
Ask HN: Ways to generate income when you're at home without pay? - throwawayt856
One of my friends was working in call center. Now due to stay at home orders, he&#x27;s been asked to stay home without any pay.<p>Please suggest some ways to generate income.
======
econcon
There is shortage of 3D printing filament because of virus, so I've been
creating filament and selling it.

[https://medium.com/endless-filament/make-your-filament-at-
ho...](https://medium.com/endless-filament/make-your-filament-at-home-for-
cheap-6c908bb09922)

This activity also help recycle waste plastic.

Production cost of filament is $7.5 per 5kg and filament roll has 850 gram
filament and can be sold for $20-30 per spool

It's trivial to get the quality right.

You can sell rolls on Amazon, eBay and Etsy or your own Shopify store and use
Facebook ads/Google Ads to advertise your website.

~~~
soared
I don’t think someone working at a call center has the technical aptitude and
financial resources to source and build there own extrusion machine.

~~~
TrackerFF
Lots of technically gifted people working dead-end jobs, due to things like
location, family situation, lack of formal education, personal issues, or
whatever :-)

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
Exactly.

As the saying goes "talent is evenly distributed; opportunity is not."

I've known lots of very smart people working what would be considered dead-
end, or at least, lower-end jobs.

------
goatherders
There are some truly awful suggestions here. The question isnt about changing
his life by learning to code or setting up a plastics machine (which is pretty
cool but takes investment) or starting an affiliate site and then generating
traffic, it's about generating income during a global pandemic.

1\. Fiverr 2\. Mechanical Turk 3\. Craigslist Gigs 4\. UpWork

Can generate $50 by dinner time if you're willing to focus and put in the
time.

~~~
illegalsmile
That brings up a question: What can you do to earn $50 in 24 hours?

Unless you already have mturk the waiting period is days to weeks if you're
not rejected. Fiverr/Upwork would all require a large amount of luck to make
$50 in one day as communication with client and turn-around time could take
12-24 hours before even starting a small one hour project. CL might be the
best way to make that money in that time period doing a miscellaneous yard
service or delivery or whatever. I'm curious though if there are other avenues
to make $50 in one day.

~~~
jpindar
People Ready (aka Labor Ready). Be there early before they open, and if you're
lucky (because I'm sure they're swamped these days) you'll get a full day's
work. You get paid that evening.

~~~
ohyeshedid
I've always been pretty nomadic, and one trick I was taught long ago when you
need cash in a hurry is to go stand outside a self-storage facility and look
for people that need help moving. I was able to make $50-$150 a day when times
were tight.

I bring this up because people actually do call day labor companies for this
all the time.

------
pascalxus
Start selling anything and everything that has any monetary value on platforms
like: Craigslist, Ebay, Facebook marketplace, nextDoor, close5 (if they're
still around), letgo, etc. I mean, literally, just go through every last item
in your house. If you haven't used it in the last 3 months, what's the point
of holding on to it?

It's labor intensive, but at when you're done, you'll have a much cleaner
house and a little bit of money too. I do this on the weekends.

~~~
mattgibson
A friend used to have a great ebay sideline in reselling poorly listed items
at a higher price.

He'd search for reasonably high value items that had been listed with spelling
mistakes in the name so that they didn't show up in searches, or showed up too
far down the results to be noticed. He'd then buy them and immediately on
winning the auction, re-list the same item but without the spelling mistakes.

His secret trick was using a copy/paste of the text and images from the
historically highest priced listing that had sold for that same item, which
ebay made it easy to search for. By the time it arrived in the post, he'd
already sold it on at a higher price to someone else. He just relabelled the
packages, sent them on and pocketed the difference.

~~~
chupaolo
That's a great trick! Any idea how profitable this was?

~~~
mattgibson
I never asked for figures, but he kept doing it despite being in a reasonably
well paid job as social media manager for a restaurant chain.

Which brings to mind another of his tricks: He set up a lunch voucher trading
scheme for all of the other restaurants in the little downtown area where he
was based. He got to eat anywhere he liked every lunch time.

One of his employment perks was getting a free lunch from his restaurant every
day. He soon got bored of it, so he designed and printed some home made lunch
vouchers with his name on, and arranged for the front of house staff to accept
them in lieu of payment. The understanding was that there would be no more
than one per day for the days he didn't eat there. Then he went to all of the
other restaurants and told their front of house staff that they could swap
their own free lunches for his by letting him eat there in exchange for his
vouchers. They could then eat at his restaurant for free on one of the next
few days.

