I’ve always been a fan of supplemental income ideas. Once you’ve given your soul to ‘The Man’, you’re trapped. It’s especially true once you build your life around a job or career. A part of your mind is duty bound to accept that it’s your ‘lot’ in life. What if the business fails? What if your job is automated? How about redundancy?
Supplemental income ideas can give you a ‘buffer’ so you’re not so dependant on your current income. Ideally, your supplemental income ideas will be capable of surpassing your current salary. This is the key. If your supplemental income is always supplementary, you’re still stuck in your job, even with this income. On the other hand, if it has the ability to surpass your current income, you’ll be much more likely to pursue it for long enough to make this happen. Here’s a few supplementary income ideas which I’ve found on the journey to find the ‘one’ which is scalable and automated.
Skip to the end if you want the short version summary!
Supplemental Income Ideas – 1
One of the first supplementary income ideas I found was through the auction site eBay. I started out just buying and selling items from my house and moved on to car boot sales and antique sales. I eventually found a clever little eBay hack which lets you find bargain items on the site itself. You can then either sell them on Facebook for free using the marketplace or local selling pages, or re-list them back on eBay to get a better price.
The strategy I found uses a clever Misspell tool which you can access here. Use it to find items which are misspelled on eBay. Because they are misspelled, they don’t get the views they should and, as such can often sell for much lower than they are worth. You can read the full strategy for this supplementary income idea in my article how to start a profitable ebay business.
Supplemental Income Ideas – 2
Here’s another clever little ‘hack’ if you’ve got a skill and want to monetise it. By using Google’s Places for Business listings, you can create a business listing completely free. If you pick up a few jobs there’s a nice little earner here. I used this strategy to get some work as a handyman in my local town.Wherever you are based, you can create a business listing and get yourself ranking on the top of Google for your particular business.
This could be a painter and decorators, handyman, music teacher, language teacher or anything else you might be good at. You can build up a free listing and you don’t even need a website to do this. Just head to Google Places for business and create a listing. This is a great supplementary income ideas and if you’ve got a skill of some kind, it’s very cheap and easy to get started. Also checkout my ebook below which explains creating a business listing in more detail.
Supplemental Income Ideas – 3
Car boot sales offer the opportunity to sell your old items but also to run the sales yourself. If you’ve got a tonne of stuff sitting around the house why not find a local car boot sale or sale and take it along? Running your own car boot sale can also be a lucrative supplementary income idea and you can run it on the weekends. You need to find a local field or place big enough to get a good turnout. Run an advert in the local paper and put up some banner adverts advertising locally.
Charge people to bring their cars and for entry. A good turn out can net you a nice little profit, if you get good weather. You can also scout about for bargains to re-list on eBay as per “supplementary income ideas – 1”.
Supplemental Income Ideas – 4
An online business presents an opportunity to anyone with a laptop and an internet connection. Most people simply aren’t aware of the vast opportunity of affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is a business model which lets anyone benefit from referring people to products and services around the internet. Digital products in particular can earn you 40% of their cost as an affiliate.
Because the internet has a global audience, this has the most potential of all the ideas listed here of surpassing your current income, whatever it is. An internet business can be largely automated too. By building systems and strategies which can run 24 hours a day on complete autopilot, you can send website traffic to offers and services to earn a commission. Regardless of your age and technical experience, you can do this. It does take some time to learn though.
You can access an online video series which will show more about it completely free here.
Supplemental Income Ideas – 5
Depending on your circumstance and location, you may be able to sign up as a TV extra. When I worked as a TV extra, I met a lot of people who had their own businesses. This was because they were able to take time out at short notice, something you’ll most likely need to be able to do.
TV extras, or background artists. appear in the background on television to give the scene a more realistic appearance. You get to visit places and do things within your locality which you wouldn’t normally do, and earn money at the same time! Just do a search online for Extras agencies near you. You may have to apply to join an agency and wait a while before any suitable work appears. Work tends to be sporadic and unreliable. Depending where you are though, you may be able to sign with multiple agencies, although some agencies ask for exclusivity.
Here’s a quick summary of the ideas I’ve shared in this article.
Supplemental Income Ideas – Summary
- Ebay – Buying and Selling using the misspell tool – See my article how to start a profitable ebay business.Â
- Start your own small business selling yourself! Whether you can paint, play an instrument, speak a language or fix someone’s fence, there might be an opportunity to get work locally by using Google Places for business – get a free business listing. Learn how in my ebook.
- Car boot sales present 2 opportunities both for running them yourself and for buying and selling in them. Start your own car boot business. Book a field, advertising and charge for entry.
- Start your own online business. This simple and effective business system can be used by anyone to build a scalable and profitable online business even with no experience.
- Become a TV extra! TV extras agencies offer local work on television and film production. Find an agency near you with a quick online search.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this article on supplementary income ideas. If you’ve got any more please comment below to include them for any readers!
My best supplementary income idea is an online business. Access a free 7 day video series and learn more about how to use a simple business model, even with no previous experience.