this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2023
38 points (93.2% liked)

No Stupid Questions

35809 readers
1130 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.



Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.



Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.



Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Title. I found out recently that I need some major dental work in the near future and I don't have a damn clue how I am going to raise the extra money. I want to explore any realistic options for increasing my earnings before I have to resort to taking on debt, and I suspect that soliciting ideas in a semi-public place like this will turn up a lot of ideas I would never have considered myself.

I'm not very physically fit, but I am pretty good with computers generally, and I've picked up a little bit of programming in my free time this year, though I wouldn't sell myself as a freelancer in that department or anything. I am also pretty good at proofreading / nitpicking things, my regular job is in QA.

Thank you in advance for any input.

top 20 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] marx2k@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago

"Second job" sounds cooler when you call it a side hustle

[–] athos77@kbin.social 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

What state do you live in? And would you be willing to try dental schools?

[–] jeffw@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Dental schools are a great recommendation, but with complicated work, they still charge a bit

[–] athos77@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago

They do charge, but it would be less than similar work at a regular dentist's. Which would hopefully reduce the amount of money OP needs, either getting him into care earlier, or reducing the amount of stress he has while he gets the money together.

[–] subignition@fedia.io 5 points 1 year ago

I will look into the dental schools in my area, thank you. I was so focused on finding a local dentist that would take an uninsured patient that it completely slipped my mind.

[–] girl@lemm.ee 10 points 1 year ago

When I really needed extra money I donated plasma. It’s one of those things that pays you more the more you do it, still not a lot but everything helps. Also seconding dental schools, it won’t be free but can save you thousands

[–] AlmightySnoo@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

There are lots of translation, copywriting and voice acting jobs on freelance websites but obviously that won't pay much as the requirements are usually just knowing English (but they do prefer native English speakers, + obviously another language if doing translaiton).

[–] subignition@fedia.io 5 points 1 year ago

I wish I had even a mote of bilingual ability, translation work sounds like it would be interesting. I should definitely try my hand at amateur voice work though! That's a great idea, and I would never have considered it an option. Thank you!

[–] SirToxicAvenger@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago

market yourself as a computer hardware/software repair guy at all of the nursing homes/retirement communities in the area. market it towards your target demographic, using font styles and language that they'd be familiar with in the 1960s - 1980s. be sure to show up clean shaven with a tie. be polite - yes mam/yes sir. charge through the nose.

I bet you could build up a significant dental fund within 6 to 8 months.

[–] PlasterAnalyst@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago

Flipping, you can sell things on eBay, mercari, fb marketplace, Craigslist, etc. Start by selling things you already own that you no longer want. Then you go out and find things that you're knowledgeable about and buy those, then resell them. I've sold over $8k this year ($5k after costs) and I don't put a lot of effort into it.

[–] jeffw@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It’s been a while, but when I was in college and right after, I used Amazon Mechanical Turk with some useful plugins and a helpful subreddit (HitsWorthTurkingFor I think it was called, not sure if its active). Prolific used to be good, but I’m sure that’s changed a lot since its early days.

[–] blightbow@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago

Irony: I clicked on this post because an unemployed friend of mine recently had their mechanical turk account suspended for no clear reason. They're still waiting on the appeal process two months later...

For anyone considering this work, you should also be prepared for your "employers" to randomly reject your submitted work and deny you pay. Good times.

[–] dunz@feddit.nu 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It isn't very well paid per time invested, but my mum sells knitted mittens on the national equivalent of Ebay, since she likes to knit while watching telly anyway. She can sell a pair for about 3 times the cost of the material

Edit: I've myself done some paracord bracelets and sold, in the same manner, using what is essentially "free" time. It's fairly easy to do, and you can get the costs down quite a bit if you import and buy in bulk

[–] Tb0n3@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Passive income is also called being rich.

[–] PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yup. Collecting rent is passive income. But you actually need to be rich enough to own the property before you can collect rent.

Interest is passive income. But you need to have enough money to actually make the interest payments worth more than a few cents.

Investment returns are passive income. But you need to have enough invested, in a broad enough portfolio, to reliably pay dividends or return growth. To the point that a market dip in one sector won’t kill your investments.

And all of these already require a lot of money.

[–] metaStatic@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

Find an exchange traded real estate investment trust and throw every spare dollar you have at it, now you're collecting rent without owning property. Typically paid quarterly unlike dividends which are usually every 6 months.

Currency is toilet paper, turn it into assets as fast as you can.

Time in the market > Timing the market

[–] subignition@fedia.io 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Maybe that was the wrong choice of words. What would you suggest? I guess I can edit that to "side hustle" instead if that's more appropriate...?

[–] Tb0n3@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Honestly the best side hustle is to better yourself and ultimately find a better primary hustle. Side hustles don't do much more than steal your already limited leisure time.

[–] subignition@fedia.io 4 points 1 year ago

Well, you're entirely right, but unfortunately that doesn't help me much in the moment. I appreciate your response regardless. <3

[–] hahattpro@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

yeah cool. Thank for remind me being rich can also create a stream of income without do anything.