That was 10 years ago and I've never since met anyone with a better hustle
than that guy.

------
tbran
I just started working on a list of gigs/side hustles - you can see it here:

[https://goofy-swartz-25f1b7.netlify.app/](https://goofy-
swartz-25f1b7.netlify.app/)

or here in a day or two:

[https://www.lotsofopps.com](https://www.lotsofopps.com)

Filter by skills, physical level, time to get paid, and things you have. It
has some rough edges, but I'm fixing things and adding new listings every day.

Finding some of the data is difficult - many companies bury their commissions
and fees and very few companies tell you what you'll earn. Most payouts take
several days to reach you, but if it's your _first ever_ payout, it may be an
additional 1-2 weeks.

~~~
bizzleDawg
This is great!

------
metabagel
File for unemployment. The federal government is increasing the weekly
payment. Additionally, I believe this is not limited to California,
unemployment compensation starts from day 1 rather than the second week.

Edit: Also unemployment compensation is being extended to job types which
previously weren’t covered, like hairdressers and massage therapists. Having
been told to stay home from work for Covid should be sufficient to at least
get the federal compensation.

~~~
OkGoDoIt
This should definitely be done, but a caveat against assuming this is a
blanket solution: I have plenty of friends in the theater industry who mostly
make money as non-employee contract/gig workers. But 2 of these friends also
had some minimal part-time work last year where they made under $1000. Because
they had a W-2 last year, they are disqualified from getting unemployment
based on their contract work, even though their contract work represents 95%
of their income. The amount of unemployment you get is based on the amount of
money you made at your last job or over the last few quarters. Which means
they’re getting almost nothing in unemployment benefits. To make matters
worse, the website clearly just shoehorned in the corona-related changes and
the application process is extremely confusing for someone in their situation.
Even walking them through the process over screen share, as someone who has
applied for unemployment benefits twice in the past, I couldn’t really figure
out exactly how to answer some of the questions. So there are definitely
people getting screwed on unemployment, even if it is working out well for the
majority.

~~~
ghostbrainalpha
This brings up a good point about the complication of the unemployment
application system.

Maybe "Unemployment application screenshare advisor" would be a good job for a
lot of people right now.

Especially if they have experience with the edge cases.

~~~
205guy
This is a great idea, an independent covid-related gig that's totally
compatible with call-center experience.

I will also add that some states are hiring unemployment office temps to
handle the surge in applications, so it would be similar work, just more
formal and no charge to the user (which would be the hard part of being
independent).

------
Spivak
DoorDash, GrubHub, Uber Eats, and the like make pretty decent money. About $7
per order before tip and in a busy area you might be able to snag two or three
orders going the same direction making the $/hr a little better.

It's basically the definition of not great money but it's not very difficult,
not physically straining, and you don't have to interview or whatever for it.

Grocery stores in my area are also hiring constantly right now. I assume the
demand will flatten eventually but for now they're just taking people on with
zero fanfare. Again, not good money, the work is physically harder, and you'll
have to take shifts but it's a job you can get in a few days.

~~~
djsumdog
> it's not very difficult, not physically straining

eh ... I've never been a driver, but I kinda doubt this right now. A Chicago
driver just ran over this women:

[https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2020/5/16/21261241/ms-
ts-...](https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2020/5/16/21261241/ms-ts-fried-
chicken-grubhub-hit-and-run-delivery-driver-chicago)

We don't know the full story as the video starts with her blocking his car. He
shouldn't have run her over obviously. There's no excuse for that. But if he's
operating on very small margins, he may have been frustrated they were moving
slowly. He allegedly kicked their door, they wouldn't let him in, and then he
was just going to dive off. They then blocked his car waiting for the police.
The guy turned himself in, so if we give him the benefit of the doubt, it
might have been stress rage. He's probably going to serve several months for
assault.

People are on edge right now. A lot of companies are profiting and also
screwing everyone over they can. You can be a delivery driver, but be aware it
might be a very short term gain, and may not cover the cost of
maintenance/operation of your vehicle in the long term.

