I don’t know why everyone calls it “9 to 5″. Here it is usually “9 to at least 6″ with one hour lunch break if you are lucky to get it. Anyway, I am not going to argue about the exact duration of the typical working day – I prefer to talk about its alternatives.

Photo by Jele! at Flickr

A Quick Introduction

I left the typical corporate world in 2003 when I was fired from the last company I worked for as a prepress specialist. (They called it “laying off”, but I know it was firing because we couldn’t bear each other personally.) Currently I am an independent IT consultant working remotely and I am doing some small web projects on the side. Since the time I don’t spend my day in a typical office environment, I have discovered my productivity to increase and am definitely feeling better.

This post is not about leaving your job and running your business, although this is one of the most valuable options. This post is about not working in the typical “9 to 5″ mode – and some of the options below will let you do it even with a regular job. Most people think they hate their job, but that’s not the real problem. If you have taken long vacations you know that – people are born to be engaged with something and don’t feel comfortable if they have nothing to do. So having work isn’t your real enemy. What really troubles you are the fixed working hours, the sterile office environment and the boss who is walking around all the day.

Starting Own Business

If you choose this way of escaping 9 to 5 you’ll need some initial capital and you will need to risk it. Prepare to work harder than you work in the day job at least in the beginning. Many people who start their own business don’t understand when is the time to stop working so hard so they keep doing it forever.

It’s a mistake to think that starting your own business is the wholly grail of financial success. It’s only one of the ways to escape from the cubicle and this way is not appropriate for everyone. Starting own business is often harder and riskier than the other ways you can take. A lot of people fail, and a lot of these who succeed don’t really own a business, but let the business own them.

I don’t mean to discourage you however. Running a business – if done successfully – is much shorter to financial freedom than passive investing for example.

Online Business

Online business is just a business but the difference is in the way it can be started. There is almost no real world business that can be started with just one computer, internet connection and $8 for a domain name. In most cases you can do it even without incorporating (although this can cause you a trouble in some countries).

The low entry and the global character of the online business causes a lot of competition. The portion of web sites who fail to bring profits higher than the costs of the domain name (not to count the hours of work invested) is probably more than 99%. Such ratio would be a disaster in the real world but it justifies the lower amounts you risk and is considered OK online. However it shows that running an online business is not as easy as many “gurus” want you to believe.

Freelancing and Consulting

A less riskier 9 to 5 alternative is doing what you do now, but without having a boss. Just skip the company and work directly with the customers usually from your home office or at customer’s place (that really depend on the kind of job you are doing).

Freelancing and consulting doesn’t require big capital – I remember starting with $0 – but investing a bit in a website, incorporation and paying for some service that can bring you quality customers certainly helps.

On the risk scale freelancing and consulting is somewhere between running a business and telecommuting which is discussed below.

Telework and Telecommuting

If you have been a typical 9 to 5 person for years you are most likely to like telecommuting most of all the ways you can take – because it combines the [false] security of having a job with the comfort to work from home and see the eyes of your boss no more often than 1-2 times monthly (in most cases).

I have a lot of reasons to believe that telecommuting is the business model of the future but it will take a while before most company CEOs “get it”. Until then you may need to leave your current job first and replace it with such in a company that is open to teleworkers. You may get surprised on how many they are especially if you are in IT or a creative field.

Working Part Time

When switching to part time job you will have to solve a big dilemma – do you want more money or more time. If you have a high paying job now or have used to live frugally it will be much easier to switch to a part time job.

I am sure you will be more than happy to work half day, but the real question is not whether you can find such a job (you can even if you have to change the field), but whether you make enough per hour to afford working less hours.

Besides being a great way to break 9 to 5 pattern, working part time gives you one more advantage as opposed to most of the other options. You may use the extra free time to enjoy life or to try running own business, online business or freelancing. This is really a great low risk method to try going on your own without losing the regular job income.

Choosing a Mobile Profession

Finally, choosing a mobile profession like a contractor, insurance agent, realtor, PR, journalist, sportsman, landscape designer, farmer etc. – just to name a few of the many – can offer you a lifestyle very different to the standard 9 to 5. Don’t forget however that each of these jobs has its disadvantages. They may all look attractive from your bored office-self, but the reality isn’t always so bright.

