1. Tour Guide or Travel Agent
If you love travel or showing off your hometown’s attractions when someone visits, then you can become a local tour guide or travel agent. The Travel Academy has information on travel agent training, while The Penny Hoarder has advice for becoming a local tour guide.
2. Furniture Refurbishing
Are you good at revamping old furniture? Turn a boring desk into a decoupage masterpiece, whitewash old dining-room chairs to bring them back to life, repaint and revamp an old chest of drawers, etc. Why must people buy brand new expensive furniture when they have you to restore their existing classic pieces? Ask for a deposit upfront per project.
3. Jewellery & Fashion Accessories – Direct selling of jewellery and other fashion accessories has proven to be a lucrative way to make extra money. Companies such as Angel Jewellery & Accessories charge direct sellers a registration fee and then sell the bulk goods at a discounted rate. These goods are then marked up and sold. This type of direct selling can be done online via your own website or even offline door to door or through family and friends. With the right advertising in place and a passion for fashion, you can have a thriving business set up in no time at all.
4. Green Proof Homes
Offering a service to green proof someone’s home could be a fantastic way to earn extra money. Of course you would need to have access to devices and products that can make one’s home more environmentally friendly such as Shower Water Savers, The Geyserwise Device, Energy Saving Adaptors and even water heat recycling devices. These types of items can be found at companies such as Easy Energy. You can easily buy some stock of these items and charge clients a flat rate to assess their home, incorporate green methods and install them. You will be surprised at how many people would be interested in this type of service as sometimes just getting up and starting the process is the hardest part.
5. Bed and Breakfast
If you have the extra space and enjoy entertaining others, then get into the bed and breakfast business, if you’re zoned correctly. Thanks to Airbnb, you can now rent out a room, apartment, or house with relative ease. I personally do this, and it helps to dramatically lower my expenses each month.
6. Landscaping or Gardening
Love being outside? There’s no better business then landscaping or gardening. While a degree isn’t required, you may want to earn a certification in horticulture at your local public college. If you’re concerned about finding work during the winter, add a snowplow to your truck to provide snow removal service.
7 Plant a Tree
While so many people only plant a tree on arbour day, we all know just how important it is to plant trees and try and encourage others to do the same. After all, we do depend on trees for the air that we breathe. In Beijing it is a common site to see rooftops with trees and plants adorning them. Something similar could easily and effectively be incorporated into South African city centres. Many of our tall buildings have flat roof top space that would be a prime planting opportunity for those who want to reduce their carbon footprint on the planet. You could very easily receive bulk purchase rates from your local nursery and start offering this rooftop “landscaping” service to large businesses that would simply love to revel in the good advertising of “going green”. Make sure you know something about planting and gardening and ensure you have a few people to help you with the work.
8. Doll clothing designer/ toymaker
Are you good at sewing? Do you have several useless pieces of scrap material you don’t know what to do with? Buy pieces of material offcuts cheaply, because you do not need large pieces of fabric to make dolls and Barbie clothes, and make and sell them for a quarter of the price retail shops ask, plus you can make a significant profit. Parents are always looking for an affordable way to keep their little girls happy.