~~~
MiroF
Or, some people are just assholes. I find it very odd to read a comment here
basically defending the driver - they were obviously going to call the police
as soon as you started committing property damage to their store.

~~~
djsumdog
I'm not defending the driver. We also don't know what the 'property damage'
was ... maybe he just kicked the door in frustration. He should go to jail,
but the underlying thing I'm getting at is that EVERYONE IS ON EDGE.

This whole thing has made humanity more scared and dumb than anything. People
are worried about their jobs, paying bills, etc. I don't think what this drive
did was right, but there is a whole context being lost as to what led to this
point.

------
pkiv
Have they considered teaching their skills online for money? If they worked in
a call center, they probably know how to deal with some really hard things.
I'd love to learn how they have patience when dealing with angry customers.

At [http://joinstream.io](http://joinstream.io), we're building a super easy
way to host a monetized livestream using Zoom. We generate a marketing page
for you, handle billing, attendee management, and notifications. All you have
to do is focus on selling your unique skills.

~~~
erikig
You can also create courses on [https://udemy.com](https://udemy.com) and on
[https://youtube.com](https://youtube.com). A great way to identify good
targets is explaining newly launched platforms and how they worked for you and
what you learned. There's no guarantee that they'll make you a living wage
immediately but they have a decent residual value.

~~~
cgh
Let's say, just hypothetically, that someone was burned out from working for
ValleyBigCo Inc, has no need or desire to work full time+ and wanted to
transition into teaching something to do with the creation of software -
design, actual programming, whatever. What's the best path for this? Do your
Udemy/YouTube suggestions still hold or is there something specific for this
use case?

------
MattGaiser
1\. Teach English by video to children overseas.

2\. Get a remote call centre job.

3\. The DoorDashes and Uber Eats of the world are doing tremendous business
right now, as is Amazon (and they have the Flex delivery service). Instacart
was also hiring some 300,000 people.

4\. If your friend is the creative or innovative type, there are a ton of
competitions being hosted by various companies. You enter enough and the
income can be somewhat reliable. This is my own personal niche.

5\. Freelance writing. Even with the downturn, there seems to be a decent
number of businesses with blogs wanting guest articles.

~~~
dmcy22
Any sites you'd recommend for connecting with students/parents overseas
looking to learn English?

~~~
rsanek
[https://www.italki.com/](https://www.italki.com/)

------
armenarmen
Get rid of old stuff on ebay/cl/fb marketplace. Or buy stuff from ebay/cl/fb
marketplace and sell on Amazon.

and plugging a friend: [https://www.flipmine.com/](https://www.flipmine.com/)
scrapes arbitrage opportunities b/w ebay and amazon.

~~~
hnrodey
Interesting recommendation of flipmine.

I buy in to the idea of what they're selling - used goods arbitrage - they're
just selling another form of a "get rich scheme". Follow the money.

If this niche were so great then the proprietors would keep this software
platform to themselves to identify the opportunities and perform the work.
Instead, they "offer" you the opportunity while they take in a $39 monthly fee
for their service.

That's my take on almost the entire industry of "make money doing X, just use
my service or take my course!" Bro, the real money is conning these suckers.

A fool and his money will soon part ways.

~~~
WrtCdEvrydy
I mean SaaS probably requires a lot less time... and scales a bit more than
doing it as a business.

~~~
hnrodey
Exactly! So you should start a SaaS company and get the hell away from
spending monthly fees to find your next time consuming manual sale.

~~~
rsanek
The point is, not everyone can start a SaaS company (like, as in OP's example,
you are a call center employee). Just because you can't create the same high-
ROI software business does not mean that the software being sold is a
scam/worthless.

------
analog31
Fix bikes. There is presently a bike shortage, but probably a vast inventory
almost-working bikes hanging in garages. Offer for a fee, a "no parts" bike
tune-up, meaning you do what you can without access to spare parts, and
quickly let them know if the bike is beyond your help.

A bit more adventuresome: Offer to buy klunkers and then use them as a parts
supply for fixing the bikes that can be fixed, or combine parts to create
working bikes that you can sell.

Many bikes are purchased with the best of intentions and then set aside for
whatever reason. Later, the owner isn't sure what's needed, if anything, to
get the bike in riding shape. They might even throw you a nominal fee just to
be reassured that their bike is OK to ride.

------
koheripbal
Unless you're desperate for cash, the most effective way to raise your income
level is to learn a new skill while updating your resume and networking in
that field.

Position yourself for the post-pandemic economy. ie. tech.