A general change in the profession is much easier when you are in your early 20, but you can do it even if you are 40+ – don’t let fear and conventional thinking put you off your ideas and desires.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with 9 to 5 in general – it’s just fine for a lot of people. If you ask an average low qualified farm or factory worker if they want to work from 9 to 5 in a comfortable office, the answer will most probably be yes. In the past all people have dreamed about such a job. But now there are a lot of people (like you?) who just hate fixed working hours and the smell of an office. If you are one of these souls ask yourself why do you go everyday to a job that you hate, when there are so many alternatives.

What’s the best way to earn alternative income? The simple answer is that it is different for different people – but I know this answer doesn’t help you much. A better answer is that the best way to earn alternative income is through doing something that you enjoy.

Photo by ralphbijker at Flickr

A lot of people seem to enjoy playing with their digital cameras and some are pretty good in doing that – and I want to share few ways to earn income while doing it. Making illustrations usually requires more effort and some talent but making money from them is similar to the other two, so I will talk about illustrations as well.

Alternative Income From Selling Photos

If you enjoy taking pictures this can be a great source of alternative income for you. If you are able to make high quality digital photos, you can try to sell them online. Doing so might be easier than you think.

The straightforward way to do it is to sign up in websites which sell royalty free photos. Usually they will provide you with a platform to upload your photos and will put them in the front of thousands customers. In exchange you have to share the profits from the photos you sold.For example on 123 Royalty Free you will receive 50% of the sale price of each of your photos. The price of the photos is defined from the site and you cannot set yours. The prices are also quite low (I buy web-sized photos for my web projects for $1 – $2. Photos with print quality are more expensive). But note that each photo can be sold many times and in many sizes. So if you want to make $1,000 this doesn’t mean you should sell 1000 different photos. You can make that much with just one picture. The “catch” is that your photo must be good enough to make people buy it.

Other way to profit from making photographs is to freelance (more about freelancing). Most freelance marketplaces have some photography related options but Guru has a special section about photography and videography with many active projects.

You can also set up your own store for selling your photos. The advantage is that you don’t need to share your profits with anyone. You can set your own prices and define high prices for photos that will be sold only once. The problems with this method to earn alternative income from photos are mostly two:

• Development of your photo store may cost you a lot of money or at least time.
• It’s harder to get found by customers compared to submitting photos in 123 Royalty Free and similar sites. You have to work hard on search engine optimization and promotion in order to get buyers.

One great way to attract buyers for your own photo store is by publishing free images on Flickr. Flickr lets your photos be noticed by a lot of people who look for free pictures for their blog posts for example. Many of these people are also interested in buying, so they can go to your photo store following your Flickr profile link.

And one hint: Don’t spend thousands on expensive photography equipment. A decent middle class camera is OK for the beginning. Better spend your money to travel and visit places where you can make good photographs. Everyone can make photos with a good camera – this is not what makes the good photographer.

Alternative Income From Selling Videos

Selling videos is a bit harder. People don’t usually look for videos for their websites in the same way they look for images. Most people need custom videos. These who want a video to illustrate a blog post may not need custom ones, but then they would go and link videos for free from YouTube.

You can try your luck at CreateSpace where you can sell a lot more than videos. But as you will see there are special requirements and you have less freedom and probably lesser market than with selling photos.

Of course you always have the freelancing option. Again on Guru there is a special section for videography projects. Many other freelance hubs also have video recording and video editing work.

The smarter way to earn from videos is indirect. As much as YouTube hurts you by offering millions of videos for free, it also helps you because you can put some of your videos in the front of million eyes. By recording a good video you can advertise a product or service – just have a link in the description or display your website address in the beginning and in the end of the video. Hint: don’t make your video look like an advertising itself – only really interesting, sexy, funny or really useful videos “make it” on YouTube.

Alternative Income From Selling Illustrations

If you are good in drawing, you have the chance to make more money than the photo/video fellows. No offense to photographers, but making a quality illustration is harder than making a quality photo. That’s why there are much less people who try to sell great drawings online than those who sell great photos – therefore you have less competition and can earn more.

