16 hustles…when are you going to get started?

People have stuff. A LOT of stuff. And when people move, they take their old stuff with them, while adding MORE stuff to what they already have. This creates a houseful of old and new stuff, sometimes so much they need extra storage (but that’s another topic). This is concept #1.

People also are forgetful. Some forget where they parked. Some forget names. Sometimes I forget what I ate two days ago. My mother forgot my sister’s birthday (and my sister was the one to remind her, go figure). The point is, people have a hard enough time keeping up with daily events, so of course, they don’t have time to think about their stuff until they need it. This is concept #2.

I know you remember this, from the 13th Hustle? The owner probably doesn’t want to.

Now take these two concepts, add them together and what do you get? (If you said some dummies, you might be right. But Willis if you talkin’ ‘bout my sister, I’m going to pay you a visit real soon!) What you get are people who forget about their stuff until they really need it. This lack of awareness has created a market where you get paid to go through people’s stuff, better known as snooping, oops, I mean a home inventory specialist.

The idea behind this hustle is simple: get a log of all the possessions in a home so it can be used for insurance purposes. The reason that it’s a good idea to start now is because it’s before the hurricane season kicks into full gear. So many people move to Florida every year, I often wonder if there is more room left in the state. But in recent years, we’ve seen that Florida is not the only market for hurricane disasters. All of the states that are along the Gulf of Mexico — Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas — have all felt the destructive force of hurricanes. Moreover, states such as Arkansas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Georgia and South Carolina are susceptible because hurricanes often spur tornadoes, and those are horrific as well. Da Hustler has never been in a hurricane but is terrified of tornadoes; something about seeing the clouds touch the ground just freaks me out.

Back to the hustle. Getting an accurate inventory of all household items is a tedious task that no one really has time for, so this is where you come in. You can offer your services as part of a ‘welcome package’ to new residents of any one of these states. You can also make more money in the wee hours before any particular storm if a homeowner neglected the task and is busy preparing to get the heck out of dodge, but needs this information for the insurance agents after the storm hits. By being a professional and unbiased business, you earn the authority that the insurance companies are looking for, because we all know how they hate to pay out money to anyone not on their payroll (and sometimes even them too). In light of this, you could act as the representative of the homeowner to facilitate the claims process while they are still away at a safe haven, thus shortening the time of resolution and earning more on top of the original service! By the time they return, all information would have been taken and the homeowner would see you as a godsend, thus spurring more word-of-mouth advertisement. How’s that for a 3-for-1?

If you’re located elsewhere in the world, fear not! This hustle is applicable as preventative maintenance for all types of disasters, such as fires, floods, theft, mudslides, etc. Typically, upper middle-class to wealthy individuals will be able to afford this service, and that’s exactly who you want because you can charge more per hour. To start, rates could range between $20-$30/hour, but based on your performance and availability can quickly shoot up to $50+/hr. Work a 4-5 hour day doing a couple of homes (and businesses too, don’t discriminate), and you’re looking at $5000/month or $60k per year, writing down text on a page and taking some pictures. The more sophisticated your ‘options (pictures, video, computer-generated reports), the more you can charge because it enhances your business and your perception. Learn your craft, teach it to others and have them operate under you, then just check in from a distance.

If I make it sound really simple, that’s because it really is. Get ya hustle on!

Until now.

This has to be one of the most overlooked hustles that I have come across in the last 30 YEARS! Creating your very own ‘Map to the Stars’ and selling tours to famous addresses in your city is a great way to make some extra income, or make it into a full-time position. However, this doesn’t have to be limited to just the starts, as you can included historic landmarks or lesser-known but interesting locations that tourists often overlook. Here’s how it works:

