
Ask HN: How to make an extra $2000 monthly? - smithmayowa
Hey guys how do I go about making an extra $2000 monthly, I am a software developer who has tried the saas project angle before to no success sadly.
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AwesomeFaic
Depends how much money you can invest right now, how much time you have to
spend, and how quickly you need to start hitting that $2000 mark.

Need it now? Check out Craigslist gigs (help with moving, quick jobs, website
help), or try flipping thrift store and eBay stuff. Pros: Quick, no skills
needed. Cons: Unreliable and more time consuming.

Need it reliably? Work on a business and work your ass off in your spare time.
Pros: Easy to make more than $2000/mo if it goes well. Cons: Will take a lot
of time and effort to _maybe_ work out for you.

Alternatively, invest in a property. Pros: Easy $2000/mo through rent. Cons:
Lots of upfront investment & research needed to not screw yourself over as a
property manager.

Personally I'm in a similar situation and currently selling on eBay and
running a side business. Been at it ~6 months and make 200-400/mo on top of my
salary, but looking to ramp up the business more this year.

Edit: One option I overlooked of course is investing. The safer the
investment, the more up-front capital you'll need and nothing is truly 100%
safe. Gamble on options but be prepared to lose everything, if you really need
something immediately.

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CoffeePython
It might take a while to make $2k/mo in cash from rental properties. We own
two rentals and don’t even clear $1k/mo with both.

~~~
davismwfl
Depends on a lot of factors, I have made that on a single property (short term
vacation rentals) but more typical is like what you say where it can take 10+
properties to clear $2k/month for long term rentals. Right now my best
property is clearing two hundred (or so) a month, which isn't horrid but far
from great. I only have long term rentals right now though, so that's ok.

IMO: Rental property is best looked at as a long game, not a short term income
stream. It is a solid way to gain wealth, just won't happen overnight.

~~~
pxhb
Somewhat of a tangent, but do you have any advice/resources on how to price in
repairs and maintenance?

I am moving soonish, and trying to figure out what to do with my house. A back
of the envelope calculation of Expected_Rent - Mortgage - Insurance -
Property_management_fees gives an appealing number, but I am not too sure how
to price in all of the long and short term repairs/maintenance and any other
potential liabilities.

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matt_the_bass
Don’t you have a good idea of the maintenance needs for that house? You lived
there.

If you don’t understand the costs of living in it as your primary residence,
you perhaps should consider that realestate Investing/management might Not be
a good match for your skill set.

~~~
pxhb
I have an idea what it costs me personally, but I am not sure how to price in
the plain fact that renters will not care for your house as much as you do.

~~~
davismwfl
And you are right to ask this question. Your costs when you live in the house
will not be the same as when someone else moves in. It is also why I suggest
you talk to a local agent or 2 because they will know the trends in your area.

I had a house in one city that the maintenance cost was outrageous compared to
my other properties but it was in the middle of the pack (cost wise) for the
city demographics and building codes. So it is hard to pinpoint even for an
experienced real estate person without doing some analysis in your area
specifically.

Here are a few of my common questions to an agent if I am looking at a new
area:

1\. Average time on market, from day of rental listing to lease signed.

2\. Basic demographics and occupations of the people living in the
neighborhood and surrounding area. Including average income.

3\. Hardest to rent property details compared to the easiest to rent. e.g. 4
bedrooms might be super hard to rent in an area with predominately single
people, but would be super easy in a family driven neighborhood. I'm looking
for contradictions here, e.g. they say the area is predominately housing
single people but the demand is for 4 bed/3bath houses. Either they are
idiots, or it is group housing/party area which can bring up a different set
of rental criteria. Or there is something super unique about this area and
they should be able to articulate it to me or I don't accept that risk.

4\. Average cost of maintenance for similar rentals. I usually ask, avg
plumber cost, avg electrician if I don't have people in the area so this way I
know what they are seeing.

