In another post, titled Mother’s Day Gift Suggestions (One with an Ulterior Investment Motive), I mentioned I had recently found out that I love making beaded jewelry.  After creating a few pieces, I started giving some out to friends and family and got many compliments on my designs.  Eventually, some of them suggested they would buy a few pieces from me to give as gifts to their friends and families.  After some time, a few people from out of town wanted to buy some as well and so I started taking pictures of my work and posting them online for easy viewing and then sending their orders out to them.  So my hobby had started making me some extra money!

Do you have a hobby?  Are you good at it?  Do your friends compliment you on your skills?  It might be that you could start making some cash!  Ask your friends if they would pay for your product or service.  Post a survey on Survey Monkey to see what people are interested in, read a few books on small business and marketing, do some number crunching if you need to buy extra materials to make this work.  If it pans out, you’ll be doing pretty much the same thing but making money at the same time.  And who knows, it might just become a lucrative business for you someday.

Want to make more money?  Some more ideas can be found in the Making Money section of this site.