Your ideas to make another £50-100 a week.

[callmedave]

guffhoover said:

Depending on your skill set pick one:

https://www.freelancer.co.uk/job/

Wow! Not what I had in mind but this looks very good! Will sign up and bid on a few tonight. Thanks for this.

[Willeh85]

shakotan said:

Willeh85 said:

shakotan said:

Mystery shopping for cars.

£20/visit, you can fit 3/4 visits into a day easily at the weekend and its quite fun winding up the sales guys.

www.bareinternational.com

How does that work then? Do they give you a list of dealerships to visit near you.

Is it a case of you could reliably visit 3-4 dealerships on a Saturday and Sunday on a weekly basis or is the work more infrequent than that? I'd happily give up my Sundays if I could reliably bring in £60-80 for a spot of window shopping.

Read all about it on the link.

You choose the dealerships from a list of those available.

I've registered and there are only a couple of mystery shop jobs available near me at the moment. I'll apply for it and report back on my experiances

[gregf40]

callmedave said:

guffhoover said:

Depending on your skill set pick one:

https://www.freelancer.co.uk/job/

Wow! Not what I had in mind but this looks very good! Will sign up and bid on a few tonight. Thanks for this.

Looks like slave labour to me!

[Hoofy]

Purity14 said:

I earn £20 for every $5 on average, but sometimes the margins are quite larger £40 for each $5 spent.

I have lots of repeat business, from people that have used my services before, which is a bonus.

I pay with paypal for everything, pizza, goods, services, whenever possible - I never withdraw the cash.

(1) Read that several times without it making sense. Understand it now.

(2) Presumably, the client cannot contact the fiverr contractor directly.

(3) Eric will be along shortly.

[Rude-boy]

Hoofy said:

Purity14 said:

I earn £20 for every $5 on average, but sometimes the margins are quite larger £40 for each $5 spent.

I have lots of repeat business, from people that have used my services before, which is a bonus.

I pay with paypal for everything, pizza, goods, services, whenever possible - I never withdraw the cash.

(1) Read that several times without it making sense. Understand it now.

(2) Presumably, the client cannot contact the fiverr contractor directly.

(3) Eric will be along shortly.

(1) Took me a couple of passes to get it
(2) I would suggest that they could, but they don't know that this is where the OP is sourcing their subbie. If I have guessed the business correctly then it is unlikely that the end user has the required skill set in the first place to search out such a 'product' (OP has asked we don't post up if we have worked it out so even though it is likely I am wrong I'm going to respect that).
(3) I am sure that the OP declares every penny on their Return and was just highlighting how they use that money from a practical POV.

[Hoofy]

Rude-boy said:

Hoofy said:

Purity14 said:

I earn £20 for every $5 on average, but sometimes the margins are quite larger £40 for each $5 spent.

I have lots of repeat business, from people that have used my services before, which is a bonus.

I pay with paypal for everything, pizza, goods, services, whenever possible - I never withdraw the cash.

(1) Read that several times without it making sense. Understand it now.

(2) Presumably, the client cannot contact the fiverr contractor directly.

(3) Eric will be along shortly.

(1) Took me a couple of passes to get it
(2) I would suggest that they could, but they don't know that this is where the OP is sourcing their subbie. If I have guessed the business correctly then it is unlikely that the end user has the required skill set in the first place to search out such a 'product' (OP has asked we don't post up if we have worked it out so even though it is likely I am wrong I'm going to respect that).
(3) I am sure that the OP declares every penny on their Return and was just highlighting how they use that money from a practical POV.

It's this, isn't it?
https://uk.fiverr.com/shaym77/write-anything-you-w...

Amiright?

WRT (2), I meant the subcontractor cannot contact the client otherwise they'd bypass the middle-man, get more money and charge less.

[Hoofy]

Purity14 said:

Hoofy said:

Purity14 said:

I earn £20 for every $5 on average, but sometimes the margins are quite larger £40 for each $5 spent.

I have lots of repeat business, from people that have used my services before, which is a bonus.

I pay with paypal for everything, pizza, goods, services, whenever possible - I never withdraw the cash.

(1) Read that several times without it making sense. Understand it now.

(2) Presumably, the client cannot contact the fiverr contractor directly.

(3) Eric will be along shortly.

1. Basically my outlay is usually $5 per time, and I gain anywhere from £20 to £40 for that $5.
However depending on the services the customer requires, someone might pay £80 for example, and that will require $10 worth of services from my supplier.

