AIBU to think my friend can make £2k in a month?

[Peterbishopssarcasticsmile]

This is unrelated to my other freelancing thread :)
My friend needs to make 2k in July due to unforeseen circumstances, won't go into details and not a begging thread.
I think as a one off, if she thinks about it now she could pull it off. She doesn't have kids so has lots of time (her words not mine!) and doesn't need to actually be paid for it in July, ideally in August.

I think she could do a combination of:
ebay/facebook marketplace selling
Making and selling face masks (she has a sewing machine and is very clever at stitching so would be easy for her)
Online surveys/e-moderation
Social media moderating
Transcribing

I wondered if Mumsnet thought it was possible and whether you've all got any other creative ideas? :)
Thank you in advance!

Maybe she’s just being more realistic that you are?

What does she need the money for? It sounds like she needs to try and make some agreements with the people she will need to pay.

Has she asked for your help, op? It sounds like she's hoping you might actually do it for her, with her "lack of enthusiasm" for any suggestions.

Someone who’s got ‘not got much enthusiasm‘ is never going to make £2000 a month from being self-employed. They need to go and get a salaried job and hope they don’t get sacked for not having much enthusiasm there either.

You'll be doing your friend more of a favour if you get her to look at other ways of handling this financial obligation of hers. She is not going to be able to make this money.

Why would she keep them to sell off 400 every Friday?

So that the rest of the week she's not worrying about listing products and dealing with customers. So that she can do all the processing of orders, printing labels etc in one go. So that she only has to go to the post office once a week. It's by far the most sensible way to organise a very small business to ensure that she can give as much time to making as many products as possible.

I do know OP, the latter half of your ideas are not at all realistic, she's likely to spend hours doing them and get a few quid out of it so why should she be demonstrating enthusiasm to you if she also thinks this. I think posters commenting on the lack of worth ethic of someone they don't know based off OP saying she isnt showing the required enthusiasm for her ideas are jumping the gun a bit.
You can only make on ebay what you have to sell so what she would make on there would amount to whatever that comes to from her presumably totting up bits at home- IF she sold it. Investing in stock with no experience and selling it with no customer base and feedback to make money quickly, is an awful idea that may place her in further financial trouble.

It's more like ideas to make a bit of extra spending money than it is a helpful plan to make 2k. I would be advising she get a salaried job (supermarket etc) and form a savings plan. If she is going to need a job on the side then delivery driving or even something local like delivering takeaway if she drives to boost this income.

sorry, i should have specific - she's not enthusiastic about thinking up ideas, not necessarily about my ideas.

I have suggested she seek debt counselling or help, and given her some resources to check out. I would offer to lend the money but I'm always a bit nervous with money/friends (that sounds terrible I know!) and with the current situation all being so uncertain I don't really have it to spare without digging into our savings

Maybe she just thinks you are interfering OP, and is being unenthusiastic rather than just telling you to leave it. It's hard for 'doers' to realise that not everyone appreciates their good intentions.

Genuinely I have done this. And it is possible. But fuck me it was hard work.

Dont listen to the" take in ironing " . I pay professional ironers to do mine , on hangers, mostly covered 40 items for £20 .. I doubt ironing would bring in 2k a month for someone not in the business

It usually takes a while to build up business as a freelancer so if she's hoping to make that much money in her first month as a freelancer, she'd be very lucky indeed to pull it off. Maybe she could do it if she already had lots of contacts wanting to send her work. Speaking from experience.

@Otterses

I just want to say that social media/website moderation isn't always easy to get into quickly it my experience, I do some contracting work for two companies, and it ranged between 3-12 months before I even heard back about applications. I don't mean to sound at all discouraging, but it's not likely your friend would be able to get started fast enough to have the money for August. Long term though it's certainly worth it, I average £10-£12 an hour through moderation work.

Cloudworkers is a good option if she's not too squeamish - it's an adult chat site. All text based, no personal details etc. I've seen people earn around £1500 a month before from that alone. She could get started within days too.

