This is my last post for this month; I am in the process of moving my office, upgrading the blog and then going on vacation. I hope you have an outstanding rest of the month and rest up for return of the school (which, from all the parents I have spoken to, cannot come soon enough). I wanted to end the month with some tips on increasing your earning potential without asking for a raise or starting your own business (which, as once said to me, entrepreneur is French for poverty).

1. Hold a garage sale:  You’ll be surprised what you consider junk is worth something to someone else.  Earlier this month, I handed off some really old electronics to a friend of mine having a garage sale and told him he could take a cut of whatever he sold for me. We didn’t do that badly. If you have a lot of friends who live in condos or apartment buildings, you could ask if they want you to unload anything for them and perhaps charge a small fee. Even if you do not, a lot of “stuff” on your lawn tends to attract a lot of people potentially increasing your sales.
2. Work a “one off”/festival event: I better explain this one. A friend of becomes a waiter for one-weekend a year. She use to wait at this bar for several every year before taking an “office” job. There are two extremely large events in Toronto every summer that attracts a lot of out of town visitors and one of these events happens to occur in the neighborhood of the bar. So, every summer, she helps this bar on the weekend this event occurs and works on tips only. She does quite well and has a lot of fun (tourists tend to be good tippers and everyone is quite “happy” from the alcohol in-take). If you have an opportunity to work on the weekend of a festival, it is a good opportunity to earn some extra cash at a very exciting venue/event.
3. Become a handy with tools: When I was a teenager, a family friend of ours went to night-school and got his locksmith qualifications. He had a perfectly decent job; I am not exactly sure why he did this although it had something to do with the fact his job was very boring. But he use to change locks for us every once in a while. He never did enough locks to be considered a part-time job but he made some spare cash every once in a while. Given the trades shortage, if you are a handy-person, you may be able to help people every so often for some cash.
4. Get paid to take surveys: There is a limit on how many surveys you can take in any particular time but, having done one myself, its fun (you could be asked on something that could become huge), you meet new people and you make a little bit of money on the side. I am posting next month on making money on taking on-line surveys/contests. So more to come on this larger topic.
5. Work for the events industry: This is related to tip #2. I define the “events industry” as any business which makes its money on events- companies which hold singles events, caterers, moving companies, photographers etc. etc. These types of business tend to need warm bodies on the day of their events to do a variety of things- some require some specialized skill and others do not. However, because they are event/transition driven, they do not tend to have a lot of full-time staff; they ramp up people for the event especially during the busy season. When I was in University, I use to be a security guard at a library on nights groups booked their conference room- I use to work about once a month; it never felt like a job given it happened so infrequently and not on a regular schedule (I could turn down things if I had something to do that night because they had a 3 person rotation).  Accordingly, this industry tends to need a lot of occasional staff where availability is more important than longevity. You can end up working a couple of times a month and not be tied down like a traditional job. Most of these businesses understand that you will come and go. A good upcoming event would be university orientation week- most businesses tend to need bodies to be on campus promoting their goods or services or the campus book store may need some additional staff.

If you have any other tips, please feel free to share. Enjoy the rest of August.