Make Extra Money This Winter
Many people own chainsaws. They can even be bought fairly cheap at pawn shops. What many people don’t realize is when contractors build new homes on property that that has a lot of trees, they will usually set fire to the down trees they had to remove to make room for the house. If you ask, most of those contractors will let you cut as much wood as you want to avoid having their crew taking valuable time away from building to dispose of it. This wood can allow you to sell firewood for a reasonable price, and still make a good amount of cash at the same time. Many local newspapers will allow you to advertise in the classifieds for free, as long as you stay within their number of words allowed requirement. If you will have to haul wood to customers, you can tack on a few extra dollars (depending on how far you have to travel) to compensate for gas. Reducing the cost by a few dollars for customers that want to pick up a load of wood will help ensure those customers will return when they need more. Make sure you reasearch what types of wood are suitable for use as firewood before cutting and loading up. Pine, for example is useless as firewood, so know what you’re cutting, and only sell hardwoods. You want to keep your customers, and word of mouth could make or break this part-time business.
Purchase a snow shovel, and advertise in the local newspaper that you will shovel driveways when the snow and ice starts to build up. Many people will gladly pay you to shovel their ice and snow, rather than brave the cold to do so themselves. The longer the driveway, the more money you can charge. If you live in a rural area and own a tractor with a snow blade, you can make quite a bit of money plowing country roads and long driveways.
Most people don’t want to wait around for AAA or a wrecker service when the roads get slick with ice. If you have a wench on your pickup truck, or a large sized truck with a lot of power and a logging chain, you can pull stuck drivers out of ditches for $20 and still make a decent side income. While this seems as if you’re cashing in on someone else’s misfortune, keep in mind many people aren’t with an auto club, and a wrecker service will charge them quite a bit more for the same thing, and they may be stuck for an hour or more waiting. If wrecker services can post a flier on every streetlamp advertising their price for pulling stranded motorists out of ditches, it’s no worse if you do it, and charge much less.
If you can knit or crochet, you can earn a little extra money making mittens, gloves, scarves, and doggie sweaters. Retail chains charge as much for a small dog sweater as most people spend on a sweater for a human. Also, some coats are in colors that are almost impossible to match to store bought gloves and scarves. You can get an edge in this business if you make items such as these, and offer them for less. The beauty of hand made knits is that they can be made to custom fit and design.
Some of these ideas are also good for teens that need a little extra date cash, or money for a new wardrobe. You can also make your own inexpensive business cards and fliers on your home printer, and post them on public bulletin boards, and convenience store counters (if management allows it). Business card sheets can be found at retail chains such as K-Mart and Wal-Mart. With a little thought, you could also come up with some other ideas not mentioned here, and have a profitable winter.
