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birb_cromble  1mo ago (text post)   738 thread views

Weekly Finance Thread - 2026-07-18

A weekly thread to discuss financial matters - from personal all the way up to global.

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Do any of you have any side jobs or gigs that you do? Do they earn any positive income?

I play in a band, and just for giggles I did the math on today's take. I think that after travel costs, I probably made about $3 an hour. It's still a fun hobby that basically funds itself, but I won't be quitting my day job anytime soon.

A few close friends that live near major US cities do photography/videography as a side gig and seem to make decent money. As you'd expect, the pay range is fairly wide:

  • one friend who lives near NYC has approx. 5 years of semi-professional experience, and does shoots for established small businesses (real estate developers, restaurants, etc.) I think he charges several thousand dollars (no more than $10k) for a day of shooting + the editing afterwards. He seems to enjoy it.

  • another friend, near LA, with approx. 1.5 years of semi-pro experience, does smaller shoots - parties, graduations, maternity shoots - and I'd estimate that she charges around 500 bucks for an afternoon (usually something like 4 hours) + editing. For her, it's an enjoyable hobby that happens to make money. No plans to go full-time, as far as I know.

There's an up-front gear investment, and cameras can get expensive, but I'm sure there are entry-level options for less than $500.

I used to resell things on ebay. Product acquisition was mostly automated through bots, so packing and shipping out orders was the most time consuming thing, perhaps ~8 hours/week. Profits would vary a lot, but average would be around $2.5k per month. Pretty easy and brainless stuff, but often times inventory would sit for a few weeks/months taking up a lot of space, so it got annoying.

My Substack buys me a few cups of coffee every month.

I sold a few digital and vinyl copies of my last album (not enough to break even on the recording costs, although fortunately the label paid for the vinyl pressing).

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