Looking for ways to make additional income. Yes, I know everyone is looking to do this, but wanted to ask the B & I board what they have had success doing. Rent house, stock trading, side business, etc.?

Stock Market: ETFs and Mutual funds with dividends reinvested. (in for the long run, no stock trading)

Real Estate: very small percentages of acres of land in East Texas that have oil and gas. (Thankful to inherent these)

Side "business": I was selling equine tack that I made out of paracord. I wasn't making much, but it's more of a hobby that paid for itself and a little more. Margins were awesome though.

Other Real Estate: I bought the trashed lot next to my house and cleaned it up. Going to sell it, and the profit will go toward buying and cleaning up another lot. Just going to keep that train rolling.

I'd be interested to see what other's have to say as well.

None of these are ground breaking, but this is what I do every year for extra income. Im always looking for quick and easy ways to make money on the side, while also focusing on increasing compensation from my main job via promotions or switching jobs. I read somewhere that your typical multi-millionaire has on average 7 streams of income coming in, so I've always kept that in the back of my mind as a goal. My main goal is to eventually have enough side income to pay for my monthly bills and living expenses, and then just save entire base salary and bonuses from my full time job.

Dividend income from stocks/mutual funds = $9-10k/year (and growing)
Driving for Uber = $4-5k/year
Focus Groups = $3-4k/year
Signing up for credit card and bank bonuses = $2-3k per year in cash and free flights/hotels/travel
Random easy side jobs found on craigslist or with friends = $1-2k/year

I still run my law firm part-time on nights and weekends for transactional work. Made a decent amount of coin this year and looks to increase next year if I land an advisory attorney position with a law firm.

Tree doctor. $10k / day.

To be clear: this is not me. But really got me thinking.

diehard03 said:

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Driving for Uber = $4-5k/year

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Doesn't this eventually lose money due to maintenance and taxes?

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You won't lose money, but it does drop significantly if you don't structure it properly.

diehard03 said:

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Driving for Uber = $4-5k/year

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Doesn't this eventually lose money due to maintenance and taxes?

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If you own your car outright with no car note, and drive a used economical vehicle like a Corolla/Camry then you will come out ahead if you drive part-time. If you finance a brand new Suburban or Truck with a hefty car note and want to drive for uber full time, then you will lose money or break even.

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If you own your car outright with no car note, and drive a used economical vehicle like a Corolla/Camry then you will come out ahead if you drive part-time.

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It also seems that you need to be pretty protective of your time and that's where the "full timers" get into trouble.

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Side "business": I was selling equine tack that I made out of paracord. I wasn't making much, but it's more of a hobby that paid for itself and a little more. Margins were awesome though.

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I like this with some extra effort in marketing.

pick a corner and stick with it

Oak Wilt Specialists were among the first to get into the treatment business, & they do it very well. They also benefitted from an explosion in Oak Wilt due to rapid growth of the Austin area. Now the market is flooded with more folks doing exactly what he did... market share has gone down.
It's a pipe dream to think you could be that successful doing that as a side gig. Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment, dozens of employees, workman's comp, insurance...

Another vote for low cost index funds as side hustle. It's literally no work but made 100k in returns YTD.

OasisMan said:

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sockerton said:

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Another vote for low cost index funds as side hustle. It's literally no work but made 100k in returns YTD.

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not everyone has 1+mil set aside in mutual funds (assuming at least 10% return!)

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Agreed!

Lol not quite a mill but the trump bump helped. If the big correction ever comes it would hurt.

I would look into selling Tradelines. It is about as easy as it gets for doing next to nothing. The only catch is you need credit cards, the older and the higher the credit limit the better.

jtraggie99 said:

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I would look into selling Tradelines. It is about as easy as it gets for doing next to nothing. The only catch is you need credit cards, the older and the higher the credit limit the better.

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news to me sounds very interesting, can you recommend a company to go through with this?

Seems flimsy AF

EliteZags said:

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jtraggie99 said:

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I would look into selling Tradelines. It is about as easy as it gets for doing next to nothing. The only catch is you need credit cards, the older and the higher the credit limit the better.

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news to me sounds very interesting, can you recommend a company to go through with this?

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I started working with this one a few months ago and they've been the best so far: https://www.boostmyscore.net/. You are welcome to send me any messages if you have any questions.

There is another one that I have used for over a year now, but then tend to only take cards with very high credit limits and my sales with them have been sporadic at best.

aggie_wes said:

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Seems flimsy AF

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I'm sure some here would find it sketchy, but it's perfectly legal. Is it ethical? Well, you are allowing people to artificially boost there credit score by piggybacking off your good credit, so I guess that is an individual's call. As any of the companies will tell you, the biggest risk is getting your credit card shut down by the creditor. But, I have cards I use on a regular basis and that has not happened yet. And they are all cards that it would not matter to me if they got shut down. I usually make at least a few hundred a month for what amounts to probably less than an hour of my time. As far as side jobs go, it's easy money.

