Hobbies That Make Money

Now I make money by blogging about my outdoor activities (not a lot from the actual blogging, but from the traffic that it drives to my websites where I do make most of my money on the Internet). In addition to the one you are reading now, I have four websites covering the subjects flower gardening, autograph collecting, and my two favorite travel destinations - Colorado and the Alabama Gulf Coast.

That's how I monetize my hobbies ... and if I had more hobbies I could monetize them also. I can think of more hobbies that make money than I could ever find the time for.

How could you monetize your hobby? Well, if you love gardening you could build a website like mine. The Internet is a big place; there is room for everybody. If building a website isn't your thing, you could start selling your extra plants. I have bought monkey grass before. I paid more than $4 a clump for it. At that price, I now have thousands of dollars worth of it. It spreads very quickly, and the more it is divided, the faster it grows. Same with cannas, daylilies, and iris, just to name a few plant species that have multiplied in my yard to the point that I have no more room for them (and I have a two acre lot).

If I had the time and needed the money bad enough, I could sell them to neighbors, local nurseries, and even on eBay. I could find a vacant lot between here and Home Depot, pay the owner a percentage of sales and set up a roadside stand. People would be nuts to pay Home Depot twice what I could sell them for. Of course this would take some planning, and maybe even some trial and error, but some of the biggest businesses in the United States began just like this.

Do you like to make crafts? You could sell them on Etsy. The average sale on Etsy is $15 - $20, and many have been very successful there. You could combine Etsy with local craft fairs and holiday markets. You could even start a blog and sell instructions for your craft with an eBook download. All of that sounds daunting, I know, but the learning curve is low for most people who are willing to put the time in. Fore more information on this subject visit making money with crafts.

Are you creative and good at design? Have you heard of the websites Zazzle and CafePress? At these two sites, you only have to create a design. The companies will print your design on shirts, aprons, coffee mugs, and calendars (just to name a few of the more popular items) only after you get an order. That means you do not have to deal with inventory.

Are you a pet lover? I have seen some amazingly successful pet websites. Some of them sell products, some are photo sites, and some are purely informative and make their money from affiliate ads and and contextual ads like Adsense. You may also want to look into pet sitting jobs.

If you don't want to build a website, you might investigate pet sitting. There are people making a good living at this. Some pet owners take better care of their animals than they do themselves (and are willing to spend more money on them).

Do you like to write? It's easy to be a freelance writer on the Internet. It's also possible to build residual income on sites like HubPages, Squidoo, blogs, and your own websites.

Those are just a few hobbies that make money. This subject is so immense that I could build an entire website about it. The purpose of this article is to get you thinking about how you can make money from the things you enjoy doing.

One thing you should be cautious about: Don't make the mistake of ruining your hobby by investing so much in it financially that it becomes a "make it or break the bank" thing. Be careful of financial commitments like leases, franchises and other contractual obligations. They aren't necessary for making good money from your hobby, and they can actually work against you by inhibiting your ability to adjust your efforts as your knowledge and skill-set grows. There are literally thousands of hobbies that make money that cost less than $100 to start, and many of them cost nothing to start.

You should however not be afraid to take a calculated risk with a little money that you don't need for necessities and maybe giving up the time that you would otherwise spend watching TV or playing games on your computer.

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