
Ask HN: Ways to make a small amount of extra cash during the pandemic? - quickthrower2
I thought it would be interesting to see how people have made a bit of extra cash on the side during the pandemic.<p>I am not talking about SaaS side projects, more exchanging time for money kind of thing. Or anything that just makes money straight away without weeks of upfront &#x27;investment&#x27;:<p>Here are mine:<p>Got invited to trial out some software for Microsoft, got a gift voucher $150.<p>Did some mentoring on mentorcruise.com, about $160 in total. Stopped as I didn&#x27;t want to spend the time anymore, so stopped taking on new mentors then let the current ones leave once they were done.<p>Did some mentoring&#x2F;coding on codementor.io, about $300 in total. Stopped as I didn&#x27;t want to spend the time anymore.
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matt_the_bass
My “typical” side project is making wordclocks [0]. But my neighbor is a
dentist and needed a sneeze shield for his office reception counter. So he and
I came up with a design for a wooden sneeze shield stand. I’ve since put them
on Etsy [1] and sold more than $1k worth in the last month.

I use some of the tools I bought for making my clocks. It makes me feel good
to be able help a few small businesses.

[0] [http://www.finewordclocks.com](http://www.finewordclocks.com)

[1] [http://finewordclocks.etsy.com](http://finewordclocks.etsy.com)

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quickthrower2
The sneeze shield is a great idea. I've seen these pop up in a lot of shops,
either as a way to protect the clerk, or as a way to protect people at self-
checkouts from each other while keeping them all open.

Whether it actually stops corona spread I am not so sure. It probably lowers
the risk, but air is circulating in all directions so some virus could get
around it. As long as it lowers the risk it's probably a good buy.

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giantg2
Stocks and options. The drop has provided many opportunities to make some
gains.

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NotSammyHagar
You'll have to elaborate on that. You can easily lose money too. There is more
dynamic change in values, yes, so you can use that. But the overall issue is
that how can one tell what to do because you don't know how the market is
moving. No one does.

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giantg2
Yes there is risk.

You need a basic understanding of finance so you can look at the metrics like
PEG or P/B and financial documents like the balance sheet. Then the only real
question is 'do you see the company thriving in 5 years'.

For example, during the dip you could buy Disney for $87 or Shell for $29.
They should go back to thriving and should double in price in the next 5
years. You can also buy put options on companies that you think will fail or
drop significantly (like AMC).

The other thing you can do is play the odds. Almost everything has been going
up since the dip. So you have a much better chance of picking a winner.
Another statistical advantage is that you do know which way the market is
moving - up. Over the longterm, the market only goes up. The Fed's QE and easy
money is greatly helping.

