I was talking to a friend of mine a few days ago and he mentioned that the place he worked was really slow and was worried about getting laid off. He was wondering what to do to try and make some extra money. I told him why don’t you put that welder in your garage to some good use. He didn’t know what I was talking about, so I said why don’t you build something and just sell it. I have been thinking about writing a post about this for some time and now seems as good as any.
Take the car rotisserie market as an example. There is not a ton of places locally to buy an auto rotisserie and even if you could find one it would most likely be pretty darn expensive. If you build one for about $300 – $400 worth of materials you could most likely sell it for double that and it would still be cheaper than the competition. If you sell it relatively local the buyer would be happy not to have to pay hundreds in shipping. It’s also free to advertise on craigslist so you wouldn’t have any costs to sell it.
If you need a bigger market for a more common item how about a trailer. I happen to know a guy who has a pretty awesome set of plans for both of those items. But seriously, it could be anything from a nice solid welding table to a sheetrock cart. The point is it could be some nice extra cash in your pocket. Plus it’s a lot more fun than just sitting on your couch watching Oprah.