2. The customer -could- go on fiverr themselves, and purchase directly, paying in dollars but:
- They may not want to use a foreign site.
- They may not want to pay in dollars.
- They may worry about not receiving what they paid for etc.
- They may not know it exists.

I provide a seemingly "Local" service, to which customers respond well to.
My second ever batch of cards had the City name on, which increased sales.

It was for fun/project purposes initially, I wouldn't rely on it as a steady source of income.
As mentioned in a previous post, Some weeks I will earn nothing.

Edited by Purity14 on Thursday 22 January 15:02

Fair enough and well done.

I think I guessed right, then.

[Rude-boy]

Purity14 said:

As far as OP is concerned:

Spare time equals money, it depends on how much time you want to give away.

I prefer to sell someone elses services with a markup, thus giving as little time away as possible.

"The art of good business is being a good middle man."

On the other hand I hate to think of the child support bills for knocking up all those women so that he can exploit their baby bumps

[Pot Bellied Fool]

I know I shall now waste hours on fiverr trying to work out what it is!!

BTW Purity, how did you automate the email bit? Is that something you've written or an off the shelf plugin?

[oyster]

Surely an hour or so a night spent on career progression will earn more than £50 a week back?

Brush up CV, network with potential clients/employers, research relevant articles/papers, self-practice interviews, e-learning more relevant skills etc etc

[The Hypno-Toad]

shakotan said:

I only do my mystery shopping in dealerships at the weekend, never been a problem.

Interesting.

I've been in the motor trade for 20 years and I know of no dealer group or manufacturer with the exception of Jaguar, who will mystery shop on a Saturday. They prefer salesman to be actually selling cars to real customers on the busiest day of the week, rather than wasting time with mystery shops. So is there any chance of some names please?

And just because no has called you out as a mystery shop, doesn't mean that you haven't been rumbled. Again, the majority of manufacturers/dealer groups will penalise salesman if they do refuse to carry on with a mystery shop. Both the salesman and shopper have to go through the whole charade.

I have seen mystery shoppers who have left camera equipment or lists of dealers in their p/x, had a car that had been hpi so many times it went onto a second sheet of paper, who have sat at my desk holding their camera bag on their lap facing directly towards me and have come in to 'buy' a £40,000 car with a £500 wrecked trade in. As I mentioned on the original reply, unless the salesman is a total muppet you WILL have been found out and he just has to play along with you, while his colleagues sell cars to actual customers and make money.

[Mark-C]

Hoofy said:

callmedave said:

Oddly enough the Mrs is against that idea!

I used to repair cameras and phones etc if a screen had broke or part wasn't working, but these sort of electronics have dropped in value and the margin isn't really there when a replacement part can cost £10-£15
I'm handy on a PC, my brother in law occasionally gets me to do work on spread sheets, basic data entry/info gathering stuff for his construction firm, but this is very infrequent work.
I'm good at mechanics but have done it for years and don't have an interest in it any more.

I'm attracted to buying a raw material, processing it and selling it at a higher value.

From the £500 challenge thread, fixing broken Dysons can be quite good pocketmoney.

Knew someone who did this until she popped up on Rogue Traders ....

[Bullett]

guffhoover said:

Depending on your skill set pick one:

https://www.freelancer.co.uk/job/

Talk about a race to the bottom.

[shakotan]

The Hypno-Toad said:

shakotan said:

I only do my mystery shopping in dealerships at the weekend, never been a problem.

Interesting.

I've been in the motor trade for 20 years and I know of no dealer group or manufacturer with the exception of Jaguar, who will mystery shop on a Saturday. They prefer salesman to be actually selling cars to real customers on the busiest day of the week, rather than wasting time with mystery shops. So is there any chance of some names please?

And just because no has called you out as a mystery shop, doesn't mean that you haven't been rumbled. Again, the majority of manufacturers/dealer groups will penalise salesman if they do refuse to carry on with a mystery shop. Both the salesman and shopper have to go through the whole charade.

I have seen mystery shoppers who have left camera equipment or lists of dealers in their p/x, had a car that had been hpi so many times it went onto a second sheet of paper, who have sat at my desk holding their camera bag on their lap facing directly towards me and have come in to 'buy' a £40,000 car with a £500 wrecked trade in. As I mentioned on the original reply, unless the salesman is a total muppet you WILL have been found out and he just has to play along with you, while his colleagues sell cars to actual customers and make money.