• Find out where the rich and famous people in your city live. Also make note of any attractions that guests of the city may find interesting (if your city has a channel that shows these spots, take notes).
• Think about the things that you have found interesting that is not mentioned in any promotional material. Cool nightlife spots? A place to make pottery? Where o go to see the best views of the city? The possibilities are only limited by your imagination.
• Place these locations on a map, and arrange a tour that will take about an hour to complete that doesn’t have you driving all around town.
• Get permission from the home owner’s association before you go driving through exclusive neighborhoods. If you have to, arrange to give a percentage of your profits to the association for allowing you to bring your visitors through (donations to charity are also a good selling tactic). Especially for has-been stars, you’d be surprised at how many are willing to get in the limelight again any way they can.
• Create flyers or brochures and get them into your local airport or tourist destination. Also, get involved with your city’s Chamber of Commerce and see if you can be included with any of their promotions. Give them a free sample tour to get them talking about your unique tour that even they can’t offer.
• Rent a fun party bus or van that you can use for cruising with your tour guests.
• Get a merchant account and wireless terminal so you can take credit cards on the spot, and not have to deal with the burden of cash.
• Smile and get paid from the next group of tourists!

So how do you make over $100k per year doing this? Here’s the math:

• $15 per person to take a 1 hour tour, or $25 for two hours.
• Get about 15 people to take the tour, then you have $225/hour.
• Do four tours a day, and you’ve made $900.
• Work four days a week and you’ve made $3,600 (more than most people make per month already).
• Translate this into a yearly income, and this is well over $100,000 even when you factor in the expenses!

This works because it targets people who have money and want to spend it, but don’t know where to do to do so. The best times are probably going to be mornings and early afternoons, when traffic is lighter and before rush hour. Do a couple of tours yourself to get familiar with the locations, then outsource the driving and guiding to someone else. As you grow, you can also partner with local businesses and offer the tourists free coupons that the businesses pay for. You get paid, the tourist gets to see new places, and the businesses get more traffic. Truly a win-win for all!

Also, if you can’t get into the neighborhoods where the stars live, you can just ride by and show your guests the subdivision where they live. The streets are public and you are breaking no laws by doing this, and often this is enough to spark interest anyway

So when is the last time you saw a tour bus in your city? Hopefully your answer will be the last time you or someone you hired was driving it!

Quick: What is one thing that people have that they don’t think about servicing until it develops spots or discolorations similar to a virus?

Give up?

Well the correct answer is…WINDOWS! No, not Microsoft Windows, that needs servicing ALL the time! (and sometimes you want to throw it out of a window). Clean windows are something that many people overlook until it is really needed. When most homes were one level, this wasn’t as big of a problem as it is today. The market for window cleaning is not saturated at all, and you can easily get started for no more than $15. How did I come to this figure?

• $5.32 buys a bucket
• $3.70 buys some cleaner
• $4.28 buys a squeegee
• $2.10 buys a pack of cloths

Add this to your desire, passion and elbow grease, and you have all the materials needed to start this venture.

Your customers will consist of home owners and businesses. Personally I like businesses because you get more repeat services more often (they intract with the public, so higher traffic = higher need); however, private homes are lucrative because you can charge more per home. It’s not unheard of to get a job for $200-$300 in the residential market, and if you do a good job in any one home, word will spread in that subdivion and you can easily make $1000 that week part-time! Do this every week, and you have your $50k/year. Not bad for only working $2-3 hours per day!

Marketing will not be that difficult wither, because you can solicit directly to businesses who need your services, or put up a flyer in a high-traffic area like a mall, grocery store or community bulletin board. From there, word-of-mouth will take over, and that will eliminate your advertising needs because you’ll be so busy working! To make it even more lucrative, build up your referrals, then hire people to do the work for you. One month of pounding the pavement can turn into years of steady passive income.

Now you have time for another hustle!

For more information, check this article found on HomeDepot.com.

You’ve seen the horror, you’ve seen the mess, you’ve even seen the sighs as people lament coming home and parking their car.

Yes, I’m referring to the unclean and cluttered garage!

Just about every garage in the United States could use a cleaning. Some are in desperate need of a complete overhaul. If you are brave enough to delve into the remote areas of the nether region, you can offer this service to homeowners in your community. You can set your own hours and prices depending on the work load, and you can even hire people once you have a system in place.



