The smell of Christmas cookies, mincemeat tarts and other holiday treats baking is a favorite of almost everybody, but many people don’t have the time to bake anymore. If you’ve got a flair for making cookies and other treats, you can bake up some extra money this holiday season!
You can offer your services as a baker to friends and neighbors, by taking orders for custom cookies and other baked goods. Homemade baked goods always taste better than store bought, so you will find a very willing market for your baked goods! This is an excellent activity to get kids involved with too, as they can help decorate the cookies if needed, and can help package them up as well. Of course they will also be happy to be designated tasters for each batch!
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Continuing on from the ideas presented in a recent article on Giving ‘Experience’ Gifts Instead of Things, what do you do if you can’t offer the type of experience your loved one would really enjoy? Whether it be due to lack of money or skill, there’s always a way to make it work. One good idea is to barter your services for that of the person who is able to provide the experience you want to offer your loved one.
An example of this is a spa visit. If you’re pressed for cash, but your spouse would absolutely love a day at a spa, you could offer to trade your services to the spa in exchange for a gift certificate. It doesn’t even have to be work for the business itself, you could offer to do some work for the business owner. Many businesses are willing to trade services for labor, and if you’re willing to just ask, you may find that you can get something like a spa gift certificate for just a few hours of work.
Other examples could include gift certificates for restaurants or hair salons, admission tickets to a venue such as a museum, art gallery, amusement park or zoo, gift cards for independent book or clothing stores, etc.
Don’t be afraid to ask, the worst they can say is no thanks!
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One of the downsides of the holiday season besides the stress and expenses imposed on us all, are the combined issues of not knowing what to get for someone and receiving unwanted/unneeded items as gifts. Nobody wants to be on either the giving OR receiving end of an awkward forced smile and and claims that the gift is lovely, despite it being anything but. One solution to this, as well as potentially a money saver, is to offer handmade certificates for experiences, rather than a physical gift.
We probably all remember as children giving coupons to our parents for things like ‘1 Free Hug‘, or ‘1 Breakfast in Bed‘. Who says this concept is just for kids? There are many things people would love to experience rather than receiving yet another gadget that will gather dust in a kitchen cupboard. Some of the ideas such as the museum, art gallery or amusement park, will cost some money when the gift certificate is redeemed, but this can potentially defer the cost of the gift until a time when money isn’t as tight.
Some examples could include:
- A trip to the museum or art gallery
- A trip to an amusement park
- Doing the dishes (or some other chore) for a month
- Meal preparation
- Romantic evenings
- Snow shoveling
- Lawn cutting
- Car washing
- Babysitting
- Cleaning
- Organizing
- Computer tech support
The possibilities are endless, use your imagination. You can get fancy certificate paper at your local office supply store, which makes it easy to create beautiful certificates right on your own printer.
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Nothing beats a quality homemade Halloween costume! Halloween is fast approaching, if you’ve got a sewing machine and know how to use it, you can offer your sewing services to make Halloween costumes from scratch, or alter existing ones to fit.
Patterns are available in craft stores and online, for almost every type of costume imaginable. Many elements of patterns can even be re-used for different costumes, such as simple pants, shirts, dresses, skirts, cloaks, capes, etc.
A good friend of mine is going for Halloween as Alice in Wonderland, and she paid over $50 for her costume from a Halloween store. The costume is little more than a blue dress with a white apron sewn on, very easy to make, so why don’t you make that profit instead of the store!
You could advertise general costume making services in the newspaper, or put up a flyer on a community bulletin board, or even just by word of mouth. You could even make specific costumes and list them for sale, although there’s a chance the costumes might not sell, so you’re better off taking orders for specific costumes. Make sure you leave enough time to make each one and allow time for alterations and adjustments before the 31st!
You could probably earn $40-$50 per costume depending on the complexity of each one, just 10 costumes would get you close to the $500 goal!
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