All activities undertaken at your own risk!

This article was written by Heather Wood

Heather, a single mum with two teenaged children has herself explored many of the raising money ideas below and some of the ones listed below (in bold and italics) she has actively tried and she includes the money she made on the idea. Some have been more lucrative than others, some have been more fun than others and Heather is still waiting for the mother lode to land in her lap. None the lesss all the ideas helped in their own ways!

Furthermore Heather would like to point out that all these listed here are not meant to be grand career moves. They are simple ways to boost an existing income and wont necessarily (although for some people they do) earn a living in themselves.

The information on this page are purely suggestion and the author takes no responsibility for any outcome and for those suggestions for the children - risk assessment by a parent is essential. Please read the safety info offered at the end of the article.

Raising money ideas for adults

Junk furniture - Buy or rescue some junk furniture and do it up. This can be scraping it down and repainting it, recovering it or simply giving it a clean (author made around £100 a month doing this)

Rent out your parking space, driveway or garage (Top income can be around £75 a week)

Become a mystery shopper (average earning are between £6 and £20 an hour)

Market research (around £30 to £100 per session) Can be boring but can pay well

Rent out your home to a movie company (from £500 a day) (Sister let home to golf player and team during a golf open. 10 day let - £3000!)

Pet star - if your pet is smart, photogenic put him forward to film companies to become a movie star. (Must be very well trained and beware of agents)

Become a tutor - if you have a language or skill that you can teach students in order to improve their grades their grateful parents will pay around £25 an hour

Feedback - get paid for your views. If you enjoy writing you can get as much as £1 for every answer you give to questions posted online. Answer 100 a day and you'll be doing very nicely! Answer must be unique, well written and concise. And lets face it - it's always nice to express our own views - getting paid is a bonus!
Become a proof reader - your grammar/spelling has to be perfect and you have to very meticulous but good proof readers can earn around £3.50 a page

Affiliation - again you need to have a website but if you have a site about your favourite hobby or a problem that drives you mad (ie snoring) you can sell other companies products through your website as an 'affilliate' and earn some money. (£10 a month)

Google adsense - if you have a website that offers valuable information you can earn from just a few cents a day to $100's of dollars (£300 a month)

Photos - sell your photos online (from around 12p per photo downloaded) (Sold four photos for £40 each)

Writing - write shorts stories or articles for magazines. You can get paid from around £50 to £1000 per article - but you have to be able to write very well. (Sold article to national newspaper for £1000)

Sell a skill or knowledge - if you have done something in your life that took some research for example find a home for an elderly parent or work in an usual environment that intrigues others write a short pamphlet or book about it and sell it online
- (author earned around £40'000 in total but this was over a few years!)

Odd jobs - if you are handy with the tools/lawnmower/ladder offer your skills as a handyman woman. (You can earn around £10 an hour if they pay your tax £12 an hour if you do your own tax)

Window cleaning - can be very good money to be amde here (around £40 an hour - doing it two hours a night for 4 evenings a week or all day saturday will earn around £320). However you will need equipment which can be costly and you might have to be careful that you don't tread in some one else's 'patch'

Carpet cleaning / garden maintenance also apply here

Offer an ironing service. - If you like ironing and are good at it many people are delighted not to have to do the chore themselves. You can earn around £10 an hour.

A mobile car valeting service - the money you earn varies with standard and depth of washing. A full interior exterior can be around £50 - (My sisters started this business a number of year ago and did it for 18 months - called it MoonShine - did very well indeed and sold it for £15'000!)

Housesitting / Pet sitting - perfect for retired people who like to travel. My father did this for a number of years. He signed up with a housesitting company and stayed in some lovely homes where he walked the dogs, fed the rabbits, looked after the cats, watered the plants, stored the mail, answered the phone etc. He used to earn around £30 to £40 a day plus his travelling expenses. He thoroughly enjoyed it.

Sell your skills - ironing, baby sitting DIY, sign up to jobs grapevine and advertise your skills. The website also allows people to advertise when they need a job doing, so it's worth having a browse to see whether there's a task you'd be willing to sign up for. And the best bit is that using the website is absolutely free!

Become a courier - If you have your own transport Stuff2send.com is a great website that allows you to register as a courier and get paid to drop off someone's stuff.

Become a rickshaw driver - Sign up to Bugbugs.com and you can learn how to become a rickshaw/bug/pedicab driver! As long as you are over 18 years of age and physically fit, are fluent in English and are proficient in the Highway Code, you can sign up.

Help out at ID Parades - there are police forces who still do the traditional line up to identify a culprit - volunteer to join the line up and you could get paid as much as £15 for the first hour. Those police stations that offer video identiparade may still offer you £10 to be filmed.

Face painting - attend car boots/ fairs etc. charge £1.50 per child and paint their faces. Use only the best quality paints and you might need permission from your council to trade. (Author earned up to £30 an hour)

Photographs - if you have some good photos of local scenes get them printed into postcards and offer them for sale in your local attractions and tourist shops - income around 30p per photo sold.