Never been asked to use camera equipment, never been asked to present a p/x car. Told strictly to refuse a test drive if asked to as not to waste dealer resources. It's all VW contracts through the website I listed above. No restriction on day. You're asked to visit a VW dealer and then between 2-7 rival dealers, given the specific models to 'shop' and then try to get the best price possible from the dealer. As I understand its to help VW figure out whether they are losing sales due to other dealerships offers large discount, or conversely offer too large a discount on their own cars and losing margin.

If I've been rumbled, it makes no sense that I regularly get follow up calls from the Sales Departments after my visit seeing if there is anything they can do to close the deal. That would be madness.

[wack]

Bullett said:

Talk about a race to the bottom.

It's the way it is now

I thought I'd just find a part time job after giving up work but it wasn't that easy so I spent £10,000 on a van and £2000 on proper insurance then started doing courier work, tried Royal Mail sameday, they kept ringing me up with 400 mile round trips for £100 so I declined

Then had a look at shiply.com which is where people want something collecting then wait for the lowest bid, which if you leave it long enough is a twix.

Most internet sites work on the reverse auction principal and somebody will always do it in a 15 year old van with no insurance to earn £25

I've picked up a few of my own customers but as with any job if you do it legally somebody will undercut you

[Type R Tom]

I've had a go on the freelance site. Don't fancy my chances, some of them are ridiculously small. There is no way you can compete with someone in Asia will to take pennies! Will see what happens.

[Jimmy No Hands]

Purity14 said:

Spot on

Edited by Purity14 on Thursday 22 January 15:05

I think I've figured this out. But then again I could be totally off.

[beko1987]

Hoofy said:

callmedave said:

Oddly enough the Mrs is against that idea!

I used to repair cameras and phones etc if a screen had broke or part wasn't working, but these sort of electronics have dropped in value and the margin isn't really there when a replacement part can cost £10-£15
I'm handy on a PC, my brother in law occasionally gets me to do work on spread sheets, basic data entry/info gathering stuff for his construction firm, but this is very infrequent work.
I'm good at mechanics but have done it for years and don't have an interest in it any more.

I'm attracted to buying a raw material, processing it and selling it at a higher value.

From the £500 challenge thread, fixing broken Dysons can be quite good pocketmoney.

I do this! Most certainly as pocket money/hobby though, not as a business...

(If you're near oxfordshire, forget all this, I dont want any competition!)

I mainly buy DC04s/07S for <£10, check the motor works well, and if so, fully componentise them, wash, dry, polish the paint marks off, and rebuild with new belts (rebuilding the clutch if needed) and filters. Sell for £60/£65. I get them free too, all my colleagues know the rub as I always have parts delivered here. One came to me today saying she had an old dyson in ehr garage (bought a Miele S3 last year), did I want it? She doesnt want any money, and is fine with me fixing and selling it on. I;ve started taking part exchange for the machines I sell too, knock £15/20 off the price for a sale, and another machine to fix and sell. With that, I always hope someone wants to part ex an old machien for me to add to the colelction/ebay too, but its not happened yet!

Did this for a year, just picking them up every now and again, then dipped my toe into bulk buys. Bought 25 machines for £120 (a friend lent me the money). Got 17 good ones out of that, and a st load of spares. Was good, and I made a fair bit of money, but:
Did get a bit of a drag coming home from work, then getting straight onto machines
Had to spend £90 on parts alone, although bought more than I needed)
Flooded the market a tad, and they slowed down selling towards the end

Gone back to just picking up 8-10 a month and slowly filtering them out now

Last August, I made a facebook page, fileld it with content and started sharing it on the local facebook groups, and now I do more refurbs than sales. So far this month I've had:

DC22 Stowaway - full refurb (no filters) - £80.
DC24 with main and brushroll motor knackered - £120, £60 of which is profit
DC27 - The lady started wanting this and that and I rubbed my hands together, ended up spending 10 minutes fixing 2 little issues and only made £30
2x DC07's for a 'light' refurb - £30 each
Got a DC08 coming in for a new motor next week, £80 quoted and accepted, motor costs £15, filters less than £3 for the pair

It helps that I only shared on facebook groups which are local to me, and I can pop in on my way to or from work. In 15 minutes I leave the office and will take the 22 back to its owner, popping out at 6pm to take one of the 07s back

