Any ideas on how to earn £100-200 a month when you work full-time?

[toja555]

All advices given in this forum for money saving are really good, especially in this credit crunch environment!
I am full-working mum with 2 years old DS and also full-time working DH. The vast majority of our salaries goes to mortgage/bills/daily expenses and childcare costs, not to mention that our special treats are kept to very minimum. So I decided that I need some extra work, which I have never done before? I don?t need much extra, I just want to have my spare little cash for a haircut, coffee in Starbucks or my favourite meal ? sushi.
Having in mind that I work full-time and have a child to take care after work, I can only do something late evenings or weekends. I tried online surveys but it takes like half a year to build up £40? I am thinking to offer babysitting services by dropping leaflets in neighbouring streets, also maybe to do some home typing (?) or independent courier (?)? Is there any job that would earn me £25-50 a week without having to spend all my spare time for it? Perhaps I am naïve.. but that is life and that?s how you learn to live.
Thank you for any sort of advice.

i do mystery shopping alongside a nearly full time job. mainly i do banking jobs and retail. you can also do airports, bars, retaurants, hotels, public services.

most pay between £5 and £15 a job (usually take 15 mins to do, plus prep time and filling in your report). plus reimbursment for whatever you bought if you did. best i get are the banking ones. i got £45 for half an hours work. other good ones have been club reviews (if you're into that!) they paid £15 plus £30 spending money

loads of mystery shop agencies on line. try grassroots and retaileyes. i typically get sent about 10 jobs a month, but only do maybe 2 or 3.

oh and i'm doing it while i'm on maternity leave. or i will be once ds is a little older, he's only 5 wks! i did the jobs with dd in tow, she's 3.5. though i think she does wonder why we go round all these banks asking the same questions. when she's older she may wonder why mummy gives false names etc

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Are you in London? If so I can give you a list of companies who pay for you to attend focus groups / consumer panels.

It's only every so often, but pays bewteen £40 and £100+ for a couple of hours chat.

I do piano/violin teaching one evening a week (£20 p/h) but also do occasional care work for a blind lady. I don't have any qualifications for the latter but earn £9 p/h weekdays £12 p/h weekends. Have also done language tutoring.

Think about what skills you have that you could teach others or just a type of work that you might enjoy.

lowrib, sorry for my late reply but if you could give me a list of companies, that would be great. Yes, I am in London - South London infact..

Here you go

www.focus4people.com
www.focusforce.net
www.qualityeye.com
www.schlesingerassociates.c om/joindatabase.html
www.apogeegrouprecruitment.com/
www.leftfield.co.uk/
www.marketresearchrecru itment.com/index.php?sid=1076

Lowrib, thank you very much! While awaiting for your answer, I have already discovered and registered with the 1st and 2nd from your list and have applied for some projects, but have not got any response yet. It seems reasonably easy money, once you get there, I guess. I will also try to get into babysitting once I finish redecorating my DS?s room and have completely free hands.

Keeping my fingers crossed for you!

I can recommend a good book on making a bit of extra cash

A bit on the side

You can get a 2nd hand copy on Amazon for £2.80 incl. postage.

It's got lots of ideas backed up with contact details.

lowrib, thanks again! I will try to get the book. I was wondering, do you make any money yourself from what you have recommended so far? (sorry if it is too personal question)

Yup, I've done quite a few market research ones. I got contacted today to do one on banking actually. I apply for all that come in and I've done about 4 in the last 6 months I think, paying between £50 and £80 each.

Just checking - you don't work in marketing do you? Because if so they probably won't pick you for any.

I signed up for a load of on line survey things but I gave up in the end because they seemed way too time consuming for too little reward IMO. And it was hard to sort the genuine from the junk.

I haven't started on any of the ideas in the book because I'm mad busy moving house, job hunting and looking after DS! But there are some ideas I like the look of in it. I like the fact there are contact details too, although it's not the newest book so I guess some may be out of date.

I think when I have a bit more time I'm going to give mystery shopping a go.

Lowrib, I don?t know how many times I thanked you already, but I am saying thank you for your reply again. Well done! A couple of hundred of £ does not make any harm, does it? No, I am not in a marketing ? I am more in finance, so banking would be exactly for me. I have registered now with about 6 market research (focus groups) companies and 1 mystery shopping. Hopefully they will contact me some time despite of me having no experience in it.
I also found only surveys too time consuming.
I am also preparing a leaflet about me offering babysitting services cos I am quite keen on working with children.Will see how it goes!

No worries! The banks will probably avoid you actually because I think they are looking for general consumer opinions, so if you have any inside knowledge you probably won't fit their profile.

But not to worry, the banking ones only seem to have popped up recently, there are loads of other ones. There are lots about mobile phones for example, and as I worked most recently for a telecoms company I don't ever get those ones.

Good luck! (No need to thank me again, I feel blessed with thanks already! )

Do you have lots of clutter hanging around which you could get together for a car boot sale? Or old mobile phones or other techie stuff which tend to sell quite well on Ebay/Gumtree? Fits in with your available times at least.

I did private tutoring some years ago - I said I'd do most subjects up to GCSE and my specialist subjects to A-level or degree level. Turned out the agency was desperate for tutors in North London and offered me loads of placements I couldn't get to (no car). I ended up doing mainly English for GCSE and year 9 - no relevant qualifcations at all beyond GCSE, just general interest, but the agency never asked for proof of the ones I had anyway. Suspect it's harder to get into nowadays and agencies require CRB checks, but if you have the knowledge then secondary school level kids parents might be interested anyway?

Only other idea is checking whether you could move to a better mortgage rate, although there don't seem to be the discounts there used to be.

Actually toja555 I take it back, I've had a couple of invites today which relate to people working in finance.

One email says ...

"We have a number of face to face and also telephone interviews to set up with the financial/ banking decision makers in companies ranging from £100k to £5 million turnover. All must be doing either some importing, exporting or both."

The other is for FDs.

CAT me your email address if either are of interest and I'll forward them over.

lowrib, it is [email protected], I would be grateful!

hello

can I resurrect this thread? We are a bit strapped for cash atm and I have just read the fab suggestions.

I have registered on retaileyes. Maybe I could do the odd thing at lunchtime...

Is anyone else just starting up mystery shopping? How are you getting on?

Hi, I am back here. Have made £0 so far :/ Have registered with several research companies, but have not heard back. Missed a couple of calls with withheld number, which could have been calls from those research agencies, but I will never know. Missed 4 mystery shopping assignments as could not login into mystery shopping website immediately and someone else has taken them. Placed a babysitting ad somewhere and only received one enquiry by email, that is it.
I need to work harder on this? much harder?

toja555 have you had any emails from the research companies at all?

lowrib, I receive quite a few emails from several companies which I reply to if I feel that I meet criterias. Then I also apply for focus groups on research companies' websites. To be honest, nothing so far. Maybe because I am not British national? Hmm...

toja - Have you thought about doing babysitting with some sort of 'add-on'?

I've often thought when our babysitter arrives, how much I'd like to say to her "If I give you an extra couple of quid will you do the ironing?"

Or declutter this kitchen cupboard...

Whippet, actually yes, I advertised on one website but got only one email enquiry so far. I might need to start to be more pro-active and learn how to sell myself (not really my stuff, but...)

If you have time, online surveys can bring in the equivalent of a few pounds a day though most pay in vouchers. It is a slog to start but when you get the hang of them, you can do a 30 minute survey in 5-10 minutes.

If you can find an extra room, get in a lodger.