Summertime is a great time for this hustle, as people take to the roads and want to dig out their bicycles and play equipment for use in the parks and recreational areas. Since you’ll primarily be working outside, it’s best to do it when you don’t have to wear a coat and gloves. Also, this service isn’t necessarily dependent on the homeowner being present, because you won’t be going inside of the home in most cases. You can also make extra money if the homeowner wants you to haul away their trash instead of using their herbie curbie. However, because you will be working in a dirty environment, make sure you have protective equipment such as work gloves, old clothes and a dust mask. In addition, be aware that there will be little critters in the dark corners, so be prepared to moonlight as a part-time Orkin man.

The market for garage cleaning is…what’s the word…HUGE!! If you’ve never thought about it, then here’s a question for you: how many homes don’t need their garage cleaned? When is the last time you saw a pristine or squeaky clean garage, and the homeowner was living there for more than one week? Clean garages are like $2 bills — you hear about them and know they exist, but it can be really hard to spot one. One of the great things about this hustle is it’s ‘repeat customer’ factor: once you get all the garages cleaned and straightened up, it will be time to start all over again. In addition, if you are really handy you can offer additional services, such as stain removal, painting, building shelves, garage door opener installation, etc. Again, the only limits are your imagination.

Do your part in helping the environment by helping others help themselves to a cleaner future. You’ll both be glad you did!

***UPDATE: A good way to market your services would be to use signs that are placed across the street from the entrance of any subdivision. You may have to check with your local ordinances to make sure it is legal, but you could hit everyone that lives there with only one well-placed targeted display. The residents are virtually guaranteed to see it, and it beats direct mail marketing!

Also, establish a relationship with homeowners associations and see if you can place an ad in the newsletter they have. The association doesn’t have a newsletter? Great! Create one for them with your ad in place, and instantly you get your exposure and another stream of income.

Let me show you.

There are many different angles that you maythink I am going to approach this from. Sure, you can buy bottles and sell it on a hot street corner in the summertime, maybe even slap your own label on the bottle, that may be lucrative for ya. But what happens if it rains?

Or maybe you would like to go toe-to-toe with your local municipality and sell your own brand of H20. Good luck with that!

Da Hustler always wants his readers to think higher, so here is the real deal. What I’m talking about is offering a service to offices, hotels and other local businesses to supply their water to them, along the lines of a Crystal Springs (or any number of businesses whose name ends in Springs). What you will do is get contracts with the business owners, and sell them everything that the big guys sell them for less. For instance, it may cost $20/month for water service to one suite in an office building, which normally consists of three bottles of 5-gallon water containers and the water cooler itself. Well if you can offer this same service for $15 dollars/month, you already are ahead of the game!

The key to this hustle is in numbers and customer service. The best thing to do is target office buildings that have a lot of suites, and offer your services to them. See if you can get in contact with the building manager, and get them to sell your services to the tenants! Not only do you have the trust factor, but you don’t have to do the legwork or run into cold shoulders because of any ‘No Soliciting’ ordinances that may be in effect. Also, be timely and courteous so you can get more business through word-of-mouth advertising. The best way to approach something like this would be to hit new buildings either under construction or nearly complete, so you can be the first to get the contracts.

The materials required for this hustle are:

• Water cooler (~$75)
• Water bottles (~10)
• Water (~$1.50/5 gallons)
• Adequate transportation
• A computer to keep up with your clientèle

Now there is an initial investment up front, but you could do a contract that has a required duration of 3, 6, or 12 months to ensure you get a return on your investment, else there will be an early termination fee (yes, just like the cell phone companies). If anything happens to the machine, you would have to replace it, but if you do a contract for 1 year, it will be covered under the manufacturer’s warranty anyway. As long as you keep the water bottles clean, they should last longer than the machine itself in most cases! Finally, as you grow, you will need to get a truck to handle all of the bottles and machines you will be deploying. This hustle also complements my 3rd Hustle, which spoke of selling destruction services to these same types of customers since they are in the same locations!

The whole world is on the new health kick wave, and clean water has always been something that we need. Be a supplier of this, and you’ll grow to be a major player in this market!