quoted context omitted.
This seems a tad unethical
I was actually thinking about ethics a lot while I was doing this little project. By ethics do you mean morals or something different? What framework would you suggest for determining the ethics/morals of doing something like this, where we're playing by the legal rules by trying to optimize for our own benefit?
A simple overall rule here is to consider what the intended behaviour was from the company offering this. Anything that fits the rules, but is outside what you would consider expected behaviour is essentially exploiting a bug.
A similar thing happens when someone offers "unlimited storage" for home broadband users backups and people start hosting many many terabytes of porn / isos / whatever. Sure, they're entirely within the allowed behaviour, but it's clearly intended to make it easy for people to backup their photos and documents without having to know if a gigabyte is enough or not.
I would say I feel like using something in a way not intended (even if allowed) that is detrimental to the person/people offering it is unethical when considered in isolation.
I'm actually a little surprised this needs saying, is this not a common view?
edit - I guess not if it was downvoted so quickly (I know, I know, I'm not complaining about the internet points, it's honestly very interesting to me). Are people that on board wit h heavily abusing systems just because it's technically within the rules?
Remind me to never offer free pizza at a HN event as someone may turn up, say "you didn't specify a per person limit" and walk off with the food intended for everyone.
Re: Ask HN: What is your money-making side project outside programming?
#377Earlier quoted context omitted.
Think about it like this. The logical conclusion of people acting like you did is that credit card issuers increase interest rates to make up for their losses. That makes life worse for everyone but the people exploiting the loophole. You’re no different from the people who exaggerate their losses to insurance companies in order to claim extra insurance money. Because of them, premiums have gone up. You might see you…
Thanks for the reply. There is a clear difference between claiming extra insurance money and what I'm doing: lying to get more insurance money is fraud, while what I'm doing is exactly what the service is intended for (sending money to others for free). But using your framework of, "if everyone did this, how would this affect the business and others using the business," then I (and many others) are doing a lot of oth…
> while what I'm doing is exactly what the service is intended for
The service was intended to pay you significant sums to move money back and forth?
Re: Ask HN: What is your money-making side project outside programming?
#378I get about 1/6 of my yearly salary, a year, doing software job as an consultant for my ex work place. They did not replace me when I abruptly quit in 2017, giving them 3 months of notice. They have been a steady source of income since. I adjust my price yearly adding inflation + 2%
Re: Ask HN: What is your money-making side project outside programming?
#379I help founders hire technical staff, or find co-founders.
I’m not a recruiter - I’m a CTO who’s done a lot of hiring myself, and it’s more about how to understand who you need and how to talk to them.
(I’m currently working on some free resources/workshops on the topic to build my pipeline, so if the above sounds useful to you then get in touch - my email is in my profile)
Re: Ask HN: What is your money-making side project outside programming?
#380Playing bass... Although... money-making...? Helped feeding my little family while at university...