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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

#111

Post by linuxftw »

Man small and medium sized local businesses need website help and marketing help. Try posting ads on craigslist and facebook. I used to do this 10-15 years ago and had some small success, though it wasn't something I tried to do full time.

You can work as much or as little as you want. People pay way too much for websites, so there's a long tail of customers that you can actually save money and do a decent job for, you just have to seek them out. Many small businesses prefer to work for someone local as well.

Many small businesses are happy to pay $X/month to their web master to keep the site alive as well, since they know nothing about computers. Many web agencies charge over $100/month to do essentially nothing, and charge for change fees.

If you have a very trusted friend or family member to structure a corporation for you, then you can earn a modest 'wage' and they uh, aren't very good at not leaving envelopes full of cash at your place. That part's obviously up to you, probably not legal, but everyone breaks the speed limit now and then.

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

#112

Post by dennis_jeeves1 »

I feel for you. Besides the obvious fact that you have a disability it also seems like overall society has shunned you . I have an acquaintance in a similar situation who can actually still code and has been out of the market for around 20 years. Nobody wants to employ him.

For those who are worried about a similar fate happening to them ( yes, I'm worried). I'd say that you have to form long term alliances with conscientious long term thinking people to partially alleviate situations like this.

p.s: I'm fully aware that insurance can take into account certain obviously visible disabilities (like a last a lost limb), but there are others where insurance will not be useful, for example chronic fatigue syndrome.

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

#113

Post by mcv »

ThinkBeat wrote: post #104
mcv wrote: post #62

> I've been disabled since 2018, and my skills in software as such have largely become outdated. I always find this such a weird claim. Sure, lots has happened in the past 5 years, but there's still tons of software out there that's older than 5 years, most major programming languages are decades old, and anything new can be learned. If you want to be able to make money quickly, it's far more interesting to look at w…

[ActivistNote] As the inflation continues to raise prices, is it vital to put political pressure on ensuring that the state increases SS payments accordingly. [/ActivistNote] You have the right to your opinion but it pretty close to the mythical "Let them eat cake" In his situation he has nearly no control over how much he will get paid. You take what the government gets and that is it. A nice thing when you are work…

> You have the right to your opinion but it pretty close to the mythical "Let them eat cake"

I suspect you meant to respond to someone else or you severely misunderstand me, because my opinion is the exact opposite of that. Of course these payments (and many others, including minimum wage) should be automatically corrected for inflation, but that's apparently not happening, and as I pointed out, not of much help to him right now.

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

#114

Post by PaulHoule »

thathndude wrote: post #56
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

It bugs me that almost all the people I know that have gotten on disability have come from upper-class families, frequently the parents are part of the "business class" and work with lawyers on a regular basis.

Conversely I've known many people who come from lower class or middle class families that have hit hard times who are seriously mental ill (e.g. addicted to cigarettes but so thought disordered that it takes three hours to smoke a cig after waking up.) It strikes me as unfair that somebody who is "lawyered up" can find loopholes to protect their income whereas for many disabled people the process of applying for disability is like going to the moon or becoming a Navy Seal.

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

#115

Post by Glench »

Hey, sorry to hear about your situation. I'm in a similar boat — very low and variable ability to work for a couple years.

I haven't seen this suggestion elsewhere in the thread and it's worked ok for me so I'll mention it. I started a small SaaS.

It was initially a decent chunk of work (as you indicated in the section about monetizing applications you've written), but now provides consistent income that's not tied to my time or, critically, my energy levels. And even the initial push wasn't that bad since I spread out a lot of the work over time to match my abilities. My physical difficulties were actually kind of a blessing in a way because it forced me to do things that were absolutely critical and cut out everything else.

Needless to say, making a SaaS is an art and a risky one. It requires a good eye for applications that will make money, practice validating ideas and solutions, ways of acquiring new users, ongoing customer support and feature development, etc. One way you might de-risk a SaaS is by doing contract work for companies that give you insights into problems they're having and help you build solutions while still getting paid until you can spin out an app.

I actually think browser extensions are also an underappreciated way to get started indie hacking but I'm biased: https://www.indiehackers.com/post/why-browser-extensions-are...

Anyway, stay positive, friend! It's hard to be in our position without an ongoing practice of self-compassion and positivity.

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

#116

Post by czbond »

globalise83 wrote: post #45

I would recommend using your Python skills to write scripts that perform analytics tasks using JIRA Cloud REST API data. Every tech company I have worked in needed some kind of custom reports regarding development performance, time reporting, financial reporting, etc.... and there often weren't suitable plugins for just that task, and the reports themselves are highly valuable either for management purposes or compli…

Great, niche, high paying advice here.

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

#117

Post by base3 »

dsego wrote: post #110
ricardobayes wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I run far, far away from companies that openly advertise that they hire the top X percent of talent. There should be talent agencies dedicated for the "rest" that still generate good solid value, but also don't charge top dollar.

They technically hire the top percent that pass their screening process. Those are the candidates that put in the effort to solve coding challenges and work on test projects. And once you're in, you don't have to go through any assessments again, there is no bidding on projects or race to the bottom, you set your rate and you can find hourly, part-time or full time work that suits your skill set.

Can you suggest a few such agencies?

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

#118

Post by foxyv »

PaulHoule wrote: post #114
thathndude wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It bugs me that almost all the people I know that have gotten on disability have come from upper-class families, frequently the parents are part of the "business class" and work with lawyers on a regular basis. Conversely I've known many people who come from lower class or middle class families that have hit hard times who are seriously mental ill (e.g. addicted to cigarettes but so thought disordered that it takes t…

> It strikes me as unfair that somebody who is "lawyered up" can find loopholes to protect their income whereas for many disabled people the process of applying for disability is like going to the moon or becoming a Navy Seal.

This has been an inherent flaw in our legal system since the inception of our country. We do not have a right to equal representation. The right to have representation at all is barely even a thing. There has even been some mumbling about ending the right to an attorney...

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

#120

Post by ska »

dingusdew wrote: post #109
thathndude wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

One way to legally get the end-run around SSDI is to work on open source projects and accept donations. SSDI allows income from sources other than work, unlike SSI, which bars pretty much all income. SSDI allows you to get things like Financial Aid for school without impacting your SSDI. You can even trade stocks and gain money from stock sales and not have it impact your SSDI. Your spouse can have income and it won'…

Do you know many people who are doing this with > 1000 per month average donations?
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