I attended a “Blogging for Business” seminar today given by the owner of CoolCleveland.com. Sitting next to me was a woman who was just starting her new business as a night nanny. I had actually never heard of that!  She works for families who have kids with different bedtimes. She watches the awake kids while the younger ones (and the parents!) get a good night’s sleep.

That was a new one on me, I don’t think I’d ever heard of a night nanny. Of course, she does do day work too. One of her clients is going on an adult-only vacation, so she’ll have the kids for a whole week. She doesn’t have a web site yet so I can’t promote her, but she’s here in Cleveland, Ohio, and her business is called Rock-A-Bye-Baby. Good luck!

Now, regarding Thomas Mulready of CoolCleveland.com, this guy is amazing.  I’ve subscribed to his e-newsletter for probably a year now and never realized what a huge venture it actually is. This guy has done everything from Communications for National City Bank and Vicks to founding a performance arts festival that has showcased 100 acts a year for over ten years here in Cleveland.

He stressed the importance of podcasts. He said videos get clicked more than text links 5 to 1 in his emails. He had a cute story about how his email list began. Cirque du Soleil was in Cleveland and he met some of the performers, who expressed their boredom with the city to him. He said he would prove them wrong, asked for their email addresses, and promised to email them a list of cool things to do here in Cleveland. After sending it to the performers, he sent it to his friends, who started to tell him about THEIR events and ask to be included. Now he sells advertising, holds parties, and gives speeches like the one I attended today.

He also highlighted for us just how much we’ve shifted. I know as a writer, I dream of getting published in hard print. Well Thomas Mulready had a monthly, full-page column in an important local magazine for 3 years. In his talks, he asks people to raise their hands if they get the magazine.  Then he asks how many of them had ever seen his column. Today, I think one person still had a hand up. He said that always happens, people have read the magazine faithfully for years and have no idea who he is.

His point was the internet is preferred because we SEEK out the information that is important to us. It’s hard to push information down someone’s throat unless they were already looking for it.

Ah, to be young again. Long summers, sleeping in, no school. Sometimes we all long for those care-free days. But remember some of the creative ideas you had?  Remember not having to work yet setting out to anyway? Think back to some of those ideas you had, and maybe you’ll get a new spark from an old idea.

One day when I was very young, I hung a sign on my bedroom door that said, “Rainbow Factory - $.10 per Rainbow.”  I got two customers that day - my mom and my dad, who each paid ten cents and each got a beautiful rainbow, drawn by me, with Crayola markers.

A year or two later I put up a new sign. This one said, “Butterfly Factory - From the Maker of Rainbow Factory - $.25 a Butterfly.”

I think each venture lasted a day or two. I would love to say I went on to become an artist, but for some reason I moved away from art and toward other things in college. Looking back I get a chuckle that I had such ideas, and sometimes wonder if that spirit is still inside me.

So, what did you do as a child?  Why not revisit those activities and start making money again?  Here are some ideas to get you started:

1. You Ran a Lemonade Stand
Create a new lemonade!  Buy some fruit, juice, and other ingredients and spend some time experimenting. Write down each recipe and every measurement as you go, and tweak a little with each try. Once you have something delicious and unique, you can start selling the fresh, healthy drink at church bazaars, neighborhood sales, and flea markets!  If you have any small, independent health food stores nearby you could approach them as well. Who knows, you might even find a health-conscious business owner interested in partnering with you, bottling it up, and getting distribution.

2. You mowed lawns or shoveled snow 
As a single woman I can tell you there have been many times I wished I knew of someone who was willing to handle these tasks for me. Make up a flier and create a listing at an online classifieds site like Craigslist or Backpage. Fliers could go in laundromats and store bulletin boards, and you can get to know the people in your neighborhood to see if they need help. Ask your friends if they have any friends or relatives who need help with such tasks, and remember to offer a “Friends and Family Discount.” Also, don’t forget about poop-scooping! If you don’t have a schedule flexible enough to offer pet sitting, try this instead. I know a woman who does this full-time. She offers her services for free whenever shelters or pet stores have outdoor public events in exchange for a booth for her own advertising.

3. You organized car washes
We all know there are free car washes on every corner in the summer, but instead of trying to get people to come to you, GO TO THEM!  Offer a car wash pick-up service.  You’ll pick up their car while they are at work, wash and vacuum/wipe down/detail the interior, and return to their workplace to get paid.  You might have to start with friends, neighbors, and family until you become a trusted business, or you can approach car wash operations and see if they would be interested in the idea. Now that I think about it, I’m going to see if anyone in my area offers this for oil changes, too.

4. You had a paper route 
Start a courier service.  This will likely be more successful in a larger city and you might need to tell your car insurance company that you are using your vehicle for work.  This would be a good opportunity to purchase a magnetic sign for your car, such as those offered at magneticsignsontime.com. A similar possibility is an errand-running or grocery shopping service, which could be a god-send to busy mothers or the elderly. 

5. You helped the younger kids with homework after school 
There are many sites that need online tutors. You can start at tutor.com  Or, this  could be a nice opportunity to work at home with kids in your town.  The web sites TutorLinker.com and TutorMatch.com can help you do just that. You could start your own web site advertising these services.

6. You helped mom bake cookies for the bake sale or made the pot-luck dinners
Offer an in-home cooking service or a learn-to-cook in your own home seminar. There are a lot of people who either don’t like to cook or can’t do it comfortably due to age or illness. The seminar could be every other week for 5 weeks, or longer durations for more lessons.

With commitment, any of these jobs can become professional and fruitful….even franchised. But for the Renaissance Lifers out there, they can begin as a few fun pools to dip your toes in.

When I first became a contract worker back in 2003, I had a lot of time to research and find jobs I could do in between my jobs.  I spent a LOT of time in the myseterious world of mystery shopping.

