Christmas Cash

It's not too early to start thinking about Christmas and how you can make some extra money offering a fun product that parents and grandparents will want to give to their children and grandchildren.

With the arrival of the Christmas Season there is an opportunity to make some extra money creating Personalized Santa Letters for children in your area. Write a Letter from Santa to that special child .. and charge $6-$9 per letter.

Your clients will fill out a questionnaire with the child's name, age, favorite cartoon show, favorite cartoon character, names of 2 friends, names of brothers and sisters -- or any other information that you can create into an interesting letter from Santa.

Here is a link that leads to a low cost "Letters from Santa" business package that includes, Letters from Santa Templates (in MS Word format), graphics, marketing material and How To manual:

Letters From Santa Business Kit

Targeted Local Email Newsletter

The concept is simple -- pick a topic that generates a lot of interest in your area then create a free emailed newsletter that focuses on that topic.

One topic you might consider is the Restaurant Sanitation Inspection Reports. Don't laugh -- when presented in a tabloid journalist style these things can be really interesting and controversial. People have both a morbid curiosity and a genuine interest in knowing what kind of things were found in the food at their favorite restaurants.

Restaurant Sanitation Inspection Reports are public record and should be freely available in your area.

Restaurants would probably not be your best advertisers. :-)

Another topic you might focus on is Yard Sales. Currently the only place people having yard sales can advertise in is the newspaper or shoppers. Create a free weekly emailed newsletter that lists all the area yard sales and provides more information than a small classified ad in the newspaper.

At first you'll have to get your listings from the newspapers but as you grow you can begin charging people to list with you.

Turn a Rainy Day into Extra Cash

Sometimes you can make money by simply being in the right place at the right time with the right product. Here is a way you can make $100.00 profit within a couple of hours with this concept.

First, go to you local dollar store and buy as many rain ponchos as possible. You can usually get them two for a dollar.

On a rainy day, go to any baseball, soccer, or football game and stand outside the event on the street and sell your ponchos for $2-$3 each.

Or, go to your local mall and sell them to people exiting the mall. While they were inside, they probably didn’t even realize it had started raining and will hate the thought of getting wet going to their cars.

Lots of people will be happy to pay $2.00 or more to keep from getting wet.

You can even sell umbrellas. They go for $5.00 each and you buy them for one dollar at the dollar store.

You may come home with your feet wet but your pockets will be full.

Trash Can Transporter

Here is an interesting idea submitted by one of my ezine readers, James Jenner:

Being 16, I needed a means to earn money that would not interfere with my school work and extra activities but would give me spending money for school supplies and other activities. In our neighborhood we have wheeled trash cans to place trash in for weekly pickup. The city law requires that they must be put out at the curb no sooner than 7pm the night before pickup and taken back in by 7pm the day of pickup. The homeowner is subject to a $200 fine if they are out too soon or left out too late.

Since many people were not getting them put up, I started offering a service where I would pull the can from the curb back up beside their house for $5/month. I printed flyers out on the computer and placed them on doors where the cans were still at the curb when I came home one day.

Right now most of my customers live between where I get off the school bus to home, so I simply do it as I walk home. At the end of the month I will leave a reminder with a preaddressed envelope where they can send the next months payment.

One customer, who works third shift, has even offered me $15 to put out and pick his up each week. With only 20 customers, I can make enough to pay for what I need each month, and my 2 sisters are picking up people who call from different parts of the neighborhood to be their customers. And the best part was it didn't cost anything to get started and a pack of envelopes has been my only expense.

(end of James' post)

I asked James a couple of followup questions:

How many customers do you have?
Do you have any trouble getting paid?

His reply: I started with 10 homes the first day of signups but just by word of mouth it was up to 20 at the start of my first full month of service and this is in just 5 blocks (from bus stop to home). Since I am starting to get questions from other parts of the neighborhood, my sisters are going to divide them up and start their own 'routes'.

I haven't had any problems on getting paid because of keeping the price low enough that anyone can afford my service. I put out the envelopes to send payment on the pickup day before the end of the month, so far all have arrived within the 2 weeks I allow (If it isn't here by the 2nd pickup week then their cart will remain on the street.)

I actually came up with the idea on a rainy day that my mom was complaining about having to dodge all the trash cans that were floating down the street!

I really like James' idea. In fact, in the area I live we have the same problem. If we don't get our trash cans wheeled back by a certain time we are subject to a $175.00 fine. James does this as a was to make some part-time money. But, in my neighborhood there are probably 1000 houses within about a 2 square mile area that use the roll out containers. You could probably get 100 or so of them to pay $10.00 a month for such a service. That's $1000.00 a month for work you only have to do once a week. You could also earn extra money by charging $5.00 -- $10.00 to clean, sanitize and deoderize the cans.

It's a Seller's Market On eBay

If you have been thinking about selling on eBay now is the time to dive in.

September marks the start of the eBay buying season and I can tell you from my experiences this year is starting strong. Just about everything I am listing on eBay is selling and at very good final prices.

So, if you have items around the house that you would like to get rid of and make a few bucks -- NOW is the time to start listing them.

If you have never sold anything on eBay before you can learn the basics by watching eBay's How To Sell Tutorial. Here is the link:

How To Sell Tutorial

Making Money in The Office

I found an interesting post on a discussion board about a guy who made money selling a certain item to his co-workers. Actually he didn't have to sell this item. His co-workers would see a sample on his desk and ask how they could get one. Once they bought the item they would natually display it on their desks where others would see it and ask where they could get one.

He eventually quit his job and turned this part-time venture into a home based business.

Click this link for details