I'd love to hear more about your experience. Just recently started churning credit cards, so I have several accounts that meet the criteria. What's an average payment look like, who do you bank with, ever had a card shut down etc.

mneisch said:

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I'd love to hear more about your experience. Just recently started churning credit cards, so I have several accounts that meet the criteria. What's an average payment look like, who do you bank with, ever had a card shut down etc.

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Payments vary by company and are based on the age of the credit card and the credit limit. The older the card and the higher the credit limit the more they will pay you. I have 5 cards I currently use, 3 with Citi and 2 with Capital One. The oldest is almost 5 years and the newest is less than a year, with credit limits ranging from 5K to 17K. The payments with one company for those cards range from $45 - $120 per AU, and most cards will let you add from 2 to 4 AU's at a time. So far I have not had anything shut down. I have multiple cards with other banks (Chase, USAA, AMEX, etc), but they are all cards I use off and on for rewards and points, and they are accounts I do not want to risk getting shut down. Bottom line, do not use any card for this that you would not be ok with getting shut down.

Good info, thanks. I have one old (5+ years) with Chase that would be perfect for this. I never use it but don't want to close it for credit history purposes. I have another one coming up on 2 years in February that will get downgraded and phased out of actual use in order to qualify for a new sign up bonus. Both have around a 20K credit limit.

so does it matter if you're selling AU's off cards you are using to some degree (obvs not close to the limit), I only hold 3 total Chase/Amex/Citi all pretty well aged with $15K+ limits but only use the Amex and Citi heavily (~1K/month each if that)
is it tougher to do with major bank cards like that and is risk mitigated by having fewer AU's at one time? ie would I be relatively safe having like 3 on my Chase and 1 each on the Amex/Citi?

also have you opened cards exclusively to do this with or are these all ones you had but weren't actively using?

EliteZags said:

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so does it matter if you're selling AU's off cards you are using to some degree (obvs not close to the limit), I only hold 3 total Chase/Amex/Citi all pretty well aged with $15K+ limits but only use the Amex and Citi heavily (~1K/month each if that)
is it tougher to do with major bank cards like that and is risk mitigated by having fewer AU's at one time? ie would I be relatively safe having like 3 on my Chase and 1 each on the Amex/Citi?

also have you opened cards exclusively to do this with or are these all ones you had but weren't actively using?

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They typically ask that you keep balances below 10%. You need to use the cards regularly so they report to the credit bureaus regularly, but whatever spend keep it below 10%. If you spend more than that and that gets reported as the balance, it can have the opposite of the desired affect.

And no, I never opened cards specifically for this. I just use cards that I opened in the past for one reason or another and do not really use much any longer.

Also, I would be careful with Chase. I have read that they are beginning to monitor for this type of activity more closely and people sometimes get shut down (more often it seems than other banks). But once again, do not use anything you would not be ok with getting shut down.

Lastly, I have had as many as 4 at one time on some of my Citi cards and nothing adverse has happened yet. That could always change though.

thx, and I assume it's a must to cash out all earned rewards for any card before starting this


also do you know if the site you use does identify verification on all their AU's and doesn't accept CPNs, and does it track all activity on your account through the site or do you also track separately on spreadsheets on your own?

What are they asking? I imagine this isn't something like a 5x earnings type sale. Maybe not even 1x.

I have a travel blog that brings in a few hundred/month from ad sales and usually a few thousand in affiliate commissions this time of year and a photography side business that brings in $20k/year. Only thing is very little of it is automated, so putting all that on top of a very demanding full time job is really stressing me out.

EliteZags said:

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thx, and I assume it's a must to cash out all earned rewards for any card before starting this


also do you know if the site you use does identify verification on all their AU's and doesn't accept CPNs, and does it track all activity on your account through the site or do you also track separately on spreadsheets on your own?

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I haven't really thought about the rewards. You would need to check with your rewards program. For example, if you have one card with Chase and you are using that card and you have rewards with Chase and that account gets closed, what happens to the rewards? I do not know the answer to that. If they are attached to a hotel or airline or something, then they go to that and it's no problem. The banks own reward program like AMEX MR or Chase UR, I do not know.

I know they all vet their AU applicants and go through some identity verification. They pull their credit report and whatnot, and, after all, these are people who are trying to improve their credit in theory (which would entail using their actual SS and not a CPN). Some of the tradeline website portals are better than others, but they all track your sales and what needs to be added to where, what AU's are on what cards, etc, etc. They notify you that you have a sale, you log onto their portal and into your account. From their they provide the AU info (name, SS, DOB) so you can add them to your account. And then they notify you when to remove (usually 2 to 3 months). Also, as a side note, you are basically a 1099 employee so they do not withhold taxes.