Ask HN: Source of side projects

I know that this was discussed over and over again, but I'd like to gather some thoughts on this if possible:

How do you fellow mortals (i.e. the sad people like me, corporate drone looking for extra income vs. people actually working on cool stuff) gain some extra cash?

I'm not talking about 'Do you have great iOS/Android application ideas for me to steal' or 'How can I build a blog to get rich', I'm seriously just talking about some extra bucks for the savings account.

What I tried:

- elance: What a rip-off. Lead literally nowhere, but I've to admit that I gave up right after checking it for 30mins or so. Mostly because if

- vworker: Ouch. Now trying to squeeze something out there is not a good idea if you're trying to keep your sanity and dignity. So far each and every project seems to be flooded by people from all over the world and the few projects that screamed 'I'm made for you' where closed to private bids _after I quickly finished the project and while I was typing a "I've got what you need, this is what I did" bid - or the employer went with a _more expensive_ alternative, probably because I cannot ramp up any ratings there.

Now I'm at a loss right now, trying to look into the recently discussed tinyproj (let's see what Saturday brings in terms of opportunities), but it seems that competition online is a disaster.

So - do you earn some extra money in the evenings/on weekends? Can you tell me what I'm doing wrong or what I'm missing so far?