~~~
hurxnid
Any recommendations for someone with a background in logic controls and light
IT (industrial background)? What is actually worth investing your time in?

~~~
notabee
Just offhand, that sounds like a good start to being a datacenter tech. Learn
how to handle all the power equipment, HVAC, racking and stacking, cabling,
etc.

------
jefftk
With daycares closed, there are a lot of people working from home and trying
to watch their kids at the same time. You'd need to sort out with them (and
any housemates) about what level of contact to have outside your (now
expanded) bubble, but people need childcare badly.

~~~
LanceH
Daycare may require state certification (just beware).

With so many kids homeschooled, tutoring the last couple of months was
probably a gold mine. Many parents run into a hard wall with respect to math
and science and can no longer help their kids.

~~~
jefftk
Watching the kids of a single family is being a nanny, not a daycare, and at
least in the US doesn't require a license or certification.

~~~
madcaptenor
I would guess this varies by state. (IANAL.)

~~~
jefftk
What state do you think does? High-regulation states like MA and CA don't, and
it would very much surprise me if others did. (I'm also not a lawyer.)

~~~
madcaptenor
Sorry, I was unclear. I was guessing that low-regulation states might allow
watching the kids of more than one family.

------
throw98226
If you are in the suburbs, there are always lawns to cut.

Make a simple sign outside your home.

"Most lawns $25. Cut, trim, edge blow. 555-555-5555 No contact payment by
eTransfer"

This works very well, and will generate a small side income, get you outside
of the house, fresh air and exercise.

From here, it's just letting you imagination run wild... Hire and train some
young adults, grow from a single person to multi person team, etc.

~~~
kube-system
I'd give someone $30 to cut my tiny lawn right now.

------
smarri
If you can buy and sell bikes over the next few months I think you'll make
some extra money. Right now they are becoming really hard to get with orders
taking 2 - 3 months where I'm based.

~~~
coopsmgoops
I find this to be bizarre since bikes don't really go bad or wear out, from
over the last 40 years there should be thousands of surplus bikes on the
market.

~~~
smarri
Yes I think it may only be new bike that are harder to get right now. The
second hand market may be better.

------
tstegart
I run an affiliate blog, and they're definitely easy to get up and running.
However, they're not "only 1 or two hours a day" type things as they are often
claimed. But they can be fun and rewarding. I usually make around $200 a month
with about 500 page views a day.

~~~
ilSignorCarlo
would you mind expanding a bit on what you do and how did you start?

~~~
tstegart
Sure, I run [https://basicbands.com/](https://basicbands.com/). It's a website
about watch strap fashion. Most of my income comes from Amazon. I don't make
money off the sale of watchbands very much, they're very cheap, so I write
posts about watches. This is an example of a money post:
[https://basicbands.com/the-complete-guide-to-the-seiko-
presa...](https://basicbands.com/the-complete-guide-to-the-seiko-presage-
cocktail-time-line-of-watches/)

I either write the content myself, or ask watch strap companies to send me
pictures. I then link back to their website and mention what watch is featured
and use an affiliate link. Most companies are happy to send me pictures. I
also interview custom leather watch strap makers. Most sell on Etsy and
they're happy to be featured. I send them a form to fill out and they provide
the content and pictures. This is an example: [https://basicbands.com/small-
brand-spotlight-choice-cuts-ind...](https://basicbands.com/small-brand-
spotlight-choice-cuts-industries/)

I make almost zero money off featuring the watch strap makers, but they fill
out the blog with interesting and fun content that bring it a step above the
usual affiliate blog (I hope). Its also the most fun part and it keeps me
going, because the artists are fun to talk with. Otherwise I think I would
have stopped by now from boredom. Most of my traffic is search engine,
Pinterest & Reddit.

I got my start by reading the case studies on this subreddit:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/juststart/](https://www.reddit.com/r/juststart/)
They're getting less useful now, but the early ones were a big help.
Basically, just start something and see how it does.

Affiliate marketing gets a bad rap, which I totally understand, but its also
very easy to get into, basically a WordPress theme and some cheap hosting, so
its very accessible for people at home.

~~~
MattyRad
Thanks for the description, it's very insightful, especially since I enjoy
similar affiliate marketing sites such as
[https://dappered.com/](https://dappered.com/) and
[https://www.primermagazine.com/](https://www.primermagazine.com/).