There are many sites where you can sell your art – for example Yessy. If you are good in making clipart images, Crafty Clipart is one site where you can sell them and get 50% of the profits. The business model is the same like the first one in photos section.

If you want to work on freelance drawing projects, there is probably more work for you – not only Guru, but also Elance and other big freelance hubs have special sections about illustrations and design.

For selling on your own site or making indirect profits you can again use Flickr with quite good results – there are much less illustrations available there than photos. So the chances your good illustrations to be noticed and then the user to land on your site or blog are much better.

Since this short article can’t cover all the details about earning income from photos, videos and drawings, I would recommend you to search for more information. Certainly each of these methods is good to earn alternative income – many people even make living by selling photos, videos and/or illustrations.

Wealth does not equal money but we often mess both. We say “make money” instead of “make wealth” and we use the work for money, not for wealth. This is probably the reason why very few people think about do-it-yourself projects as a source of alternative income.

Photo by M J M at Flickr

Why Doing Things Yourself IS Alternative Income

Because when you create or fix things you are adding to your wealth. If you grow vegetables in your garden or fix your car, you are adding to your wealth. Since you are not earning money directly it may be harder to measure your income, but it’s still there.

In fact when you do things yourself you are producing income (wealth) in more direct way than when you work for money. The money is just a medium, so if you earn money you don’t immediately increase your wealth. That happens only after you use the money. Having millions of dollars in your bank account doesn’t make you rich, because you could eventually lose them all in Vegas tomorrow. With do-it-yourself you are building your wealth in the most direct and the least resource-wasting way, because there are no mediums.

Of course, that’s the theory. In practice only few do it yourself projects make sense.

When Doing Thinks Yourself Makes Sense?

It would be crazy if I was advocating to do everything yourself. In fact people in the ancient age have done everything themselves, and you know they didn’t live well at all.

Sure, you could buy books, learn and build your car completely from scratch. The indisputable effect of this would be that you would have a car for free and thus saved the money for purchasing one. But how much time would you have spent building it and what would be the quality of such a car? No doubt, such a do it yourself project does not make sense at all.

Doing things yourself is profitable when you are more effective in producing wealth directly than you are when using money as a medium. In theory, everyone should just do what they are best at and buy other stuff from the people who are best in that. This is the way the modern economy functions and if it was ideal there would be no point in doing things yourself.

In reality there are factors which make do-it-yourself projects a considerable option for earning alternative income:

• People are good in more than one thing. Fortunately we have not turned in the robots that the modern society probably wants us to be. We may be specialized at work, but there are more things that people do great. For example only a very small percentage of people are professional cooks but many of us cook well and like to cook things at home.
• People have different passions. Very often what we work for money is not exactly the thing we are most passionate about. Sometimes we just enjoy doing things but we don’t do them for money. Measuring passion as a factor which makes a do-it-yourself project lucrative is hard but the factor exists.
• The items we buy are overpriced. When you buy stuff from the groceries you pay a lot more than the real cost of the item. You pay profit for the producer, transportation costs, storage costs, reseller profits, advertising, packaging, taxes/vat, insurance and more. For some items, like a computer for example these things are probably too small compared to the tremendous research/innovation/engineering value in the item that you can hardly reproduce yourself. But when you are buying a tomato and its real cost is just 10% of its price, you may think about growing the tomato yourself.

There are several important questions that you must ask yourself before involving into a do it yourself project:

• Do you enjoy or at least not hate the activities required. Emotional benefits and costs are hard to measure, but if you hate woodworking, don’t build a shed yourself.
• Are you good in what is required for your do it yourself project. If you are truly pathetic in something, face the reality and leave it to professionals.
• How much is your time worth and can you use this time to earn money? If for one hour of your time you earn $20 and making a stool yourself will take you 50 hours, it may be a bad idea to make a stool yourself. You’ll find one for much less than $1,000. However such simple equation is valid only if you can and want to earn money with your main activity in the time you could spend for the do it yourself project. Many people work fixed hours for a fixed salary. In such case even a do it yourself project which “pays you” much less than your hourly rate might make sense, because you are saving money and adding wealth.

There are really complex factors to consider when evaluating the use of a do it yourself project. Although all things you do yourself add to your wealth, not all of them will be efficient.

