Ask HN: What low key ways are you earning a little side income? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What low key ways are you earning a little side income?

6 pointsjamghee4 comments

I used to do the photo-finish at the local (regional area) races. Sit in a box for an afternoon, read a book or hack some code for half an hour to 45 minutes. Then watch the race, hold down a button as the horses cross the line, drag line-markers onto the horses noses on the image, mark up the number, print a copy, save to disk, go back to reading until the next race.

Collect $AU200 for an afternoon's reading, basically.

Lost the gig during COVID; easy-come easy-go.

(The camera was actually super-interesting: it's like a slit-scan camera, it records a pixel width image continuously and adds it to the last image taken. So if a horse passes the camera, it takes a photo of a sliver of the nose, then then next sliver of nose a split-second later, and so on. It's sort of like taking a picture of time, rather than space. Very cool).

I bought a small studio condo with a mountain view in the center of the city right across the street from a restaurant and a hospital outright with cash after pulling my money out of the stock market. Lots of businesspeople and travel nurses are always interested in it since I rent it out on a month-to-month basis so the rent is higher than most other places, but it comes fully furnished with everything included.

Also renting out rooms in my house and trying to obtain at least one more condo and rent that out and live off the income, while I'm "working from home" at my day job.

I also try to work on side projects for my side hustle company and I've made a few bucks doing that, but nothing that has been sustainable.

Right on, buying a rental property isn't what I normally would've considered to be a "low key side hustle" but certainly a great way to passive-ish income

edit words

Depends on the "low key side hustle" when I have two "low key" options:

1. List it on Zillow which in turn lists it in dozens of places and I respond to emails and occasionally show off the place to a potential tenant. Hire a cleaning lady or DIY once the unit is up. Since it's a monthly rental and I provide all the cleaning supplies within the place, I do remind the tenants that if they clean after themselves, I'll waive or half the cleaning fee.

Other than that, tenants would not be able to give me too much trouble. The keypad I installed gives them a key and I set a date from the time they start their lease until it expires. After it expires, their key expires and once they leave the unit, they can no longer re-enter.

2. Hire a property management company: they do it all.

Maybe not as low-key as one thinks but it can definitely make for great passive income.

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