I like it tbh. I'd love to set up shop properly like a comapny have in Manchester (with a vacs on the end of their name), but after talking at length to the founder, it was hard work, and they've noticed a shift in the market recently which means they will probably move away from straight sales and concentrate on refurbs. Also, the over complicatedness of the modern machines means that in a few years, they will need doing but it wont be as cost effective. A good DC07 will cost about £3 for a set of tools, both filters and belt(s) if the plastics and motor are ok. A DC41 has an issue where the sleplate wheel wears right away, requiring £47 worth of brushhead, and these parts aren't being made by anyone else yet

I also managed to blag a Qualtex account, so get stuff at trade prices. If I quote for parts, I use the retail price for the quote, then buy at the greatly reduced trade price, and bulk buyign helps too. Toolsets are £1.80 for less than 10, £1.20 for 10+, so I buy 20 at a time and it sees me through for a while.

It takes time though. I'm down to <20 minutes to strip a DC04/7, anothe 30 minutes to wash it, then stack in the airing cupboard, then the next night when dry 45 mins to re-assemble. Whilst the first one dries I strip another one and leave the plastic in the garden in a box to wait, the rain softens the ste up too which helps

It's a nice hobby, but I really like collecting and refurbishing old, vintage machines more, but it doesnt pay, and SWMBO gets annoyed if I add another to the collection, at least with the Dysons she moans up to the point I give her money to go shopping with, or buy a 'dyson kebab' as I call them!

It does help though, that DC22 had effectivly paid for my car serice, 2 new ball joints and maybe a new wing if I can be bothered. Free stuff in my eye.

If you want more info, feel free to PM me, could help you if I want.

[callmedave]

I've repaired the odd dyson too. As well as GHDs, come to think of it, I think there is a broken pair of the Mrs's lying nf around somewhere. Il dig these out and take a look.

A dyson is too big and bulky for me, don't really have the space to strip then down.

[beko1987]

It is bulky! This is the dead space behind the sofa atm



The purple/Lime DC07 is mine, just got to grab a clean hose from the stash and it can go up for sale
Yellow DC07 was supposed to be going back tonight but she messaged me saying could we do tomorrow, which works for me as I CBA to go out again tonight and get deisel in the process or I wont get very far
Teal DC07 is awaiting a light refurb
DC24 needs both motors repalcing, they arrived today
Turbopower 1 U2698 is mine, and should probably go into my mums loft with the other 15 tp1's

She works nights at the weekend, so I tend to wait for my daughter to be in bed and do my work. She goes even more TheMental if she walks in on me taking stupid pictures like this



and I've stopped stripping machines down when she is here as she goes PROPER TheMental if she see's them at this stage



despite me clearing all the mess up so well that she doesnt realise if she doesnt see it (hence keeping a proper vacuum within reach at all times, and the Miele for silent late-at-night clearups)

I do get frequently bked, dont get me wrong. Her tolerance seems to be at about 6 machines out at one time. There's 3 in the hallway too, a bissel carpet washer that I really wish I hadnt taken on, a Goblin Commander S that I did for her friends mum (which she needs to take back, so not my fault), and a Hoover Senior 652A which I like using on our stupid deep pile rug, so it stays out. Daily driver Miele S5 sits in the hall too, there's a Hitachi Powerhouse CV70D in our bedroom, a Hoover 417G in my wardrove and a broken Hoover Turbopower 1 U2460 in her wardrobe. I'm on borrowed time...

The shed, which I had hoped to kit out as a workshop, run power there etc isn't big enough at all, and is basically a storage st hole... Need to get organised this summer, got lots of crappy bagless vacs in there to refurb and sell to get rid of them, people seem to give me anything nowadays!

I got talking to an old ex-Hoover engineer last year, who has now retired but he said GHD's are big money to repair. Apparently he does alot, but again, has built up a reputation, and people know to mention his name if asked if they know anyone. I did look into it, Qualtex do the flex's with the rotating end for £2.95 each, but I'd have to sink money into it and start from the bottom, and tbh I cant be bothered!

I've got to the point with the dysons that, bar motors and DC04 wands (which are becoming a bit hens teeth) I've got at least 3 spare of every component, not to mention filters, belts, internal hoses and tools. Had another 25 filter pads arrive today, along with the motors to fix the dc24 pictured above!