Do It Yourself Ideas

Considering the above factors, what kind of do it yourself projects will make sense to you? I can only guess, so I’m leaving for you to choose. Here are some ideas:

• Do it yourself home improvements. This activity is very popular among everyone. Only you know best how you want your home to look like and considering the prices of such services, doing home improvements yourself is worth it very often – especially if you have skilful hands.
• Do it yourself website. For people like me it makes a lot more sense to do a website ourselves rather than paying for it to someone. But if you are not a techie and have no idea what is all about, you’ll need a lot of time to create your small business website yourself and chances are it will suck.
• Do it yourself auto repair. Once again it all depends on your expertise and willing to lie under the car.
• Do it yourself crafts and gifts. Hand-made crafts and gifts are very valuable and an excellent way to add to your wealth. Again, you need skilful hands.
• Growing food yourself. If you have a garden, growing fruits and vegetables is pretty easy thing to do. Your own food is not only an addition to your budget (again thinking wealth, not money) but also a way to be sure in the quality of the food.

There are a lot more things you could do yourself, the question is when it’s economically efficient and when it’s better to just buy or purchase.

The best thing about do it yourself, which makes it better compared to earning alternative income by freelancing is that you are your own customer. The chances to satisfy yourself are better and the risk of not receiving the wealth (think not being paid when freelancing) is smaller.

The most straightforward method to earn supplemental income is through doing some extra work. I don’t advocate it as being the best, but it’s one of the least risky and most predictable things you can do.

I know most people in personal finance say “don’t work for money, make your money work for you” and I fully support this position. But that’s easier said than done. If your income barely covers your expense, you have a little chance to succeed by passive investing.

Photo by arimoore at Flickr

So let’s get down to Earth and explore how you can really make some money.

Are your skills good for freelancing?

Almost every job out there can be done part time and outside of a company. But you’ll have much easier time if your profession is within the following areas:

• Creative – all kind of designers, copywriters, musicians, fashion folks, illustrators, photographers etc
• IT – programmers, software engineers, web developers, support services, SEO experts etc. This is the hugest field in freelancing. If you have a job in IT and you have never freelanced, you are missing a lot of opportunities
• Marketing – all kind of sales staff, marketing specials, statistical experts etc
• Finance and accounting – everyone who knows their stuff goes here
• Business consulting – managers, consultants, HR etc
• Legal – lawyers and everyone who is qualified to give legal advice
• Engineering – architects, CAD/CAM specialists, automation engineers etc
• Medical – in most countries doctors can do freelance
• Educations – teachers, instructors etc
• Transportation – drivers, mechanics etc
• Physical work – gardeners, baby sitters, construction workers and so on

It covers pretty much everything. Maybe only the government servants will have harder time finding freelance opportunities. Is your profession not included? Let me know to think together.

Finding freelance work

There are many different strategies for finding freelance work. If there is enough interest in this topic, I will elaborate them in further posts. For now, let me just outline:

1. Finding work locally Networking with friends and relatives you can find clients for your services in your local area. In the business world the word of mouth is one of the most powerful tools for generating sales. So kindly ask your friends to tell their friends and relatives that you are providing some service (giving legal advice, fixing washing machines, making websites, creating logos or whatever). Using the network effect you can find really a lot of customers. If needed, offer your service for free the first few times and give your best to do it good. Then the world will spread better.

2. Finding work worldwide If you are doing a mental work and especially if you are in the IT sphere, you have one huge advantage against everyone else. You can freelance remotely through Internet all over the world. There are forums, freelance bidding sites, auction sites, job boards and many options for finding jobs.

If you want to explore this option have a look at FreelanceSwitch’s monster list of freelance sites.

One disadvantage when freelancing online is that you’ll have to deal with competition from countries with low standards. Instead of trying to beat them in price, try to brand yourself and offer quality. That’s another huge topic which can be explored further.

3. Getting the work find you When you are bidding on a freelance auction or contacting a potential buyer though another channel, you are in the position of the interested party. The buyer is the one who defines the rules. He or she may have tens of others potential candidates to choose from.

When the buyers approach you, the things are entirely different. They already have decided that they would like to use your services for one or another reason. You have the chance to set a higher rate and your rules.

