You know those random odd ball jobs that you work just to make a bit of extra cash? Well I’ve worked 5 of them and counting. Some may call me crazy (or desperate or broke), but I prefer to consider myself resourceful.
Here they are:
1. Marketing & Communications Assistant
When I was in my fourth year of University, I was saving for my first big backpacking trip. My parents paid for my tuition, books, food, and housing so I didn’t need to do much to earn extra cash, but I needed something. I wanted something that interfered with my social life as little as possible, so I applied for a $10 an hour job with the Career Services department at the university, where I worked with them for 3 hours twice a week, and I was mostly responsible for sending out event updates to students in different faculties. Truth is, it doesn’t take 6 hours in a week to send out newsletter content, so I would arrive, eat my lunch while checking social media, do all of my tasks that needed to be done in less than an hour, check my email, and then do my homework until my shift was over. I didn’t find this job overly fulfilling, but it did help me save a couple thousand dollars for my backpacking trip.
2. Events Marketing
When Ryan and I returned from our first backpacking trip, I was broke. Like owed my parents $1,500 broke. I needed a job ASAP, but I was new to the working world and had no idea how to convince someone that they should hire me. I also had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, so I was applying for everything and anything.
While on some job website, I came across this “events marketing” company and applied for an opportunity. They called me immediately, hired me, and within 24 hours someone had dropped off thousands of cardboard cutouts that I had to fold together to make stands for fliers for the walk for MS.
So, I spent my first few days as an employed young professional sitting on the living room floor of Ryan and I’s first apartment, watching TV and putting together cardboard stands for fliers.
It gets better.
Then, I put them all in my car and drove around the city placing the stands filled with fliers in the locations that were assigned to me. Part of my job was to ask if I could put them up and get it signed off, but after my first round, it was pretty clear that my supervisor actually didn’t care if anyone signed off on it or not. I was clearly taking this job WAY too seriously.
Fortunately, I got hired for a different (more legit) job pretty quickly after I started this events marketing job, and only ended up working for them for a month. But, the events marketing job paid my first month’s bills and helped get back on my feet.
3. Server
Ryan and I decided that we were going to quit our jobs and travel South America nearly a year out from when we actually left. Once the plan was in place I started saving like a crazy person. I put myself on a strict budget, and started selling clothes and extra things that I didn’t use. I was working a job with a good salary and good benefits so I was in a good place to save enough money for our trip.
One day at work, I was telling my coworker about my plans to save extra money and she asked if I wanted a part-time serving job at a hotel in downtown Calgary. I had 0 serving experience, but I said “yes” anyway. I forwarded her my resume and within a week I had a serving gig 1-2 times/week at a restaurant/ bar of a hotel in downtown Calgary.
When I first started, I was amazed by how challenging serving is. My experienced changed my entire perspective on the serving industry, and because of this, I think that everyone should serve at sometime in their lives.
I liked the job because it paid well. Although I only made $10/hour, my tips were really good, and on the average Tuesday night, I would make upwards of $200 in cash. The serving job was paying for my groceries and my social life, allowing me to put most of my salaried income towards South America.
The unfortunate side of the job was that the management was really poor. The hotel manager was in poor health and almost never there and the schedule was constantly disorganized because of part-time servers like me who had other jobs and were there just for the money. So, after 4 months of working there, I was let go.
Not only is this my first and only serving job to date, it’s also the only time I’ve been let go. Both of those were valuable experiences to professional and personal growth.
4. Focus Group Participant
You know those random companies that will pay you to come sit for a couple hours in a room with a bunch of strangers and answer questions about a product and then they pay you? I had a brief foray in that.
I participated in 2 research groups in Calgary and 2 in Atlanta. I did one on oil and gas advertising, one on taxis in Calgary, one on a new wet toilet paper contraption (by far the most interesting), and one on grocery store consumption. Each of them took about 2 hours and paid me between $100-$200. Best part is that they always have free snacks and coffee!
5. Banquet Check-in Person
One of my good friends used to work for an event planning company and every year around Christmas they would be looking for people to do the check-in for the parties. At first I was hesitant, but then she told me that each event paid $100-$250 for less than 5 hours of menial labor AND dinner was included.
All I had to do was show up looking nice, greet people pleasantly, and stand and check them in all night. It was one of the best part-time gigs I’ve ever worked!
6. Online English Teacher
It’s been nearly 4 years since I quit my last salaried, corporate job and just over 2 years since I had my last consistently paying job. I am making steady income, but my pay is inconsistent month to month. Being in Asia last year was helpful because we were able to live a lot more affordably… until we went to Japan. I knew that Japan was out of my budget, but I still wanted to make it happen, so I went into a tiny bit of debt to do so.
If you haven’t figured this out already, I have a track record of finding random opportunities to make money when I need it, and this time was no different. I have a few travel blogger / digital nomad friends who work for a Chinese company called VIPKID, where you teach English online to kids in China. Ryan and I had interviewed our friends about their experience and it sounded like a pretty chill way to make some money so I decided to apply.
Being a native speaker from Canada, I easily made it past the first 2 rounds of interviews, but on the 3rd round I had to teach a class and I was totally unprepared and failed miserably. After some prep tips from my friend who works for the company, I re-applied and got in, and have been successfully teaching kids in China English for the last 6 months.
Side note: If you speak English and need an easy side hustle to make some extra cash, this is a great gig! Check it out here.
Why am I sharing this? Because it’s important to remember that there are always ways to make money; they will probably not be glamorous, but they will pay the bills.