Do you enjoy photography? Why not try selling your photos? Photo: Hernan Pinera
A couple of weeks ago, I posted an article entitled 40 Free (or Extremely Low-Cost) Things I Genuinely Enjoy Doing and You Might, Too! I received several pieces of feedback on the article, mostly positive, but one in particular stuck out at me. Alex writes:
Your list of free things to do was cool, but I am more interested in hobbies I can take up that could actually earn a little. Do you have a list of things you enjoy doing that earn money ?
Well, let's do just that!
First of all, I excluded things that require significant training in order to be able to pull off. Almost anyone can make a passing attempt at any of these things almost any time. Sure, they might not be very good, but you can actually do them and you will get better with practice.
There are a lot of things you can do if you have specialized skills: record music videos and put them on YouTube. write smartphone apps, get change from the bank and look for rare coins, and so on. For the most part, I'm excluding these things and sticking with stuff you can start doing pretty quickly with only an online guide or two to help you when you're starting.
Second, I excluded things that require a lot of equipment that you may not have. You might be able to make some money if you have a 3D printer, for example, but many people do not. I have a friend, for example, who has made some money printing off miniatures from a 3D printer, but that's not accessible to most people. If you have an airplane, for instance, you could take people on airplane rides to make money but who has an airplane? Some of the things below do require a few pieces of equipment, but they're either really inexpensive or they're things that people already have.
Third, I also excluded location-specific things. For example, in the area where I grew up, people used to hunt for geodes to earn some extra money. They also used to hunt for morel mushrooms something I still dabble in. Those things really require you to be in specific areas to be able to pull them off, so I'm not including them, either.
Ready to pick up a new hobby and make a few bucks along the way? Let's do it!