I will say that their frequent listicles, however, tends to feel
exploitative... Primer currently has "8 Essential Innovations That Make Hot
Summers More Bearable" as its headline, which feels like a not-so-subtle "hey,
here's some affiliate links to click on"

~~~
tstegart
That's exactly what it felt like to me too. It's why I enjoy featuring the
custom watch strap shops, they provide a break from the affiliate angle. I
also try to make my guides a bit longer than usual and also more in-depth with
model numbers, etc.

------
boudin
Depending what he was doing in call center and if he wants to keep his current
job or is open to find a new job, he might be able to find a job for a company
that hire people remotely. He can even look for this kind of job
internationally. Some industries have been hit quite hard, but some others
have seen increase of activity (i'm thinking in the saas world, mainly tools
that are being use for remote working, but i'm sure there's other industries
as well)

------
pjfin123
If you're a North American native English speaker with a college degree you
can pretty easily get certified to teach English online to Chinese children
with VipKid

~~~
robk
And preply

------
jsamuel
If you have even a little experience with Linux or are looking to learn, we've
built [https://hostlaunch.io/](https://hostlaunch.io/) to make it very easy to
start a managed cloud hosting company.

Just drop in your DigitalOcean, ServerPilot, SendGrid, and Stripe API keys,
set your prices, and you've got a hosting company.

~~~
ornornor
Honest question: why would anyone want to buy from a reseller rather than DO
directly? Are DO’s tools so bad?

~~~
jsamuel
There's a huge market of people who want to purchase managed hosting, not be
responsible for their own servers. Think of the customers (such as WordPress
developers) of any traditional hosting company like DreamHost.

The purpose of HostLaunch is to make it extremely easy to start your own
managed hosting business to sell web hosting services in that same market.

~~~
ornornor
I don’t get it. What’s your edge? You basically have no control over anything.
Why would the customer go with jsamuel hosting rather than ornornor hosting if
we’re Both reselling exactly the same thing? Or why not stay with dreamhost
for that matter? What’s the reseller’s edge in that case? Anything goes wrong
you have to wait on DO to sort it out. And price wise you can’t do anything
that anyone else can’t get from DO too. I’m probably missing the point but I’d
really like to understand.

~~~
stagas
Managed hosting is much more than what DO does, I suppose. They offer services
like setting up a Wordpress, emails, nameservers, etc. for people who don't
want or don't know how to. You sell customer service basically, you talk to
people on the phone, usually works better within your local community.

Edit: and I suppose HostLaunch's edge is to get all the hassle of setting up
that business out of the way so you can focus on customer service instead of
plumbing servers together.

------
sinatra
Maybe become a Guided Project instructor at Coursera and share your expertise
with learners? I'm sharing some details from a previous post:

Access an instructor community and support team that will give you all the
tools and resources needed to create a high-quality project. Earn income
remotely on a per-project basis as soon as your project is reviewed and
approved. Impact lives of learners around the world by sharing skills they can
apply immediately to their careers.

What is a Guided Project? Guided Projects on Coursera are interactive projects
that enable learners to gain a job-relevant skill in under two hours. A side-
by-side interface allows learners to watch visual instructions on one side of
the screen while following-along on the other side of the screen. Guided
Projects are for anyone who is looking to get hands-on learning and get
practice applying a skill or using a tool in a real-world scenario. Every
Guided Project includes everything learners need directly in their browser and
step-by-step visual instructions so they can get started without any software
installation or prior experience.

Guided Projects are focused on enabling learners to practice and apply skills
in computer science, data science, and business software using a broad variety
of real-world tools such as TensorFlow, Google Spreadsheets, Tableau, Canva,
etc.

If you’re excited to create hands-on, Guided Projects and want to become a
project instructor on Coursera, please apply at
[https://teach.coursera.org/](https://teach.coursera.org/)

~~~
tpae
Can you actually make a decent income?

------
TrackerFF
Check out sites like Lionbridge or whatever, where you can do online tasks
(registering maps, transcribing stuff, etc.) - they do pay a legit salary,
even though the work can be really boring.

It's basically like a bit more exciting and better paying version of
Mechanical Turk.

Other than that...help out HS and College kids with homework? I'm on a lot of
homework help forums, as I like teaching math, and there's been an explosion
in demand for skype teachers etc.

------
erwincaco
Depending on his state, he could apply for a job as a Contact Tracer. These
are essentially WFH contact center roles.

------
Recurecur
Has your friend applied for unemployment? He should be eligible...

------
vinnyp
I made a gdoc with a list of work from home opportunities back in April. Hope
this helps!

[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nF8FH-5f-51-Q_Hzt06jhYMN...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nF8FH-5f-51-Q_Hzt06jhYMN5JCiy3bj7_5aElEQECw/edit?usp=sharing)

~~~
ManoSinkosika
thankyou!

