LEGITIMATE things you can do at home to make extra money.

[elemonj]

Is there any advice for starting something like this?? I am wanting to make some extra $ but not have to put my daughter in daycare.

I have some questions for those of you who are personal shoppers or know someone who is!
1)How do you handle the money part? Lets say you go to the grocery store and you are buying someone else grooceries. Do you pay and they reimburse you or do you have their money in hand?

2)How do you find people who want to have a personal shopper?

3) Do you have more than 1 client and how do you "organize" so you are not running all over town all the time wasting time and gas?

What do I need to know to get started. Also are their libilities I should know about?
TIA

[elemonj]

anyone a personal shopper??

[mom2fiveaz]

I'd love to learn how to do this myself!!!

[katey66]

I am not a personal shopper, but I am somewhat a personal assistant to my boss. I have been working with her for almost 8 years. I more or less take care of her house and son.
If she needs groceries, take animals to vet, etc. This is what we do:
If I go to the store for a large grocery order, she will give me $xx.xx (always overage) to purchase her stuff. I then keep her receipt and give her the change.
If it's something not too expensive, I just pay for it, give her the receipt, and she will pay me back.
I pretty much do this with all her shopping, etc. She and is a very successful business woman here, so alot of the places I need to go will let me pay them the next day, or next time I'm in. This is places like the vet.

As for organization, if you have more than one person, what I personally would do is have 1 person per day, do a "work order" on your computer listing what you did, how much your going to charge, whether it's per job, per hour or even per day. Then you can give that to them as your payroll receipt. For an example, if your day consists of going to the grocery store and drug store, write up:
8:00am Giant Eagle/groceries
10:00am CVS to pick up prescriptions
11:00am took dog to vet
12:00pm returned to house/put groceries away
2:00pm finished putting groceries away

Total work time: 6 hours
Hourly wage: $x.xx/hr
Groceries: $x.xx
Prescription: $x.xx
Total Due: $x.xx


As for getting clients, you have a few options. You could advertise in your local paper, craigslist, talk to all your friends to get word out, put up ads in different places like supermarkets, post office, library, etc.
There are different ways you could do this. You could just go and get what they need (that's what I do) or you could take the person yourself. If you do the latter, check with your car insurance carrier to make sure what type of insurance you'd need to cover any type of accidents. You could also get bonded and secured. That will insure that while your in someone's house and heaven forbid something breaks, your insurance will cover it. If you have kids in school, talk to some of the teachers. I have noticed that there are 2 types of people who would benefit from what your wanting to do. Either business people who are so busy they don't have time to do it, and the elderly who aren't able to drive or get around too well.
You will want to meet anyone before you agree to do this and make sure you are comfortable doing it. You will be in someone's house most likely when no one else is around. You will need to build their trust, and they will test you. But in all, it is something I really enjoy doing. She definately keeps me busy. I work 4 days a week for her and clean her offices on the weekends.
Hope that helps you out some. Let me know if you need any more ideas.

[jennspen]

Bumping for more viewers - interesting thread!

[warcraftbaby]

Wow I never even thought about something like this but it's really a fantastic idea! I know around here there are people that do the "whole package" care for the elderly that includes shopping, transportation for appts and visiting family, cleaning, and if they're certified some basic medical care. I wouldn't want to do anything that intensive but just shopping would be a cool idea. Is the personal shopping you do "regular" shopping or do you do couponing for their items as well? I can barely handle all the math involved with my own lol!

[elemonj]

I don't really want to do cleaning. Not because I dislike it but because I have a 1 year old and she would not stay out of stuff and my thought is to be able to bring her around with me.
I went to wags today and got 24 Dove soap bars, 20 more Gariner amongst other stuff(all pretty much free). Having gotten all this stuff for myself makes me think of those people (esp. the elderly) who cannot get out or don't know anything about these things.
There are also people who have to work more because of the economic hardships. This leaves little to no family time. There has to be some way we can turn this into a little extra income for ourselves.
I don't expect to get rich but extra moeny would be soooo nice...
I was thinking there must be some way we could market ourselves that we could save them money even with paying us to do it. make sence?

[cupcakegirl27]

Just a qucik tip for personal shoppers Do not advertise that you will deliver groceries and haul garbage to the dump for people in the same vechicle. One of the guys here in Rapid City advertised that and thats exactly how his ad read. Delivering groceries and garbage in the same vechicle. GROSS!!!!!

[katey66]

The hardest part is getting word out reguarding what you want to do. I actually answered an ad in the paper. The lady I work for just kept adding things she needed done. I do alot of different stuff for her. Pick up/clean up if needed, pick up some groceries if needed, take her son to practices if needed, pick up/drop off dry cleaning. Pretty much any type of running around she needs done. I don't really coupon for her because she is very brand loyal, so it's pretty hard to get good deals for her. I take care of her pets when they go on vacation (about 3 times a year). Pretty much all the things you do at your own home. Her mother just moved up here and she is in an apartment with a dog, so I try to help out with that as much as I can. She has alzeheimers, so it gets difficult if she "looses" things. We spent an hour looking for her wallet on day. Last week I took the dogs to the vet. That was a fun trip. :)

Elemonj: That is so true. I know alot of elderly people need help. Possably check with your local church or food bank and see if they know of anyone. Also, remember that if they decide to ride along, you will need to check on insurance reguarding that.

What I like the best is you can make your own hours. My day usually starts between 8 or 9, and I'm home by 3. I do clean 2 office buildings, but that's only 2 nites a week, and it only takes me around 2 hours, so even not getting in there until 5, I'm still home at 7. But all the kids here are older, 17,19,21,23 so that doesn't really matter. It's just nice working for yourself (does get lonely sometimes) and making your own hours. I spent many years working with the public, and didn't really care for it.

[ScrappyDoo]

As part of my new "being frugal kick" I found a cool thing on Amazon where you can sign up to do small tasks for pocket change. It may not sound like much but it adds up quickly AND you can instantly use that money in your shopping cart at Amazon, no matter how small the amount (no waiting to reach $10 or something). Most of the stuff is things like answering questions, writing paragraphs about certain topics, solving math problems, etc. The pay ranges from pennies to dollars per task but there really is no limit to how much you can do.

Check it out here: https://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome


Anyone know of any others?