My favorite site back then was Volition.com. It was so exciting to have a LONG list of mystery shopping companies in front of me. I methodically went down the list and applied to probably each and every one.  I even spent the $15 to become a certified mystery shopper!!! I had a lot of free time during the week, I was driving a car that got over 30 mpg, and no one was talking about how expensive gas was. I routinely set my shopping radius at 50 miles.

Getting jobs assigned to me became as addictive as eBay. You had the find the job, sign up for it, wait to hear if you got accepted, then ACCEPT the job! Then you’d often have to go through some training for that particular assignment. It proved quite challenging to find the time to devote to this process, especially if you were out all day, say, MYSTERY SHOPPING!

But I kept at it as much as I could.  I met people online who claimed it was their full-time gig and they paid the bills with it.  Maybe they were insomniacs who had the time to search all night and shop all day…then don’t forget reporting your findings all evening. Doing the shop itsself is the EASY third of the entire process!

This isn’t to say that mystery shopping is completely draining or not worth the time.  I once went a whole year getting free Oil Changes from my favorite oil change shop thanks to mystery shopping!  I still get the offers to do these shops in my email and if I’m checking my email enough during the day I can still get accepted to do them before other shoppers in my town swipe them first.

One company that seems especially in need of shoppers, at least here in the Cleveland, Ohio area, is Corporate Research International. They have a lot of pizza evaluation shops right now, so if you like pizza, check them out!

If you couldn’t guess by the title of my blog, I don’t put all of my eggs in one basket.  Mystery shopping can be fun, fruitful, challenging, and even satisfying! But I spend my time and energy evenly committing to various types of contract jobs. This avoids burn-out and setting myself up for disappointment. Approach it as a fun activity to do when you have the time. Don’t plan on getting rich on this one type of work - that’s really my running theme on all topics. Renaissance Lifers want work to be fun, not a chore. So find jobs that work with your life and schedule, not against it. I will help you!

My bookmarks are chock-full of mystery shopping companies.  Here are some that I’ve had success with:

Ann Michaels & Associates

BMA

INSITE

Palm Scheduling

Plenty more links where those came from! More to come.

I spent one evening last week updating all my info on the various Paid Survey sites I belong to, as I moved recently.  It had been a while since I’d visited some of them, and found that one of them had $10 in my account just waiting for me to click the “Send A Check” button!!!  This one was Mindfield.  The survey I did for them was pretty fun (yep, just one survey paid $10!)  I just had to report to them what I’d ordered to drink during one week any time I ate out at fast food or convenience store.

Once I got paid $30 just for trying two different types of hot dogs!  Probably the best $30 I ever made, plus I learned that I HATE Nathan’s hot dogs.

Discover pays me to use their credit card. Pretty cool, eh? They will pay you too! I hear many people boast that they “only use cash” or complain that “credit cards are evil.” Well that is only if you let them use you. You CAN use credit cards to your advantage.

I am a very modest credit card user. I did spend about a year of my 10-year credit history being completely debt free, and it felt great. But when I started to improve my credit a little I realized I actually needed MORE credit cards, not less.

I was able to open a card with points. The gas hike was starting, so I applied for the Discover card which offers 5% back on gas and auto-related purchases. Now, nine months after opening the card I have received $68 in cash back!!!  As long as I pay the card off in full, that is money that I got just for buying things I was going to buy anyway!  I don’t pay the credit card companies; THEY PAY ME!

So remember, don’t pay with cash if you can get a card with points, but ONLY buy what you can afford!!!  I often use the card, then drive home and do a payment online that very day so I am not tempted to let it slide.

If you need to improve your credit and can trust yourself to be smart, get a credit card for gas only and pay it off monthly or better yet, every time you use the card. You will never pay interest and, if you have a card like mine, you’ll get cash back just for putting gas in your car!  You could save up all your rewards until Christmas time and then get a nice little boost in your shopping money!

So I really have to wonder, why do people who “only pay with cash” pass up on free money?

…and I now have about 22 pages to get back to them in 2 days in order to become an employee, one of which needs to be notarized.  I am not sure I will get them all in on time!

 Also they need their employees to work a minimum of 8 hours per day during Valentine’s Week.  With my office job I’m not sure I can do that.  I hate to lose this opportunity, even though it would only be seasonal. The pay is good: $10/hr during training and then $14/hr.

I found out about the position at a great web site called Work Place Like Home. Check out the Work At Home Forum! 

I hadn’t thought about how I was going to start this blog, so I’m surprised that this is what I am typing now.

A few weeks ago I was watching a program by Dr. Wayne Dyer, a Toaist Master (i.e. he finds joy in the simple things). He said we have to take small steps. He said if someone had told him one day 20 years ago that he would never have another drink, he would have immediately had a drink. The idea was too big. But he takes it day by day. He knows he won’t drink TODAY. And after a whole lot of todays all added up, he hasn’t had a drink in weeks….months….years….and now decades.

This is how I came to live a Renaissance Life. I didn’t plan out every step, I just watched my life create itself. People kept saying I needed to have a plan. But I didn’t want a plan, that sounded boring, not to mention I didn’t really KNOW what I wanted to do ALL the time. And what if I changed my mind? I was good at many things but an expert at nothing. I learned to embrace that, and I found that many others embrace it too.

So now I feel like I can expertly maneuver this blog to cover the topics and ideas so important to Renaissance Lifers. Work at home opps for people who have a job but have time to make some extra money as well, or people who would rather have many jobs, always on the go, always something new. Tips for living frugally or at least saving a dime here and there (it adds up, just wait to read about some of the things I’ve learned!) while making sure you have enough money for your passions.

Small steps. Starting here.