• Rent your home for use as a location for commercials, TV shows, or movies. You can register your home with film studios, production companies, and advertising firms, which maintain lists of properties available for shooting. Check out eHow.com for tips or flip through Opening Your Door to Hollywood, a 2006 book by producer James Perry, which offers a step-by-step guide to renting out residential or business locations. Daily rates can range from a couple hundred to more than a thousand dollars (even more if your home is used in a movie shoot). Andrea's friend and her husband had just built their dream home and needed to furnish it, but they were short on cash after finishing construction. They decided to register their home with a production company for use in TV and films. After just two commercial shoots, they'd already earned $20,000! Note: Be sure to ask for a written policy on what the company does in case of any damage to your home.
• Be an extra. If you've seen the Ricky Gervais show Extras, you know that jobs for extras can range from print modeling ads to movie shoots. You don't need a Screen Actors Guild (SAG) membership or even any acting experience to qualify — just the patience to sit on a set for hours and the flexibility to try out a lot of different costumes and lines. Pay can range from $100 to more than $1,000 a day. Check your local classifieds or contact a casting agency. (For a list of agencies visit idocommercials.com
• Help friends find better jobs. Internet sites like H3.com connects employers with prospective employees, many of whom are already employed and not actively job-hunting, via networking. The rewards for referring a candidate who gets hired range from a few hundred dollars to as much as $5,000. This is a great way to break into the recruiting business, with no overhead. Andrea connected with a recruiter who specialized in marketing. Since she had a lot of connections in that field, she referred many of them to the recruiter. She earned additional money from the referrals and helped some friends land great new jobs.
• Plan that perfect day. If you love weddings, planned your own, and/or have always wanted to plan a friend's wedding, why not do it and get paid for it? Many people would hire a wedding planner in an instant but can't afford the rates that a professional charges. Find out what a beginner planner would charge to get an idea of what is reasonable for someone at your level. Once you've built up some contacts, you might also consider party planning in general — first for friends and then for bigger clients.
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Excerpted from The Smart Cookies' Guide to Making More Dough, copyright 2008 by The Smart Cookies with Jennifer Barrett. Used by permission of Random House Canada.All Rights Reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced except with permission in writing from the publisher.