------
jboogie77
Cant beat online "tutoring". Schoolsolver.com, chegg.com, etc. These sites are
booming right now.

------
hnrodey
Good ole fashion yard work. Despite the unemployment rate, many people are
still working and spring is here. Grass is growing, mulch needs spread, etc.

~~~
brandonmenc
My parents just paid a kid $250 to lay mulch for a day. Found him on Nextdoor.

He doesn't even have to bring the mulch - homeowner purchases it and has it
delivered, and he just shows up to lay it.

I guess he does this a few times a week - that's a cool thousand bucks on a
good week.

~~~
Scoundreller
Probably anything involving "I'll plant your tomato/vegetable garden for you"
would do very well right now in the right places.

------
thrownaway954
content generation. you have no idea how many marketing companies need content
writers for their clients. typically you can make between $5-$25 an article
with an article being 300-2000. most articles don't have to be great, they
just want articles written for a specific keyword.

~~~
snazz
I started a little economics experiment on Fiverr a few months ago (to try to
figure out how much the market is willing to pay for a native English speaker
with technical knowledge) and I've had a surprising amount of success at the
$0.05/word pricepoint. When you charge a little more, the worst of the worst
buyers are scared away by the price.

~~~
mapleshamrock
What keywords should I search for on Fiverr to see examples/how this service
is marketed?

------
enz
If he or she has good sewing skills, making masks and selling them on Etsy.

~~~
napolux
Like 10000000000 other people there.

------
iso1631
What country, what skills, how desparate

------
HeyLaughingBoy
Call center for what kind of company? Can he reach out to similar (possibly
local) companies and offer to do similar work for them?

Years ago, when my first job folded, I did customer support for them for a
couple months on a fixed rate with a minimum time. e.g., $75/hour, minimum
bill of 0.2 hours -- those are examples, I don't recall what I actually
charged.

The point is, he's used to talking to customer all day and negotiating issues
and frustrations. That is really valuable experience to a small company that
may not be able to afford a full-time customer support person.

Besides that, being a Virtual Assistant might be a good transition for him:
[https://horkeyhandbook.com/how-to-become-a-virtual-
assistant...](https://horkeyhandbook.com/how-to-become-a-virtual-assistant/)

------
dclusin
Amazon's Mechanical Turk market place
([https://worker.mturk.com](https://worker.mturk.com)). Also google around for
the forum and find insight and tools to help snipe higher value tasks.

------
zackmorris
I'd recommend joining the local tech Slack channel(s) for your city or state.
I've seen several decent job openings and gigs where I live. The nice thing
is, you can chat with the poster if needed and get an idea of what the work
entails before you apply.

I'm not searching anymore because I believe that tech has lost its way and
won't be a rewarding field until it allows for ~20 hour per week part time
jobs that let us make on our own time. Because I've been surviving in tech for
20 years and have basically gotten nowhere with my life goals. Always feast or
famine. But I do know how to survive.

------
rcakebread
This is a recent curated list of online jobs, 'Modern Day Jobs':

[https://moderndayjobs.com/](https://moderndayjobs.com/)

------
abfan1127
Domino's Pizza is overloaded. They need cooks, drivers, etc. Probably the best
money you can get now without an investment in learning something.

------
tickerticker
Go to suburban neighborhood. Offer to clean the garbage roll out barrels.

Tether yourself and go up on customer's roof and blow off the leaves and
debris.

Weed the flower beds. Wash windows. Detail cars. Play with kids outdoors.
Clean and polish the brass fixture exterior lights.

Use customer mower to cut the lawn.

My friend does Concierge errand services and he makes $50 a day.

------
andreshb
Teach english, cambly

~~~
Recurecur
This is probably excellent, and undervalued, advice.

I wonder what fraction of potential English learners can afford $20+ per
hour... (Right now that won't beat the unemployment payout here in the States,
BTW.)

------
billme
Your friend should check with the state to see if they are eligible for
unemployment, food, or any other benefits as soon as possible; regardless of
what their employers says.

For more information, Google: [corona laid off benefits]

------
mcook08
I’ve been working on a project to allow anyone to get paid for their time. It
requires they have some knowledge that someone else is willing to pay for but
it might help. Free for hosts. BuyTime.co

Hope your friend finds success!

