While the rest of the world was out partying and hanging out with friends last Friday night, I was building a wordpress website.
Sounds pretty lame right? Well maybe it sounds less boring when I mention that I was getting paid very well to do it.
Thanks to all the WordPress and web development experience I have gotten from running this website, I’ve learned it well enough to start doing it for other people. I’m applying the skills I learned from my hobby to earn some extra cashola. And it’s awesome.
How My Hobby Turned Into a Revenue Stream
When I first started this website in September of 2010, I really had no intentions of making money from it, and I DEFINITELY never dreamed I would ever make a website for another person. But since then I’ve had one big site redesign here and I’ve started three other websites (my P90x Workout site and two more still in progress; I’ll let you all know when they are up).
All this experience has made me pretty good at learning how to register domains, find and install wordpress themes, and tweak them for small customizations. These are all very valuable skills for other people who want to create a wordpress site but don’t have the expertise to do it.
I don’t have the skills to build a website from scratch or develop some crazy custom enhancement, but I have enough skills to make a very professional and clean looking site. Why wouldn’t I use those abilities to make myself some money and solve someone else’s problems?
Someone in my family is a one-man IT shop for a small business and he was complaining about how they pay some guy ridiculous amounts of money to make the most minorchanges to their website. I told him I could make them a wordpress website and train him to make the updates himself.
They get a better website that is cheaper to maintain, and I make a little site money. Boom!
Almost Any Hobby Can Make You Money
I was a competitive swimmer in high school and college; you could call swimming a hobby of mine. I took the skills I learned from that “hobby” and became a summer league swim coach, lifeguard, and eventually a pool manager. I made a lot of money through high school and college because I was good at swimming.
Then I got really interested in fantasy football. I knew so much about NFL players and stats that I started writing about fantasy football for a decent sized fantasy sports company. I took that hobby and turned it into a revenue stream as a paid author.
If you have a hobby that you love, there’s a pretty good chance lots of other people love that exact same thing and could use your expertise. Here are a few ways you can make money with a hobby:
- Teach people to do what you do or provide some other service
- Start a website about your hobby and make money with ads
- If your hobby involves making things, sell those things
- Start a group where people can do your hobby together
- Start selling equipment and products to people who do your hobby
These are just a few examples of ways you could turn your hobby into income. It doesn’t matter what your hobby might be; you can probably leverage it to make money.
For example, if you’re a sports fan and you love betting, you can start making some extra bucks from sports gambling. You shouldn’t just rely on your luck, though. In order for sports betting to actually be profitable, you need to do your research. Using a sports betting consulting service like Doc’s Sports is a great way to increase your chances of winning and start making profits. As you can see, the possibilities to make money from your hobbies are endless, so get creative and start thinking of ways you can earn some extra cash.
That doesn’t necessarily mean you should. Making money from your hobby takes work, and you might not want your hobby to become “work”. But if you need some extra cash, or if you want to start working in a career that you are passionate about, it can’t hurt to try to make some money off what you love. (And if you think you’ll get bored working from home here’s how to beat that!)
Readers: Do you make money with your hobby, and if so: how? I’d love to hear all the ways people turn their passion into something profitable!
Kevin McKee is an entrepreneur, IT guru, and personal finance leader. In addition to his writing, Kevin is the head of IT at Buildingstars, Co-Founder of Padmission, and organizer of Laravel STL. He is also the creator of www.contributetoopensource.com. When he’s not working, Kevin enjoys podcasting about movies and spending time with his wife and four children.
From one computer nerd to another, I think that’s a great way to spend a Friday night! 😉
Great advice! Getting paid for your hobbies is quite rewarding and also a good strategy for some side money when exiting the workforce.
My husband and I both do this extensively in our “retirement”. It’s a lot of fun to make money doing something you enjoy, especially when there’s no stress to earn a certain amount…
I’ve also been helping a small company design a wordpress site, based on my experience building one for our blog. Also, a few years ago I decided to get my real estate license since I really enjoyed touring homes. My husband converted his interest in carpentry to a business as well. The possibilities are endless!
By the way, I’ve been reading your blog for a little while and have been really enjoying it, even though this is my first comment. Your grill cheese sandwich video was hilarious!
I make some money with my hobbies, but typically nothing to write home about – I do like my hobbies to be more about abating cost. Creating something that I’d usually buy or fixing something I’d usually pay to have fixed. That’s a way of generating income I guess.
Having a skill that you enjoy & are good at and then finding a way to make money by doing it is the basis of becoming an entrepreneur. What a great philosophy for everyone, especially teens and young adults. I love your example of using your swimming skills to keep yourself employed during high school and college!
Web development and online marketing are two great skills to have right now!
I love writing, and yes, I make a living through writing and editing. I’ve also done side gigs in freelance writing, editing and tutoring. I’m not skilled enough at any of my other interests to consider making money off them (nor do I want to) – I’m a very amateur photographer, guitarist and total beginner in the kitchen.
I agree… sitting in front of a computer for hours on a Friday night building a website sounds like a wonderful use of your time. I often stay up until the wee hours of the morning on weekends learning about and working on blog stuff.
I think gambling as a hobby is a fun way to make money, if you don’t mind the down side.
Hmm, I haven’t yet figured out how to turn gardening into a profitable outside venture. For now, it’s just cost avoidance.
I’ve come across small business owners who wouldn’t know the first thing about setting up a website. This seems to be a service that is probably best at the personal, local level.