5\. Special lease terms that are needed or common for the area. And special
county/city or HOA rules or costs I need to be aware of. Including parking
fees etc.

6\. Largest employers in the area by number of people.

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matt_the_bass
Great list! Thanks for sharing. I was thinking only about the maintenance
costs of the structure.

~~~
davismwfl
You're welcome.

Real estate is almost entirely about demographics, learning the target
audience/area will let you understand the situation and risks better.

Honestly no different than startups IMO. If we build a product that there is
no client for it doesn't matter how cool it is or how much money we raised or
spent. If you build (or buy) a property that is wrong for the area, selling,
renting or doing anything with it will become nearly impossible.

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CoffeePython
Find 20 hours of freelance work at $100/hr.

Sounds reductive but I’ve had good success with this when looking for
additional income.

Probably the easiest and most likely to work path if you are already a
developer.

~~~
neuroticfish
How? In the freelance developer space you're either competing with people in
developing countries who work for peanuts, or your potential clients have have
the money to throw at high quality work which means you're competing with the
top 1-5% of freelance developers.

~~~
CoffeePython
By finding a niche and looking for work in that niche. I picked NLP in the
financial space and have been able to find work within a couple weeks every
time I look. If you search for freelancing threads here on HN you can find
some great info on getting freelance work.

~~~
neuroticfish
>I picked NLP in the financial space

This sounds like something that requires a masters degree. How did you manage
to prove that you were knowledgeable/skilled in NLP when you got your first
job in that space?

~~~
CoffeePython
Full time job is for a consulting company. Got brought on for some greenfield
work that happened to be in the space. Got to learn on the job. Leveraged that
experience to land freelancing clients.

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matt_the_bass
One option is to try and monetize a hobby you want to do anyway. I’ve just
started to do this with my woodworking/cnc/making hobby.

I make art piece wordclocks[0]. I’ve Sold a few with almost no marketing
effort. My goal is to sell two per month.

Part of my marketing effort is improving visibility on Etsy and so I’ve
started selling much less expensive items on Etsy too[1]. They are not so much
for the revenue as for the traffic, ratings, and learning how to best use
Etsy. These secondary products are all based on things I’ve designed and made
for/with my young kids.

Two observations:

\- I’ve really enjoyed the path of developing better processes of how to
fabricate things more efficiently

\- I’ve really enjoyed getting my kids involved with making. It’s fun to
observe them thinking about how to make stuff and working with them to figure
things out (they are 3 and 6).

By monetizing my hobby I can also write off tools I’d like to have. Note that
I started pretty low cost using tools at my local makerspace[2].

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

[1]
[http://www.etsy.com/shop/FineWordclocks](http://www.etsy.com/shop/FineWordclocks)

[2] [http://www.as220.org](http://www.as220.org)

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RenRav
Not software related, but my sister makes and sells simple candlesticks online
for that much each month.

I also resold earbuds/earplugs online for a years to get $1000-1500/mo. Seemed
like a viable side project only taking up an hour or so every night to prepare
packages, and then an extra 20 minutes to swing by the post office each
morning.

Like others said, it's always a good idea to reduce your spending and try to
save. You can even use that savings to occasionally fund projects without
feeling too bad if something fails.

~~~
jetti
That is interesting about your sister. I've been thinking of doing something
similar, do you know if she uses a platform like Etsy to sell her stuff?

~~~
RenRav
Yes, she sells via Etsy. I would link her store page for the curious, but
sellers on Etsy are really homogenous and so you can glean the same info from
any of them probably.

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ryanmercer
Ha, that's effectively my take-home from 40 hours a week. Sure wish doing that
was easy.

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soneca
I think the safest way (i.e. no downside, no money spent, small time
investment) is negotiating your salary. In your current or new job.