------
binarymax
Pretty wide open question. I recommend that whatever creative leanings your
friend has, to focus on them. Do what you love and produce something of value,
then try to sell it.

~~~
projektfu
And make sure you _do_ try to sell it.
[https://theoatmeal.com/comics/creativity_business](https://theoatmeal.com/comics/creativity_business)

~~~
yoricm
Thanks, I just discovered a wonderful cartoonist. A joy to read those
illustrated thoughts full of creativity and humor.

Particularly like his honesty, exposing his vulnerabilities in a way we can
only laugh, and reflect on it ourselves.

Whether you're an artist, an entrepreneur or aspire to improve yourself, you
certainly can relate to his work and self-reflections.

------
thrower123
It seems that a lot of people are starting OnlyFans accounts...

~~~
ge96
that's interesting right, so much free stuff what compels you to pay, idk.
there's that psychology too of being "closer" knowing someone eg. watching
twitch or whatever... oh well glad I did not get sucked into that, though I'm
not a social success myself

------
todotask
Swabber assistant if your country or county is opening to it.

------
_bxg1
I'm pretty sure (from people I know that this happened to) you can apply for
unemployment even if you're furloughed and "still employed".

------
terrycody
hey

some options for your friend:

1)if he has hardcore skills like programming, or any techy-related, try
upwork.com and find a niche for himself, but a new comer will have a difficult
time to get sales first, you need start with a very low price rate, get some
orders then raise your hourly rate. 2)he can also choose Fiverr.com, one can
provide many services there, typically $5 per case, small cash. 3)start a
youtube channel: post videos that he is good at and can attract enough
visitors. This is pretty much a long term endeavor as you need 4000 hours
watch and 1K subscribers to get monetization enabled, but if he can find the
right niche and get the hang of it, this thing is legit and can earn enough
for living.

seems there are no very quick ways to make some money, but he could still try:

4) provide some quick local services for quick money 5) regard 3), he can post
CPA offers under the subscription section below the Youtube video, you can
earn money at very 1st day via doing CPA affiliate marketing, just post right
videos, attract visitors, put offers.

Good luck

~~~
itsmeamario
I tried upwork 4 different times with no luck. It doesn't matter how low I
offered my job for or how many offers I sent. It's almost impossible to get
started there as a developer.

~~~
terrycody
You are right somehow, there are highly severely competitions as this is the
best known freelancing platform in the world, but totally worth it, just
gradually build your portfolio, you will get sales sooner or later.

There are a lot people make good money on the platform for side cash.

Meanwhile, you can browser producthut, indiehackers, for some quick ideas for
your own products, SaaS, websites, etc.

------
rodolphoarruda
This thread is so important. At times of crisis like this we need to know
about demand. Demand is king. All of the sudden we have resources like
knowledge, materials and even money, but not much clarity about how to employ
them for the greater good.

In my head, still in a very abstract way, we need something like LinkedIN
exposing demand and not only job openings.

------
bayesian_horse
Not applicable to most people, but: Breeding Fish.

Especially with the air travel situation what it is right now, fish stores
have trouble restocking. So, if you already have some equipment but the market
was always too lousy, you might be able to pick up a few bucks. Hard to scale
up to a significant income, though.

------
sergiotapia
You can do Virtual Visits at Papa.

[https://www.joinpapa.com/papa-pal-qualified-
application](https://www.joinpapa.com/papa-pal-qualified-application)

Help out senior adults through the aging journey.

------
st1ck
If he is a call center operator, I don't get why he can't work from home. If
his current employer can't allow this, maybe he can find a more technically
competent company?

------
livealife
Now that kids can't go to school because of lockdown, the demand for online
teaching is proliferating. You can start coaching students online or just kids
in your neighborhood.

------
aantix
I don’t know of anything that is instant in generating income.

I remember flexjobs.com having a pretty diverse curated catalog of jobs you
can do from home.

Not the typical remote engineer postings we see around here.

------
throwawayinter3
Perhaps not for call centers, but for recently laid off engineers you could do
mock interviews on sites like PracticeCodingInterview.com, Gainlo.co, and
interview.io.

------
pryelluw
It all depends on his health condition, abilities, equipment owned, and place
of residence. These are required to produce an actionable suggestion.

------
iphone_elegance
onlyfans

~~~
rbrtdrmpc-
this is the only thing that i saw working during this pandemic, too bad it is
a niche for a specific gender

------
partingshots
Learn programming while doing something like Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, etc.
delivery in the mean time. Then start applying for roles.

~~~
koheripbal
Unless you _really_ need the money, your best investment is putting 100% of
your time into learning new skills.

