posted January 28, 2012 11:13 PM
Self-employed. My primary work is in crafts (typically sold to a thrift store) and sewing (sometimes to or for the thrift store and also my own "specially sized" clients who pay A LOT to have clothes made, mended, and refitted for them). I also make pretty good money with a mail order biz where I order gifts to controversial material for others (they pay me and then I buy it to send to my PO Box) and then deliver it for a "finder's fee." The mail order biz indirectly helps me with my crafts as it gets me on a bunch of spam lists and I get A LOT of colored catalogs which I then bleed with lacquer thinner onto freezer paper and then sell as gift wrap to that thrift store (just one example of many crafts I sell to them). But I got a some huge buckets of it years ago when it was on sale and now I'm running out. Lacquer thinner has gone up in price and I don't know if I'll continue it after I run out. I keep an eye peeled for getting it at a good price, but if I can't get anymore than next Christmas may the last time I do that unless she's willing to pay more (which I doubt she will).
A smoking hot reference from a children's librarian (and I EARNED that, believe me) along with other references from people I babysat for also got me work with an independent birthday entertainer who mostly puts on "princess parties" for little girls. I'm only called in when there are a lot of children expected. It doesn't happen often, but it pays well when it does.
I made so much money when the Hannah Montana movie came out, too, by taking loads of girls to see it so that their mothers and grandparents didn't have to. And I got so much biz that I ended up having to hire a friend of mine to help on the weekends, and she made a couple of hundred in profits on the weekend, minimum. I, of course, made a lot more since I took children all week. But it did take awhile to get "pop it, lock it, polka dot it" out of my head though...
I get a few other entertainment jobs as well, like a Russian American friend got me a gig playing the Snow Maiden at a Russian Christmas party. Though I had to put up with some groping hands from drunken men (not that it got too bad) I was paid very well, nearly a thousand dollars for like a few hours of work.
I get paid for all kinds of other things, too. One of the most amusing IMO was when a computer instructor couldn't figure out how to work his vox phone and offered me $20 if I could figure it out. Before taking it to Radio Shack and asking I thought I should be able to ask intelligent questions and called up the manual online and in reading through the "did you do something stupid" section I got inspired to check to see if all the screens on both vox phones were matched. One screen was off so I adjusted it and viola, it worked. That was 2 minutes of easy work. I told him it took me a couple of hours to preserve his ego and also so I'd still get the $20, however.
Lindaland
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posted January 28, 2012 08:19 PM
posted January 30, 2012 10:16 AM
or books. I couldn't work anywhere near food or I'd end up the size of a house!