Advising she get into prostitution? That's really grim. I hope OP respects her friend more than that.

That's £500 per week - £100 a day ! Unless they've got some VERY valuable stuff or a very sought after skill, I think it's totally unrealistic.

Temporary work might conceivably make half of that

Won't earn £2,000 tutoring. Unless a qualified teacher with years of experience or with great uni qualifications (Oxbridge tutors seem to earn the most), it's more like £25 to £30 per hour and a lot of children/teens at school are already doing online classes so aren't looking to do any more.

I pay professional ironers to do mine , on hangers, mostly covered 40 items for £20

That’s ridiculously cheap! Where are you?

Nobody mentioned dog walking yet?! That’s usually trotted out as easy money too on these threads.

If she's selling clothes/accessories and she has a lot of designer goods then it can be done and I recommend Vestiere Collective.

If it's designer to mid range goods I.e Zara/Mango/RI etc then I recommend selling on Vinted, Depop and Ebay.

I find goods rarely sell well on FB unless it's household items.

It's a big target but it all hinges on what she's selling.

@Ickabog does Etsy charge higher fees than Ebay or Shopify, do you know? Would they be more viable options for someone making homemade stuff?
Shopify is £9 a month if it's self-hosted. I can't remember the cost of ebay fees, it's been a while, but they were pretty negligible. Both, of course, also attracted Paypal fees although Shopify had its own payment system to recommend it, which was cheaper than Paypal to process card payments.
OP the only thing I can think of where she'd definitely make £2k in a month would be if she has a car worth more than 2k that she can sell on Gumtree. Or Air BnB with a spare room although with Corona I'm not sure that's a genius move this year.

eBay is risky unless she has an established account on there. A new seller with a brand new account suddenly listing loads of things is usually treated with suspicion by many buyers.

What about those trashy magazines that pay for your story? Has she had a Turkish love rat boyfriend? A mystery illness? Spoken to a ghost? Seen the face of Jesus in a tub of margarine? They pay good money for that rubbish.

WhatTiggersDoBest Etsy fees are pretty high, much more so than Ebay who often have offers on FVFs, and free listings each month. This is a good website to compare the different sites.

fullfees.co.uk/etsy-fee-calculator/

@FelicisNox

If she's selling clothes/accessories and she has a lot of designer goods then it can be done and I recommend Vestiere Collective.

If it's designer to mid range goods I.e Zara/Mango/RI etc then I recommend selling on Vinted, Depop and Ebay.

I find goods rarely sell well on FB unless it's household items.

It's a big target but it all hinges on what she's selling.

Op hasn't indicated that she's got a wardrobe full of ready to go designer gear to flog. If she had; it's unlikely op would have suggested sewing face masks 😄

OP your friend sounds like the kind of person who thinks someone who has built up a successful business from scratch was just lucky.

Having done several of the things suggested on this thread myself over the years, I'm with the posters saying she has little chance of making more than £700 in the current climate, even if she were really motivated. Even matched betting requires money putting in to get big amounts out.

@wildone84 why? If she really needs to get an extra £2k in a month it's probably one of the only ways. Sh'es sure as hell not going to get it taking in a bit of ironing (even if she could find some to take in).
You might not like it, but OP wants suggestions that will achieve £2k, not ones that will get £50. Once she has a viable selection to choose from then she can whittle out the less desirable options.
Also prostitution wasn't suggested - it was working on some adult text based chat sites. You could add working the phone chat lines to that or she could jump onto Adultwork and do a bit of cam girl stuff, or sell pics on Onlyfans, depending on how visible she is comfortable being/how much she really needs that £2k.
As a woman she has those options (and they are options, they are not compulsory), a man would not have these same routes open to him.

Definitely look at matched betting. 0% credit card are the best / realistic ideas suggested so far. Suggest looking at Team profit for match betting.