~~~
jklein11
That can't be true. If you spent all of your time developing new skills you
wouldn't have any time to capitalize on them. You are likely better off
conquering a niche.

~~~
koheripbal
I mean _temporarily_ during this lockdown - not indefinitely.

------
cko
Buy office chairs from offices that are closing and resell to people who are
setting up home offices.

------
alexmingoia
Start a remote call center company.

------
chvid
Where is this? Would your friend not qualify for some sort of government
payment?

------
longtermd
UpWork, Fiverr, ...

------
dbancajas
not stay at home but donate plasma. upwork probably is another avenue.

~~~
zackmorris
You should not be getting downvoted for this. Where I live, our plasma center
is offering $450 per month because supply is so low right now. I've heard it
can be as high as $600 per month for new donors.

I feel that it's maybe morally questionable to donate during the lockdown,
but, my city has allowed bars and gyms to reopen. So that sentiment is
probably no longer true at this point. I do live in a relatively sparsely
populated area though. People in major cities might consider waiting a few
more weeks or months.

~~~
thephyber
> I feel that it's maybe morally questionable to donate during the lockdown

The US blood supply system is well regulated and has survived lots of other
health risks. The behavior+history+medical questionnaire and health screening
go _a_ _long_ _way_ towards mitigating blood-borne contamination (and risks to
the donors and donation staff). Then they test a percentage of blood donation
specimens before they are distributed to recipients. They demand that you
contact the donation organization if you turn up sick after the donation (I
ended up donating with a food-sickness late last year and had my donation unit
destroyed after I notified the hospital)

I personally donate frequently. Only about 10% of eligible people donate. I
feel it's "maybe morally questionable" to _not_ donate (so long as you feel
healthy and honestly follow the donation guidelines) if you can but never do.

If by "morally questionable" you were weighing the desperation of unemployment
+ the payment for donation, I could maybe agree with that a little bit.

------
kojeovo
Gig economy jobs

------
influx
Learn a skill that can be used to get a higher paying job once a vaccine is
found.

------
tathougies
textbroker.com

------
xoxoy
Day trading

~~~
koheripbal
In this market over the last two months, that's how I've made more money than
I have in the entire last 3-4 years combined.

Crazy. ...but that opportunity is probably overish.

Also, "day" trading is usually bad - buying the dip and selling the excitement
on a week/month basis takes much less time and is much safer.

~~~
xoxoy
I don’t think so. I don’t see how the Fed can do anything about demand or a
second virus wave or delay in vaccine. The market is pricing in a perfect
recovery. Will likely be a decent short opportunity soon.

~~~
koheripbal
I disagree. The Fed is printing so much money that you have to remember that
all those stocks are priced in now diluted dollars.

The worst thing you can do is keep your money in cash. When inflation kicks
in, the companies will raise their product prices, and their stocks will
inflate accordingly. Meanwhile the purchasing power of your savings will
dwindle.

This is also why real estate is going up despite the pandemic.

~~~
sizzle
What about precious metals?

------
marban
Day trading futures (and developing the required mindset).

~~~
rmoriz
No. Seriously not. Daytrading is not a job for 99% of all. Even if you survive
the first years, your risk management will also affect your "income". If you
get greedy, your losses will break your neck. It's not something you can
quantify like a "real" income you can count on.

I trade S&P500 futures sometimes. It's fun when the markets go slowly up all
the time or if there is a sharp drop. In all other times you'll probably lose
a lot of money.

------
masona
The best way to start generating income is to change your mindset.

Instead of asking other people, all of whom have found their own specialized
niche that will never be applicable to anyone else, step away from the
computer and look around.

Just in the past week I have heard from so many friends that are looking for
good people. They never post stuff on job sites - it's way more trouble than
its worth. They ask around.

Get outside and talk to people in your community. Call friends, call
relatives. Volunteer your time. There's an abundance of opportunity right now
in this churn - make it happen!

~~~
gk1
Asking on HN is the same (or better, given audience size) as looking around
and talking to people.

It’s also not helpful to say “there’s an abundance of opportunity” without any
examples.

~~~
icebraining
It's not the same, because HN users don't have local knowledge. People here
mention landscaping, but that wouldn't make much sense where I live, for
example (lawns are relatively rare). Locality is a crucial factor in the
labour market.

