Oddjobbing for extra income

The odd job here and there boosts your bank balance!

The very first thing before taking any 'odd jobbing' work on is to be honest with both the customer and yourself.
If you take on a job which goes wrong, you'll either be losing money by going back to correct it, paying someone else to go back and do it for you or get sued !!

So if you're asked to, say, put a laminate floor down for someone, then say to them you haven't done it before or you have but on a smaller scale but you feel confident of doing the work. That way, they know the score and at the end of the day, they are using you to save themselves lots of money by not having a contractor do it.

There are loads of things you've probably made a really good job of at home and could make yourself available for. Things like plumbing in a washing machine, general decorating work, assembling units, putting up shelving besides the garden work already looked at.
Also, the more you're doing these jobs, the better you are getting at them !

Once again, the thing about charging a set amount or 'by the hour' comes in. If you are known not to overcharge you can charge the hourly rate and be quite happy with that. Normally you will still be under the charge of a lot of people and it gives you room for manouvre.
If you look at for instance an assembling kitchen units job, think to yourself 'that's a days' work, then find that the wall sticks out behind causing you a lot of extra time, you could lose out.

Tend to say you'll charge the hourly rate, but will relook at it if you think it's adversly affecting them, not you.

Odd jobbing is good and you have many strings to your bow, but remember a lot of time can be spent travelling around and getting rid of the rubbish at the end of a job.
Look on the net and local papers to see if you can get an idea of what other people charge and go from there.

You may find you are doing jobs you just don't like doing. If you have a lot of jobs going and the others are both more lucrative and positive for your state of mind, don't do the one's you don't like doing anymore - turn them down.
It's a bit like pruning a tree, get rid of all the dead wood and unattractive bits which will enable the better bits to grow into full bloom.

Are we 'wasting our talents' ? If we have some and are good enough at them - why not get something back from it !

_________________

Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it. Dalai Lama

_________________

_________________

The Downshifter Web Site contains Cookies - Please read our Privacy & Cookie Policy here