Money Watch – Personal Finance Blog

Looking after your personal finances is essentially very simple; spend less than you earn, and you won’t go too far wrong.

But if you’re finding things tough and need extra money, there are two ways to achieve this; saving money wherever you can, or earning more, and one of the best and most satisfying ways to earn more is by turning your hobby into a job.

I’ve done it – building websites was something I learned in my sapre time at University, it’s a skill that can be used in many ways, and eventually led to me starting this blog. Whilst this blog doesn’t earn me much money, the skills learned can be used to build sites for others for a fee – some nice added income for me.

A friend of mine recently decided to turn her photography hobby into a new income source by becoming a wedding photographer. It’s something she’s enjoyed doing for a while, but now she’d like to earn some extra income, it makes sense for her to  earn money doing something she loves.

Here are a few other random ideas for turning a hobby into extra income:

• Start an online shop – if you’re good at crafts, art or generally creating certain interesting stuff, why not start an online shop to sell them? You could start simply by using eBay and then move up to a proper eCommerce Shop if you find there’s a good market for your item.
• Sports – if you enjoy sports, could you start a sports club or do some coaching? 
• DIY – enjoy doing DIY? Why not start doing jobs for people at weekends? You could also do decorating, gardening, mowing lawns etc.
• Washing / Ironing / Cleaning – are you a complete masochist who enjoys cleaning and ironing etc? There will be loads of people who would like someone to do these things for them.
• Writing – everyone is meant to have a book in them somewhere, but if you haven’t got the creativity to come up with a intruiging plot and dialogue, why not start a blog on a subject you’re passionate about?  Using a free service such as WordPress or Blogger it’s quick and easy to get started, and you can start to make money by including advertising and affiliate deals on the site. It’s not something you can expect to start paying off immediately, but with a few months work you will hopefully start to see a little advertising income trickle in. You may also be able to write for a blog network and get paid for every blog post you write.
• Photography – there’s the usual wedding photography route you could take, but there’s also a growing market for stock photography on the web. You can sell photos on sites like IStockPhoto.com and you’ll get paid every time someone uses your photo.
• Music – are you good at a particular instrument? Why not teach others?

One quick word of warning: make sure you’re paying any necessary tax on your earnings if you start earning from your hobby.

Have you turned your hobby into an extra source of income? Or do you have a hobby you’d like to make money from but aren’t sure how to? Let us know in the comments and we’ll try to help out with a few ideas.