~~~
rwmurrayVT
Very location dependent.. The vast majority of the workforce couldn't
negotiate a $24k a year raise from their employer.

~~~
ryanmercer
A lot of us can't negotiate a salary period, people outside of tech don't seem
to realize this Major corporations have very concrete pay scales, you start at
the bottom of that scale and you climb your way up it year after year with
very rigid and defined maximum pay increases based on arbitrary factors in an
annual merit increase and not by going "gee boss, I think I deserve a raise!".

~~~
soneca
You can change jobs with a raise though. This in software development of
course, as there is a lot of demand almost everywhere and it is easier to
change employers than other companies

~~~
ryanmercer
>You can change jobs with a raise though.

Again, not always a realistic option for people.

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bberenberg
Build (or buy) a product for a niche. I sell plugins for Jira / Confluence and
whatnot. Makes a lot more than 2k a month.

~~~
pawelduda
How do you determine what kind of plugins are in demand?

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bberenberg
I would recommend you pick a niche where you are knowledgeable. Atlassian
software happens to be mine.

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corporate_shi11
If you just care about hitting the $2000 mark, optimizing for time and effort,
I'd say just find a product to sell on Amazon and market the hell out of it on
Facebook and Instagram.

Run paid ads and make up for small margins with high volume. Try to offer your
product at the lowest price among your competitors.

~~~
batt4good
I've always been curious what avenues you use for advertising / how much you
spend on advertising to see results in sales?

Most of my side-businesses have been marketed entirely on forums or by word of
mouth.

Overclock.net back in the early 2010's had an insanely deep customer base and
industry contacts!

~~~
corporate_shi11
Paid ads on social media are interesting because sometimes you get lucky with
an ad and it goes viral/attracts a lot of sales, but often it doesn't. You
have to experiment and know your market.

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ducttape12
Not sure why you're looking for that value exactly or what your current
situation is, but in addition to increasing your income, you can also look at
decreasing your expenses.

It may be easier to shave off $500 in monthly expenses and only need an extra
$1500.

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zapperdapper
I have a friend that turns time allocated for other things into paid time. For
example, she got certified as a Spin coach, so takes classes a couple of times
a week and gets paid to work out. She also does yoga classes and gets paid for
that too. Sure, you might not hit $2K/month but it'll get you part way
there...

You can probably get about £200/day painting and decorating for people you
know. If you're prepared to work weekends it'll get you nearly there after
word gets around that you're trustworthy and polite...

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Rerarom
I have a question to everyone in this thread: how do you deal with the
bureaucracy (taxes and stuff) that comes with a side business? (I'm curious
also about how it varies between countries)

~~~
ab_testing
If you are in the US, it is a straightforward form Schedule C. Depending on
how your business is setup, Quickbooks or any other software will easily
generate a form Schedule C for you.

~~~
Rerarom
But how does one register the business before it begins activity?

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bdcravens
I've had good results doing mentoring calls on Codementor.

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kasi
leetcode

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theFeller00
Too overworked at my day job to do much side programming work. I decided to
mainly focus on generating passive income through investing. I don't see many
things that I think scream out "cheap" but the MLP sector has still not seen
much of a recovery from the very steep declines from several years ago. You
could look into $EPD, $ET, $MMP. Distributions given off of the units are tax-
deferred, so it shouldn't cause much of a tax issue until you would unload the
shares. These companies also try and raise distributions quarterly (yes, $ET
has not raised in a while, but they took a worse beating than any of the
others. When they do raise them, and they will, share price should recover
nicely).

You could also look at some CEFs. PIMCO would be the main one I'd consider for
bonds. $PDI / $PCI / $PTY. If you would want to get into some equity CEFS you
could look at $UTG.

Obviously you can consider a lot of other options if you don't mind them
tossing off less income, but your post was bout generating monthly income :)

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icedchai
Open an investment account and sell option spreads. You will need a margin
account to do this. Note you can also lose money.

~~~
dnadler
> Note you can also lose money.

All of your money, very quickly, if you don't know what you're doing.

~~~
icedchai
This is possible. You gotta start small and learn. Don’t get too aggressive.

