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Ask HN: Disabled and out of work for years, but need some side income

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Re: Ask HN: Disabled and out of work for years, but need some side income

#51

Post by noduerme »

snide wrote: post #32
jmduke wrote: post #30

Have you considered technical writing? I've talked to a number of folks who are in a similar position, and writing (as opposed to generalist development) has a number of advantages: - It rewards experience though, except for niche-specific writing, does not require understanding of specific frameworks or programming languages - It is often 'important-but-not-urgent' work, so intermittent availability is less of a dea…

This is solid advice. In large, technical companies you'd be surprised at the number of technical writers that aren't actually technical. Having someone that acts as a source writer, rather than as an editor for developers that are quickly rushing past the documentation requirements is a game-changer. The best technical writers I've worked with were always folks who understood programming and could write the docs fro…

Third this. One of the companies I develop for hired a technical writer to translate large pieces of our code into user-friendly manuals. She isn't a coder but she's a good writer and has a knack for finding problems and asking questions from the user's perspective. Most importantly, she's intellectually curious. She sort of fell into the position by being a regular employee who raised a lot of good questions about the old software as it existed. She's paid well by the client, picks her own hours and problems, has a hand in suggesting new features, sends me lists of questions and I answer as I do... in extreme detail and with tons of edge cases. She then just keeps testing things out and distills my technical babble down to the manuals that are used to train the managers.

Re: Ask HN: Disabled and out of work for years, but need some side income

#52

Post by vbezhenar »

nfriedly wrote: post #27

For what it's worth, I used to do work on freelancing sites ~10 years ago and just tended to ignore the race to the bottom. I initially charged $50/hr, and regularly raised my rates so that I was up over $150/hr by the time I stopped doing it. Of course I got passed over for a lot of jobs in favor of cheaper folks. But the jobs I did get were from clients who actually respected me. Also, more than once, a client who…

I tried for months to find a job in freelance site. I ended up doing someone's home work for symbolic price ($50 or something like that), got 5 stars and that's about it. Any work with reasonable pay (few thousands of dollars for few weeks) was overflooded with offers (like 200+ offers). I wrote my offer, tried to customize it, few times I even made some small demo to show off my interest but to no success. In the end I gave up.

So my opinion: if you desperately need some money, freelancing websites are not a good option. It's more about luck and determination. I guess if I would kept applying, with time I'd find more projects, more reputation and so on, but that's not quick money.

Might be my country (KZ). I would expect people from US or EU having better implicit reputation. Also it was around 10 years ago, may be things changed.

Re: Ask HN: Disabled and out of work for years, but need some side income

#53

Post by zieben »

nicoburns wrote: post #9

You don't say what your disability is (or how it impacts your ability to work), so it's hard to be specific. But my general advice would be just to talk to more companies. Not every company will be open to this, but some will and you just need to find those companies. Get in contact with companies that are hiring for roles that require the kind of skills you have even if the working arrangements they're advertising a…

This. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people with disabilities who fall through the cracks because they’re able to work, just not to the artificial availability (and suffering) standard required by the modern labor market. There’s a difference between being able to do useful work and being able to survive the nightmare of a modern-day corporate job where the work demands themselves are low but the emotional labor is enough to take down even people without disabilities, given enough time.

And SSDI is really badly set up, as other posters have noted.

Re: Ask HN: Disabled and out of work for years, but need some side income

#54

Post by ceejayoz »

hansvm wrote: post #50
ceejayoz wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So long as OP keeps their average contribution under $1,200/mo won't they be fine? No. If their business brings in $5k/month, that's what the SSA will consider their income. Doesn't matter if it's just accumulating in the business's bank accounts; it's OP's income. They've seen people try this trick; it's why the provision exists.

But if their business brings in $5k for one contract done one month and then has no work for 4 months to bring the average under $1,200, is that not above board with such a ruling? Test 3 in that legal document references that their income will be evaluated relative to what salary they might receive for such work, and I wouldn't think it would be reasonable for the business to be expected to pay more than the average…

It doesn't average.

https://www.ssa.gov/OP_Home/cfr20/416/416-0420.htm

> We generally use the amount of your countable income in the second month prior to the current month to determine how much your benefit amount will be for the current month.

Earning $5k in a particular month would mean zero benefit in a subsequent month, and keeping that $5k sitting in their account to tide themselves over would put them over the $2k limit on assets, making them ineligible for SSI.

Re: Ask HN: Disabled and out of work for years, but need some side income

#55

Post by jvanderbot »

jacknews wrote: post #29

It's hard to take Fiver seriously. For example a quick search for 'Ruby Rails' and one of the top service providers lists a premium service of 'full stack development app' delivered in 3 days, and including a 15 minute consultation, a project plan, and audit, for ... $20.

If they have a stack set up, and just need to copy/paste 90% of it, I can see cranking out even 1 per day. And $20/day is above median wage for India, and might support a student really nicely.

I would absolutely trust someone to copy/paste a stack for me, a total idiot when it comes to the client-facing 50% of the stack, as long as they plug into my APIs.

Re: Ask HN: Disabled and out of work for years, but need some side income

#56

Post by thathndude »

nfriedly wrote: post #27

For what it's worth, I used to do work on freelancing sites ~10 years ago and just tended to ignore the race to the bottom. I initially charged $50/hr, and regularly raised my rates so that I was up over $150/hr by the time I stopped doing it. Of course I got passed over for a lot of jobs in favor of cheaper folks. But the jobs I did get were from clients who actually respected me. Also, more than once, a client who…

Lawyer here, but not legal advice:

Look into a Special Needs Trust. You may be able to sock the money into the Trust without it becoming income to you, and thus jeopardizing your benefits. It’s usually used to keep assets low enough for benefits, but maybe there’s an income reducing benefit as well. Your state likely has multiple providers —- fees, if any, are typically quite reasonable

Re: Ask HN: Disabled and out of work for years, but need some side income

#58

Post by hansvm »

ceejayoz wrote: post #54
hansvm wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if their business brings in $5k for one contract done one month and then has no work for 4 months to bring the average under $1,200, is that not above board with such a ruling? Test 3 in that legal document references that their income will be evaluated relative to what salary they might receive for such work, and I wouldn't think it would be reasonable for the business to be expected to pay more than the average…

It doesn't average. https://www.ssa.gov/OP_Home/cfr20/416/416-0420.htm > We generally use the amount of your countable income in the second month prior to the current month to determine how much your benefit amount will be for the current month. Earning $5k in a particular month would mean zero benefit in a subsequent month, and keeping that $5k sitting in their account to tide themselves over would put them over the…

Well that's a moldy bollocks sandwich of a law isn't it :/ Thanks for the clarification.
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