Getting to this position is the harder part. You’ll need to work first for your name before letting the name work for you. One thing that’s going to help you is of course word of mouth from past customers. But online you would want to attract a wider market. So you’ll have to make yourself noticeable. How? By establishing name – writing a popular blog, offering freebies, writing a book, getting interviewed, getting your site found by the search engine, having a popular product… Again we have a lot of things to explore further.

Getting Paid

If you have been an employee most of your life you have probably get used to be paid on time and without troubles. When you enter the world of business, even just through freelancing you may experience some issues with delayed payments, discontent clients who don’t want to pay or simply cheaters.

That’s why you need to be extra careful about getting your payment when freelancing. You may need a written contract, sometimes partial payments as the work progress or using an escrow service like Escrow.com.

Growing Further And Using The Money

A mistake many people do is to start freelancing for extra money that are then spend on shopping. There is nothing wrong with spending some money, but if you are freelancing this way you are doing nothing to grow or improve your financial situation. Do you really want to sacrifice your free time just to buy some things?

From investor’s viewpoint, you would freelance to earn money for meeting your financial goals. Eventually, you would do it just few months in the years or occasionally with the idea that the money earned will be invested in some assets. Don’t fall into the trap of losing your free time and all the meaningful things in life just to work more and make more money. Know why you are taking each freelance work and what you are going to use the money for (preferably for investing).

One great thing about freelancing is that along with earning money you are getting better in what you do and building a brand of yourself. With the time this will allow you to do this better, faster and charge more. Eventually you may even reach the point to leave your job and start freelancing or grow the freelancing into a side (or full time) business.

Have you ever done a freelance project so far? What is your profession and do you think you could freelance?

Exactly one month ago I conducted a quick poll with you. Do you remember it – What is the main hurdle on your way to financial success?. If you have missed to vote, the poll is still open, please do it.

As I wrote at the time on posting it, I did not create the poll just for my pleasure. I wanted to understand what really is troubling you the most on your way to achieving your financial goals. On the second place are 33% of the readers who lose money because of bad investment decisions. We are already working hard on this together, don’t we? It’s a long process and I believe we’re all learning and doing better with the time. And don’t forget that making mistakes and losing money is not that bad.

The Big Problem

A bit surprising, but at the time of writing this post the leading issue is not earning enough – voted from 58% of this blog readers. So it seems like I am putting too much effort into finding investment deals which many can’t afford.

So here we go, this blogs need a little shift.

Let me reveal myself a little bit first, for the first time here. I did not pick the “low income” option in the poll myself, but my income is also never high enough (I just have even worse issues to deal with when it comes to finances). As I am not working on a salary for already more than five years, I have always been researching for ways to add supplemental income streams. Unlike most people though, I don’t get satisfied with researching and am actually trying everything which seems promising. So I’ve got a bit of experience.

Trust me, earning good additional income is not as easy as many online gurus want you to believe. But it’s pretty doable especially if you have patience.

So, What Ideas?

I wanted this blog post to be just a quick note, but see how it turned into a long introduction. Let’s get to work:

I am opening a new category here on the blog called Supplemental Income where I am going to post ideas and experience on bringing additional income.

If this is your main issue, let’s solve it.

Roughly, the ideas will gravity around the following lines:

• Making money doing some work. I don’t like this too much, but if you badly need it, it’s a less risky way to earn. I’ll share a lot of things about freelancing and consulting. Please use this as last resort. Trading your free time for money is not a good idea unless you do it hunting a long term goal
• Growing assets. My favorite. Check this article for more details.
• Making money online. Pretty often that goes along with growing assets, but there are also ways to make money without creating real business. Will be discussed as well.
• Deals that require no investment. That’s the dream of every opportunity seeker. I don’t claim to have great success with such deals, but they are not to be overlooked for sure
• Do it yourself. Some of the things we buy are 3-4 times more expensive than their real cost. Sometimes it’s not hard and is even fun to do them yourself. Such activities may sound like saving, but they are actually income producing.

I hope to help you to increase your income without losing your sleep. Investing is a way to do it, but if you lack funds now, we’d better work more on improving this situation. Bear with me and we’ll hunt some fresh fish together.