Time on my hands - a little extra income suggestions please

[Turtle Shed]

Hello all.

I'm 59, take a pension, and do a some self-employed work too. (Photography for one client and magazine editng for another). This brings in all of the income I need, but I fancy earning a little more from the confort of my desk. I have plenty of time on my hands and like to be busy.

Obviously I've Googled for suggestions but do any of the PH collective have thoughts on this? Criteria as follows:

1 - Pick and choose when I work
2 - Do as much or as little as I fancy
3 - Must be completely desk based
4 - I'm not keen on the Fivvr/Upwork kind of stuff.

I'm perfectly computer literate, happy with MS office applications, and pretty capable with the Adobe suite too. Not looking to earn a high hourly rate, just a bit above minimum wage would be fine and I'm only thinking of maybe 40-50 hours per month.

OnlyFans is not an option :-)

Cheers all.

[StevieBee]

Your profile doesn't permit emailing you.

So, YDHM (You Don't Have Mail)!

Drop me a line when you get a mo. May have something of interest.

[Turtle Shed]

I think I've dropped you a line, but you certainly should be able to email me now :-)

Cheers

[daytonavrs]

I'm in a similar boat to this.....tho I don't draw a pension or self employed but literally open to any amount of income as I don't desperately need vast amounts of money....as I already have some

[softtop]

For me, the hard bit is generating the work or finding someone that only needs you for such a small amount of time each week.

[Rammlied]

Sorry to bump but I'd be interested in this. Tend to WFH freelance already and always looking for anything else to do.

[PeteinSQ]

Proof reading/editorial work can be done freelance.

[jonsp]

Turtle Shed said:

I'm perfectly computer literate

Does that mean you can - or could learn to - program and build websites?

If so that would open options in terms of affiliate marketing which has worked well for me. It's not a paid per hour model though, you put in the upfront work and (hopefully!) get paid later. Same model as an author writing a book.

[Burny16v]

jonsp said:

oes that mean you can - or could learn to - program and build websites?

If so that would open options in terms of affiliate marketing which has worked well for me. It's not a paid per hour model though, you put in the upfront work and (hopefully!) get paid later. Same model as an author writing a book.

Just for a mini-hijack, this is something I've been looking into and am very interested by, do you have any good resources for someone to learn more about it and how to get started etc? Thanks in advance!

[Tom8]

My wife is similar, she looks after sheep and a child at home but has time she would like to fill and earn some money, ideally from home. She is a very bright lady having worked in investment banking for many years.

[jonsp]

Burny16v said:

Just for a mini-hijack, this is something I've been looking into and am very interested by, do you have any good resources for someone to learn more about it and how to get started etc? Thanks in advance!

Lots of "resources" available online but they all follow the same model - pay me and I'll show you how to get rich through affiliate marketing. Forget that. Nobody who's made money in affiliate marketing is going to tell you how to do it.

It's really something you need to figure out for yourself. At the basic level it's a simple business

1/ Build a website that adds value

2/ Drive traffic to it

The boss of an affiliate network I use told me recently that 90% of his (thousands of) affiliates have never made more than £500 in a month. The income inequality in affiliate marketing makes the rest of the UK look like a communist society.

In terms of getting started I'd say go over to Amazon Web Services and set up a free (for a year) account then set up a server. Register a domain (search for free domain registration, always somebody offering this) and build something/anything.

Tell everyone you know (online/real life) about it. Then figure out why it isn't making any money. Then figure out what aspect of building a business you could be good at and put all your effort in to that. In my case I'm a competent programmer but the only thing I'm actually good at is driving traffic from Adwords. Being able to use adwords effectively (hint - the api) is bringing a gun to a knife fight.

Being really good at 1 thing will take you a long way, being average at everything won't get you far. Always think inch wide/mile deep vs mile wide/inch deep.

Other thing is whatever you do make sure you own the customer - get their email. Then you can use SendGrid again free to start to keep in touch with your customers. Just sending customers to a merchant for a one time commission isn't going to work long term. Building an email list has real long term value.

Example of that, years ago had a PPC model that was making >£10k/month with zero work. Long story short it was exploiting a tiny flaw I'd found in Google's PPC algo. Few months later they fixed the flaw and that income stream dropped to zero over night, that hurt. At the time didn't have the sense to reinvest that money. Lesson you only need to learn once.

When you deal with merchants/networks always try and push the boundaries. Never say to a merchant/network can I do this? They'll say no. Do it anyway, once they see business you're in a stronger position. Forgiveness vs permission is key.

When you've figured out how to build website/drive traffic/convert traffic move most of your efforts away from affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is a great way to start and learn skills but keep thinking of an exit. You'll always make more and more sustainable money using affiliate skills to build your own businesses.

Sorry that's a bit vague probably not entirely helpful.

[Digger]

How does SendGrid compare with Mailchimp for example?

[jonsp]

They're both good. When you send emails you want to segment your customers. At the basic level these customers are interested in widgets so send them this email these customers are interested in grommets so send them that email. Mailchimp will allow you to do that.

To use Sendgrid effectively you base your emails on a segment of 1 - every customer is unique - and tailor a unique email to one person. That's easy to do with sendgrid

You'd also look at deliver rates. Set up accounts with the free email providers email yourself and compare delivery rates mailchimp vs sendgrid.

[dundarach]

Tutoring, with a specialist subject I would have thought GCSE and A Level art \ designers would welcome some input, as might teaching adult classes?

[Glassman]

PeteinSQ said:

Proof reading/editorial work can be done freelance.

Interesting... can you recommend?

[tixoc]

What is affiliate marketing?

[jonsp]

tixoc said:

What is affiliate marketing?

Building a website with intent to send traffic to merchants and getting a % when a sale is made. Obvious examples are sites like moneysupermarket and such.