3 "Hot" Ways To Make Extra Money



Posted: Monday, May 14, 2007

by

My husband and I make money working from home. We don't make a great deal of money, not thousands of dollars, but we average about $150. to $200. A week. We find that this working outside of the home is fun, profitable, and extremely easy to do and provides us with money to eat out or buy the "extra" things we need above our limited income.

The first way that we make extra money is recycling metals. Every two to three weeks we load up our little two wheeled trailer and head to the junk yard. Yes, I said Junk Yard. With the war in Iraq , the price of heavy metals has increased and junk yards will pay you money for metals like Aluminum, Cast iron, Copper, Brass, and others. To date; we have recycled old Stoves, Lawn Chairs, Refrigerators, and Dryers and was able to bring in almost a hundred dollars a trailer load. There was one weekend that we actually made two hundred dollars. If I was working at minimum wage 8 hours a day I would make only about $57.00 dollars a day. Where do we get the junk? Well, many people leave their junk out for the junk man, who if he is resourceful will go through and find the recyclable items and sell them to a metal recycler. Copper is paying $3.00 a pound in our area now. Aluminum cans are 65 cents a can. Check your garage, my husband is a pack rat and fills up our garage with things we really don't need, but when we get a good price for some of them at the junk yard I don't mind. We've all seen old cars abandoned in a field, or behind someone's houses, these cars are worth $50.00 a piece to the junk yard. In Illinois, you just need a abandoned car title paper which says that these cars are abandoned cars, Junk yards provide these papers to individuals when they sell the car to the person. The junk yards or individual people will provide these abandoned or no title papers for you. They will even come and get them from you without charging a fee. This is just one way to make money. Here is another.

Everyone's favorite way to make extra money is to have a yard sale. Go through your home, find all the things that are just taking up space and have a yard Sale. This will not only get you extra money, but you will have fun during the yard sale meeting people, haggling over prices, and even seeing old friends. I have had Yard Sales that make over $200.00 a weekend, or even in one day. You can get all the things you are tired of keeping around and after the sale you could even go shopping for more stuff with the money you made working at home. Flea markets are a good way to make money, but here you have to choose carefully the products you want to sell. Handcrafted items are popular in Flea markets, but many are pricey. A good way to do this is to research flea markets is by going to some close to your home and observing the items that are selling, which item sells best, the prices of the item, location, and foot traffic. Also, some flea markets and trade shows charge entry fees so watch out for that! Advertising your yard sale can be simple. Every weekend in our area, Yard sale signs go up on street corners, newspapers, and in front yards, Yard sale signs are everywhere. You can go to one, or have your very own and make some extra money, enjoy yourself, and visit with old friends or make new ones.

Another Way to make Extra Income is to make something by hand, or find something you don't need or want anymore and list that item for sale on eBay. A lot of money is being made by ebayers online. Ebay is one of the best auction sites online. Listing and selling your items on eBay is made simple by eBay's tools which make the site easy to use. The prompts are there to guide you through everything you need to do in order to list your item for sale. Thousands of people have even made eBay their source of income and do very well. Selling and listing fees on eBay are reasonable and built-in guarantees by the company lower any risk of losing your money to fraudulent buyers. Finding a product to sell on eBay may be your problem. Excitement gets high on eBay. This weekend I watched an IBM Computer being auctioned for .01 cents. It was a 24 hour plus listing. At the end of the auction when I stopped watching the item had reached a bid of $88.00 and still had a a few hours to go. I believe the final cost for the computer was $188.00. Still a good price for the laptop computer. These are just a few of the ways to make honest money and you can do al of them from your home without being scammed. Thanks for reading

Maxine Headd is a writer who lives in Marion, Illinois. She loves to write about her family history and other titles. She has written 42 stories so far. There are more stories on Helium.com.

Maxine has four children and has supplied them with many Ghost stories for many years. She loves to watch animals and tell of their adventures. Also, some of the stories are made up, but many of them tell her family history.

Maxine attended John A. Logan College and Southern Illinois University in the beautiful Southern Illinois Hills.
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Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)
» left by Eric Vlaskamp
from Subbase Bangor Washington 4 years 259 days ago.
Good article Mrs. Heaad. On a personal note, I'm in the Navy, but I'm on shore duty now and looking for ways to make extra money recycling. Do you have any particular tips on recycling? Any secrets, is it worth disassembling microwaves, stuff like that? Thanks in advance.
» left by 4 years 259 days ago.
On your question about recyling microwaves. We have never done that. However, there are old computers being thrown away everyday and I have read about there being gold in the Motherboard circuitry, but I have not researched that as yet. Also, there may not be enough gold to be worth the trouble of dissassembly or melting the Motherboards down. I would not know where to start the melting process. The computer monitors don't seem to be salvageable. There are places that salvage paper, glass bottles, and plastics, but they don't want to give the consumer money to bring them into the recyling yards. These items don't pay enough money yet; however, I believe they will in a year or two. Recycling can be a fun hobby albeit, a dirty one. I know one year when our car was not much more than junk, we wanted to get it out of the yard, so we cut it apart, and then sold it to the junk yard. We were young then, but it gave us a certain satisfaction to do it. oh well. Thanks for asking and I hope this helps you recycle. Be green.
» left by Eric Vlaskamp
from Subbase Bangor Washington 4 years 259 days ago.
Thanks for the response. You name it, I've recycled it. I haven't gotten into gold recovery though. As far as microwaves, I take them apart and get as much out of them as I can. The big item is the transformer. Tonight I removed a 10.5 lb transformer, which they pay about .40 cents a lb for. There is also a magnetron, which here they consider an electronic motor, they average 1-2 lbs, (the part with the 2 magnets) which they pay about 10 cents a lb for. You also have a couple smaller motors. And of course the copper wire (maybe a lb or so). You're then left with steel, which is worth a penny a lb here (unless you have a lot) and a little bit of plastic and glass waste. So all in all, for a junk microwave, you can make anywhere from 3-6 or 7 dollars. Not bad for about 20 minutes of work, once you get good at it. I'm always looking for tips on how to disassemble stuff, tips on where to find things, what kind of materials are in certain items, etc. I haven't had much luck finding any specific recycling tips on the internet though. Anyway, thanks again and keep up the good work.
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