Personal chef - can you cook? If you can offer to do peoples dinner parties for them. You can get as involved as you like. From planning menus and doing all the cooking or to being just the extra hand in the kitchen that helps wash up and clear table etc. (Earning from £40 to £150 - author earned £600 for a week cooking for a man and his colleagues)

Sewing alterations - if you have a skill with a needle many people would dearly appreciate someone who can take in/let out an article of clothing. this is particularly useful during a recession!

Ebay - yep, we all know ebay and many people have made a very successful living out of selling on the auction site. Lots of books out there on how to become an ebay millionaire

Get paid to do online surveys - some dodgy companies bbut you can earn as much as £30 a survey

Become an artists model - you usually need an art college nearby and to feel comfortable in the nude but you can earn around £12 an hour

Product tester - market research companies want to know how their product actually copes out in the world and are willing to pay people to test it

Raising money ideas for kids

Dog walking £5 - £10 an hour (put ads in vets room, community boards, free classifieds) (Kids earned £345 in their best month - they walked the dogs together and split the money 50/50)

Car Wash (£5 to £10 per car) (No dishwashing liquid!! You must buy proper car wash soap and wax)

Yard /garage sale - get rid of all those unwanted toys, books, clothes and make space to buy more...

Lemonade stand (earnings are variable +/- £20 on a hot day) you can also sell iced tea

Bake sale in your yard (variable +/- £30) (Kids earned £37.19p one saturday by selling cake from our yard but of that profit was around £20)

Become a tutor - if you are doing very well in a subject at school offer a tutoring service to younger kids (around £12 an hour)

Baby sitting service - from £5 an hour (you can charge double per hour after midnight) (Eldest daughter - 15 - earned an extra £80 a month in a good month)

Photographs - If you enjoy taking photographs you can make lots of money. Photos have to be very well done but take your camera into school and take photos of fellow pupils during breaks. Come home and use a photo tweaking programme and go back into school with the photo. You can sell them for around £2.50 each (Youngest daughter - 12 - made around £40)

Google adsense - if you build a website that your friends would find very useful you can earn from just a few cents a day to $100's of dollars through placing google adsense on your site

Affiliation - again you need to have a website but if you have a site about your favourite hobby or a problem that drives you mad (ie homework) you can sell other companies that offers homework help through your website as an 'affilliate' and earn some money.

Recipes - Make a collection of your favourite recipes that you like to cook because they are easy and work everytime and then sell them at school for £2 for the collection

Offer teachers a neck massage - skills needed are strong fingers and don't be shy! (My nephew raised £80 for charity doing this)

Oddjobs - Offer to do gardening, shopping, tidy around the house for people who cant get out much - (£10 an hour) but you need to be committed. It's not something you can say you'll do then not turn up as you will be relied upon.

Keyrings - find a supplier of keyrings/novelty pens/brightly coloured things and buy these for 50p each or less.
Then ask a local store to sell them for you for say £2 and for each one sold they keep 50p. So if you take 100 to the store and come back a week later and they've got 50 left, the store will have made 12.50 and you will have made £25.

Advertising - Tell stores that you will walk around town delivering thier leaflets, menus etc that promote their business. You can charge £10 per 100 leaflets delivered. Also suggest wearing a T Shirt with their Logo.

Birthday Party - Offer your services to the parents of younger children at school to help out at birthday parties. You can blow up balloons, do face painting, take photos, arrange games and manage the children. Lots of ideas. You must be good with kids. Charge £30 for a 2 hour party (Don't forget to ask for some cake!)

Seeds - turn seeds into seeldings and sell them from your yard. Flowers and vegetables (Lettuces, tomatoes and herbs are big sellers. (Earn around £20 on a good day)

School performances - There are lots of perfromances at school from plays, recitals, dances to sports events. Set yourself up to the videorgapher or photographer and do a video/slide show burnt onto a DVD of the event and sell these to school friends for around £7.50 each

Deposit hunting - While we don't have the deposits on the glass bottles that we used to there are still many things that you have to pay a desposit on in order to use. For example many festivals require you to pay at deposit on your plastic cup - collect all the cups that people have been too lazy to return and you can make a small fortune.

SAFETY AND OTHER ISSUES - parents please read this

While I think any parents who supports the entrepenurial spirit in thier child will find the majority of these suggestions relatively uncontreversial it's always important to follow safety guidelings.

• Know where your child is and where he or she hopes to go
  
  
• Be sure to check the various bylaws with your child before you undertake largish business ventures - start legal!
  
  
• Don't let your child overface themselves or let the work they do leave them too tired for school.
  
  
• Make sure your child understand the committment required and that in return for money their work had to be of a certain standard
  
  
• Offer your guidance. Pricing, quality, quantity - many of these ares will be very grey areas for younger children. Particularly backe sales where they may be happy to sell something for 5p that cost 50p to bake!
  
  
• Be prepapred to be the delivery driver/taxi for many of these exercises.